If there is one thing I know that the world of sports needs more of, it’s power rankings.
For the next 30 days, I will be ranking the 30 teams in the National Basketball Association from the Bottom of the Barrel to the Heroes of the Hoop.
Let’s kick things off with the team who was able to achieve the top tier in one category; the first NBA Draft pick. That is of course the Minnesota Timberwolves, beginning at number 30.
Let’s check out there projected starters per RealGM
2015-2016 Timberwolves Depth Chart
| PG | SG | SF | PF | C | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starters | R. Rubio | K. Martin | A. Wiggins | A. Payne | G. Dieng |
| Rotation | Z. LaVine | L. Brown | S. Muhammad | K. Garnett | N. Pekovic |
| Rotation | A. Miller | D. Rudez | A. Bennett | ||
| Lim PT | T. Jones | N. Bjelica | K. Towns |
The Good
Right off the bat, the most obvious strength of the T-Wolves roster is the immense amount of young talent they have gathered over the past few seasons. Zach LaVine (20), Tyus Jones (19), Karl-Anthony Town, (19) and Rookie of the Year Andrew Wiggins (20) are just a few of the young men who can’t buy a drink here in the USA, but have much to bring to T-Wolves Head Coach Flip Saunders.
In the 2014-15 season, forward Andrew Wiggins led his team in points, steals and minutes played. Slam Dunk Contest winner and T-Wolves guard Zach LaVine dazzles everyone with his freak athletic ability, but it looks as though that his development of his fundamental game is something we could see right around the corner.
Wiggins already looks to be worth the price Minnesota paid in the Kevin Love trade, while Towns and LaVine have plenty of raw ability waiting to be molded properly. The future is extremely bright for a team that has ability and excitement around everyone corner.
The Bad
On the opposite side of this situation, Flip Saunders hasn’t had much NBA success with teams consisting mainly of young talent early on.
In fact, Saunders has seen most his NBA coaching success when working with veteran players, as we saw in his days in Detroit where he led the veteran heavy Chauncey Billups-Richard Hamilton-Rasheed Wallace Detroit Pistons to three consecutive Conference Championship games.
Not to mention, Flip Saunders coached the Wolves to a Western Conference Finals appearance (during his first stint with Minnesota all the way back in 2004), which was oddly enough the Wolves most recent playoff game to date. Saunders then enjoyed the veteran talents of Sam Cassell, Latrell Sprewell and a younger, in his prime Kevin Garnet.
With not much superstar level talent coming from the Timberwolves’ veterans, Saunders will have to endure some growing pains and weather a storm of development to find long term success.
And my Hot Take
The T-Wolves need two things to happen this year to make sure all is fine in the Land of the Lakes.
Number One: Saunders has to continue to focus on farming and growing the stock pile of talent that he has at his disposal. Wiggins and Towns are the future faces of this on young franchise, and their advancement need to be the team’s primary directive
Number Two: Kevin Garnett must continue to be the leader of men he has been his whole career. KG has gone on record many times claiming that he does not want to coach once he retires. However, the Big Unit is familiar with being on a T-Wolves team that had talent, but remained in a bad situation. KG needs to “coach up” the talent that they have there, and bring the basic playoff attitude he has held for some time now to a basketball team who has had there fair share of struggles.
Follow me on Twitter @gavroydavis for all things NBA.
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