Minnesota was one of the teams that improved the most last season. Going from a 23-49 to a 44-36 record is a pretty dramatic improvement and they also went from being #25 on offense and #28 on defense to being #7 on offense and #13 on defense. Head coach Chris Finch really did a tremendous job with the team.
This upgrade on offense was mostly due to improvements from their best players: Karl-Anthony Towns was one of the best offensive bigs in the league last season: 52.9% FG | 41.0% 3pts | 82.2% FT while Anthony Edwards also boosted his FG% and 3pts% in comparison to his rookie numbers. More surprising was how they also improved on defense while having a roster full of supposedly poor defensive players. They used a very aggressive system to force turnovers, but they were susceptible to the weak side. They were #2 in opp/TO but #29 in allowing three-pointers. Still, the trade-off was quite favorable to them.
Minnesota went to the play-in, beat the Clippers and then had a great first round clash with Memphis that went to G6. The Wolves were again more competitive than expected, but they had some truly epic collapses down the stretch. In the key G6, they were up by 10 going into the 4Q but got outscored by 22-40 there.
2022/23 Outlook:
The Wolves made a big move in the offseason by trading for Rudy Gobert. He will play alongside KAT, which will make the team be fascinating to watch by playing two legit bigs simultaneously. Gobert is one of the best defensive players in the league and with him, the Wolves will certainly have good defensive rebounding and rim protection. They want to be a top 10 defense this season, which is doable with Gobert.
I don’t expect the Wolves to keep the same fast pace they used last season (#2 in sec/possession) with two bigs on court. Also they lost Patrick Beverley in free agency but signed Austin Rivers and Kyle Anderson.
D’Angelo Russell had a subpar shooting season that was clear in their series against Memphis. With the Wolves having KAT and Edwards as main options on offense, Russell should have been able to post better numbers. If the team wants to be even more competitive on offense, then Russell needs to bounce back this season. If that doesn’t happen, then it’ll be tough for the team to trust him forward as their PG leader.
With Utah now out of the picture, Minnesota should be Denver’s main rival for the division title. However, adapting Gobert to Minnesota’s style might be trickier and require more time than most people expect…