Photo courtesy: Minnesota Timberwolves/David Sherman.)
After a few days of mulling things over, the Timberwolves writers and bloggers are looking back at the just-completed season … and looking ahead to 2013-14.
The common thread: A healthy team could have made the NBA playoffs. But that’s not what happened. Instead, it was injury chaos from start to finish. Here’s a sampling of what’s being said:
PunchDrunkWolves.com: “After Ricky (Rubio) got his groove back, (Alexy) Shved lost his. They never clicked together. Had Shved sustained his early-season level of play … the team would’ve maintained competitiveness throughout the loss of Kevin Love and Brandon Roy and Chase Budinger.”
Canis Hoopus.com: “The Wolves didn’t just have a generalized injury bug this year. The reason why they really went down the tubes was because they had a best player injury bug. The lost season went down for one main reason … Kevin Love is, by far, the very best player on the Minnesota Timberwolves. They are insanely better with him in the lineup than without.”
Britt Robson, MinnPost: “I absolutely cherish pro basketball and get into all the games for free, and the relentless incompetence and faux rebuilding efforts over the past nine years have begun to wear even me out.”
Wolves.com: “The Wolves lost 341 man games to injury this season (Roy-76, Love, 64, Lee-63, Budinger-59, Rubio-24, Pekovic-19, Kirilenko-18, Barea-7, Shved-5, Howard-4, Cunningham-1, Hayward-1).”
Jon Krawcyzynski, Associated Press: “If the Timberwolves can add a big shooting guard, bring back Pekovic and Adelman and get Love refocused and back to his old form, they could be in good position to end the longest playoff drought in the NBA. Maybe.”
