New Look Timberwolves Ready for 2015 Campaign: Season Preview

In one offseason, the Minnesota Timberwolves are now unrecognizable. Gone are Ricky Rubio, Gerald Wallace, and Kris Humphries, to usher in a new era of Wolves basketball: one with actual hope of making the playoffs. There will only be two familiar faces on the team this year: Kevin Love and Ben McLemore. The rest of the starters, and the entire bench, have been replaced via trades, the draft, and free agency.

The big move of the offseason was trading floor general Ricky Rubio for Jeremy Lin, Chandler Parsons, and Jamaal Franklin, in order to fill out the roster and to open up some cap space held previously by Festus Ezeli and Joel Anthony. Then came the draft where the Wolves, again, got what they wanted. They were able to draft Willie Cauley, the young center out of Kentucky. Later in the draft, they took McDonalds All-American DeShaun Thomas. And with their $25 million in cap space in free agency, the front office splurged by signing both Andrew Bogut and Danny Granger to large contracts in order to fill the rest of the lineup. And then to minimum deals, they signed Nick Young and Andray Blatche.

At the end of the day, all of these moves were made in the name of winning. The General Manager had no interest in sitting around for 2+ seasons for his young players to develop, so he took action and made sure that his first full season would be a winning one. Let's see how the roster looks.


Jeremy Lin and ex-Wolves point guard Ricky Rubio are polar opposites. After half a season of having one of the best passers in the league that was a defensive sieve and couldn't shoot, the front office went in an entirely different direction with Lin. At 2.8 steals per game last year, he was only behind Chris Paul in steals per game in the league last year. And at over 20 points per game, he scored over 8 points per game more than Ricky Rubio. The switch certainly had risk, though; at 23 years old Ricky Rubio could easily blossom into one of the best point guards in the league, Jake is just banking on that not happening.

The 21 year old swingman Ben McLemore was named one of the breakout players for the 2014-2015 season to watch by CSL Tonite! today. McLemore was passed over by the New Orleans Pelicans at the #1 spot a year ago in favor of Marcus Smart, and no doubt Ben still thinks he should have been that guy, but he has to go out and prove it. After 1 year in the league, he's already been named to the Rookie Reserve Team (again, bumped out because of Smart) as well as the CSL All-Rookie 1st Team, not to mention likely being only one of two players to receive and rookie of the year votes, the other being Marcus Smart (seeing a pattern here?). He should be a difference maker on the team this year.

Again, a big change here. Chandler Parsons is a far cry from last year's starting small forward, Gerald Wallace. At 965k per year, Parsons easily has the best value to salary ratio in the league, and it's not even close. He was named a top 5 small forward last year by the reporter, OrangeParka in his article detailing the top players by position in the league. Parsons played amazing last year in New York, doing everything well. He scored well, rebounded the ball, stole the ball at the highest rate for any small forwards, and shot 45% from the field. He does it all, and does it all well. At small forward, a glue guy of his talent is about as good as you get (save KD and LeBron).

I could write an entire book on everything Kevin Love does well, but simply put, he does everything well (on the offensive end, at least). Love easily averaged a double double last year, shot 46% from the field, and 43% from beyong the arc. You simply can't do much better than that. He's the best power forward in the league (I don't care what anyone says, he's better than Derrick Favors). 10th in the league in points per game, 7th in the league in rebounds per game, and 4th in the league in double doubles (46 - are you kidding me?!). One of the best players in the NBA, and still hasn't sniffed the playoffs, sadly. But he might just do that this year...

As some said, "it made too much sense for it not to happen". Kevin Love needed a better center next to him, and there wasn't a better destination in the league for Bogut than Minnesota. It was a match made in heaven. But at $15 million per year, Bogut needs to earn his contract. He needs to keep up his level of double-double per night production to really prove his worth. He was the key get this offseason for the Wolves, and he'll be crucial for pushing this team into the playoffs.


Granger is a lifelong Pacer no more. After 7 years in the blue and gold, he'll now be playing in gray and blue. He was being phased out by the younger Paul George (and now LeBron...) so it was time to move on, but not without a fight from Indiana. They were forced to offer a large 4 year deal at $9 million dollars per year to land him, and he, like Andrew Bogut, will have to earn his contract. The concern with Danny is clearly his efficiency (at 40% FG% last year), but hopefully being on a team full of scorers will allow him to take fewer shots. He clearly has the talent to be the best 6th man in the league, and he might just be an early favorite for 6MOY.

Jamaal Franklin is just one player in a long list of guys (3 of which are on the Wolves' roster!) that GM Jamal and the Knicks organization made look good in his system. The Wolves now have the top 2 sophomore shooting guards in the league with BMac and now Franklin. Both him and McLemore will have the chance to grow next to each other for the next 3 years and create one of the deadliest guard duos in the league.

Rookie - No stats!
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With none of the franchise players left on the board, the Wolves were left to pick the guy that seemed to fit the best - Willie Cauley. He is an athletic freak from Kentucky who left after his freshman season. He'll be really raw coming into the league, so it'll take some tutelage from Andrew Bogut before he can really become a prominent player in the league, but hopefully as Bogut begins to decline, Cauley can come in and pick up the slack.

It's not that these guys aren't important, because they are, but I'm just running out of room here. Gary Neal was acquired from Boston over the offseason for a 2nd round pick, and he'll be asked to backup Lin. Without much of a chance given to him in Boston last year, it's hard to gauge his talent, but he shows potential to be a good backup. Both Blatche and DeShaun Thomas will be fighting for the minutes behind Kevin Love. Blatche was brought in as insurance to DeShaun because there are some concerns about his defensive ability. And last but not least, Nick "Swaggy P" Young was brought in just as gravy, you can never have too much talent. He's a dynamic scorer and is simply one of the most fun players in the league to watch.



This roster is a blend of young and old, scorers and defenders, stars and role players. The stage has been set for a breakout season for this team, all that's left to do is play basketball.

Nice read man.

I really like the turnaround/ facelift you gave this team as they now have an identity instead of just "another young great talented team", these guys are for real and I truthfully see you guys playing deep into the postseason.

I do have a player personnel prediction though, gonna be hard seeing Jamaal Franklin blossom and develop behind both McLemore, Parsons, and Granger. I think he's the odd man out as Granger has to play cause he got paid and may be the most difficult to move so Franklin may suffer.

Oh yeah and love the Blatche pickup, way to put in work this offseason.

yeah, this team went from the lotto to being very respectable super fast. We'll see how the season is going to work out for you

I say Lillard is more value for salary arguably than Parsons but that's just me being biased I suppose. Overall, good team. Part of the the best division in CSL?

IMO this team had a playoff level already last year..
You had "not much work", you knew what you had to do this offseason and you did it. Spending all the money you have to, to get Bogut and acquire whoever you could get with the money left. For now you did a decent job but nothing special, the more difficult part of your job is now to show the team works together well.

Seeing Jamaal at the bench hurts for me. Maybe I'll offer something during the season:P..
Anyway, good luck for the season jake!

andrei (POR) wrote:yeah, this team went from the lotto to being very respectable super fast. We'll see how the season is going to work out for you

I say Lillard is more value for salary arguably than Parsons but that's just me being biased I suppose. Overall, good team. Part of the the best division in CSL?

Lillard is probably up there too, but he is earning almost 4 nil while Parsons won't even earn 1 mil this off-season.

But yeah, easily the Northwest is the best division in the league and its probably not close. 5 playoff level teams imo.

You have a very deep squad. The West is tough but you should be able to make the playoffs and will be able to make a deal if you need it with all the moveable pieces you have.

This team is built very nicely. You will make the playoffs, but with a roster like this, it's time to go deep in the playoffs. You gotta do some damage.