So far our defense has been WAY better than the sum of its parts. It seems Rudy hasn’t lost the magic of his Utah days.

We haven’t played great offenses yet, but we’re clamping up bad offenses even better than I anticipated

Yeah but we lost Julius Randle though

They don’t treat ant like the other stars. Jokic and Luka just need a bucket of fries for people to give them a top five spot but despite the wolves having three straight years of success with him getting better each year it’s not enough to rank the wolves high.

The depth was a huge question mark, and still is a bit of one where they are playing really well they just gotta keep it up for 82 games not just 3. Idk what their reasoning was but if that was it i can kinda see it.

11th is still wild tho like you said anyone who watched the Wolves knew Ant would FEAST with a real playmaker carrying the ball

They forgot Naz and Randle suck on defense and seemingly didn’t watch the playoff games where Randle gave zero effort and watched players walk past him

So they assumed we got worse. Kuminga is borderline a better defensive version of Julius Randle and he cost 6M + we got lamelo and 10 players under 26 all got better

Ant was ³⁰⁄₄₄ on open catch and shoot threes last year. At this point, he’s legitimately the second best shooter in the league behind curry.

So having somebody that can play make to get them open catch and shoot threes is disgusting for the rest of the league. That it also causes Gobert to get labs, which is his best offensive bucket getting skill and a the wolves got a massive offensive upgrade.

Kamungo is also a major upgrade defensively over both Randall and Naz.

The only real downside is the specific matchups where Randall bully ball would be a matchup issue for that other team. Since the teams goals actually need to beat to get a chip in the thunder and the Spurs are ones. Both those players were awful against though that’s not really a concern.

Because wins are shorthand for talent to a huge number of people and the Hornets never won shit, so it’s all LaMelo’s fault for reasons. Also he’s the dumbest man alive, people project their thoughts on his personality to his on-court play. Man stays underrated.

They took the spurs to 6 last year and that was ant just coming off an injury. Now they got lamelo to top it off

Yeah finch has definitely earned the benefit of the doubt for me at this point

I think the issues are injury concerns, depth, and whether Ball can do this in the playoffs. None of those concerns are addressed by this great start. I hope they keep it up, but at least address the criticism honestly.

Uhhhh I quite like jon

The rankings were for week 1 of the NBA season, champ

I keep thinking he moves like if you took a cat’s mind and spirit and put it inside a 6’7” NBA player’s body. You know how some of them randomly wave their arms and/or jump around?

Lamelo Ball is an anhinga, got it.

I’m a sucker for a great analogy

What a great analogy

Loons are fantastic swimmers.

The man believes

Uh he was solid on D all last yr stop spreading bullshit lol

Kuminga is playing like a 25-30M impact player too. Great defense, shooting well, making good passes and running / playing with effort

Signed for 6M x 2 btw

Ball and Kum fit well. Nice 👍🏿

all the breaks in the season completely blew their momentum and they drew their worst matchup in the whole playoff field in the first round as the one seed

sad to see

I don’t even know what happened. When they came back from the break they were just awful.

Wolves Bench is DEEP Lamelo only played under 20 minutes, ant played 31. Ant needs to watch his knees tho. Im kinda worried? But it seems like we are gonna be good.

Ugh, too soon. Halfway through the season I was checking potential parade dates lmao

Watch Mayo Clinic win 6MOY

Lmao if LaMelo ends up playing all 82 for once

They traded him because they didn’t want him. Lamelo’s injury history is one of the most overstated narratives… multiple years the Hornets could have brought him back in February/March but didn’t because they were tanking.

That and his defense which has noticeably improved

He’s not even that bad durability wise. He’s similar to Lauri where the team would prefer to shut them down early under the injury excuse to preserve the tank. Some of the time he’s missed due to “injury” he for sure would’ve played if the team was more competitive.

No they traded him because they don’t like his lack of professionalism. Meanwhile none of his teammates have ever said anything but positive words about him. The coach sent him into the game off the bench 3 times last year claiming it was to keep his minutes in check

Charles Lee and Jeff Peterson both don’t like him and that was why he was traded

Not for nothing, but was it ever considered they were trying to tank for a better pick and he just took advantage? Pretty sure the same could have been said for Walker Kessler.

The same organization that damn near killed him with that clown puppet scare

Redditors also hate flashy guards

Kevin Love was an empty stats guy though. He was way worse once he moved to a winning team. Still contributed to a championship team! But he went from arguable top 10 player to really good role player

Redditors hate people who have a documented history of speeding and running red lights in busy intersections and crashing into incoming cars in their hummers while texting. They also hate people who every time they open their mouth they just say the stupidest shit you’ve ever heard.

I’ve not really seen many people shit talking his ball playing on here tbh.

LaMelo is the offensive initiator, Ant is off ball, which is his natural position.

No more blitz double tins of ant that don’t result in good offense for you

ur a great person bro everyone around you talks about how you’re an awesome person! Just like they do about lamelo!

Oh wait, they don’t u nerd redditor rekt

How is he a bad person

Health, Wemby, and the Thunder. Though jdub being out for the year changes some things. I think the wolves have the Thunder with JK now

Playoff sixers will be VJ, Brown, Maxey and the corpses of LeBron and Embiid + an ass bench

I think they still need big man depth.

And hustle. Ayo and Donte both have crazy motors. Shannon and Clark too.

Donte is coming back this year. All the news around it right now is targeting a Tatum type of return (maybe even a little earlier since he was hurt earlier in the playoffs).

Lacking big man depth. Went away from building against Nuggets to building against OKC and Spurs, but might fail against Nuggets again.

Ant is the shortest guy in the rotation. That’s a nice thing to have.

Kuminga can’t wait for that game

Bros walking into 4-5 layups a game lol

As a Wolves fan who suffered through the Pooh Richardson, Doug West days…I deserve this.

Ok I will NOT stand by and listen to ANY Isaiah JR Jr JR Rider insults!

It’s not even not wanting to pay 3 guys. It’s just severe asset misevaluation. The only way the trade ends up favorable for us is lamelos ankle exploding, and miller taking the leap to not be basically Cam Johnson

They picked tidjane and williams over duren lmaooo

it’s also easy to underestimate the effect of limiting transition opportunities by putting the ball in the basket

I also think getting everyone invokved and touching the ball on offense makes a huge difference for defensive enagagement / buy-in

More misses, and defenders scrambling and closing out harder makes it easier to get offensive rebounds too

The past two seasons were better than any KG team

Well fuck you too kings fan.

have you actually watched a game of basketball involving either of these teams?

It’s YOUR birthday, watch the game if you want to!

Yes and in fact both Miami (-1.5) and Orlando (-1.5) were favored against the Wolves!!

Yall were down 36 at one point. Y’all would have lost either way.

Mind you if Kawhi is here, if he shoots 20 shots, that means he is gonna take 20 shots from his teammates too. The points he scored is not just gonna add up from the current score.

The Wild are doing well. The Timberwolves are doing well. The Vikings are doing well. And the Twins aren’t playing. Every MN sports fan’s dreams.