Power rankings system devised and compiled weekly by Stemshul. “Expert” analysis by paradroid.
How about a team we haven’t covered yet this year? The Minnesota Timberwolves have been stuck in mediocrity since Kevin Garnett was traded to Boston in 2007. The eventual prize from that deal became Kevin Love, and although he put up some great numbers, the team continued to struggle. Relatively poor drafting kept them from success, but they did manage to get to the playoffs in 2018 after trading for Jimmy Butler helped them to a 47-35 record. But Butler was soon on his way and the losing resumed.
However, it appears that the T-wolves may have turned a corner. 2015 #1 overall draft pick Karl-Anthony Towns has nearly unlimited offensive ability in all facets of the game at 7′ (his defense is a little more suspect). He’s been putting up monster stats for years, but Minnesota has still struggled. 2014’s first overall pick Andrew Wiggins, who was acquired in the Kevin Love trade from Cleveland before he ever played for the Cavs, never became the player he was expected to be despite putting up decent numbers in MInnesota beside Towns. In 2020 he was traded to Golden State for D’Angelo Russell, another lottery pick (#2 in 2015, right after Towns) who hasn’t quite lived up to expectations. Russell happens to be good friends with Towns, which may be part of the reason for this season’s success. Minnesota got yet another #1 overall draftee in Anthony Edwards in 2020 (pays to suck in American sports; sounds suspiciously like socialism to me), and with those three leading the charge in their second year together, the Timberwolves are finally winning.
Of course, they had a losing record as recently as January 28th (24-25), but it looks like they’re putting it together (18-5 from that point until losing their last two). Those two losses were against Dallas (#7) and Phoenix (#1), so not too much shame there. Minnesota is up to #11 in our rankings despite those last two losses and would be the top seed in the play-in round if the playoffs started today. They’re just one game back of the Nuggets (#10) for the coveted top six, and with the way they’ve been playing lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if they overtake Denver before the season is up in a few weeks.
Another decent-ish week for Detroit as they went 1-2. Close losses to Cleveland (#14) and Portland (#24) were followed by a 122-101 blowout of Atlanta (#17). The Pistons are getting perilously close to climbing out of the bottom 3 in the standings (now only one game behind the #27 Thunder). The three worst records earn their teams a 14% chance of winning the #1 pick, with the fourth worst’s odds dropping to 11.5%. The goal of the lottery is to reduce the losing-equals-reward formula, at least a little. Check out this summary of the odds for a full breakdown. Detroit is trying to thread the needle of development while still losing enough to maximize their opportunity of another top draft pick. I think they’re doing pretty well, especially since most of their losses lately have been competitive. All those blowouts from January through mid-February were pretty demoralizing, but there have been real improvements since.
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