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Three questions for the Wolves as the season begins
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Wolves guard Jonny Flynn had a strong summer and preseason and looks to get the starting nod.
After finishing the 2008-2009 regular season with a plethora of question marks, it’s only fitting that this year’s Minnesota Timberwolves squad starts the season with a similar overabundance of uncertainty.
Much has been made of the total franchise overhaul that occurred during the offseason, but the hype surrounding the team since then has died down considerably. First year head coach Kurt Rambis will likely find out just how difficult coaching a team in rebuilding mode is rather quickly as he opens the season without one of his most important players in Kevin Love.
Rambis took the coaching job at Minnesota well aware that he was going to be as much a player developer as a coach, as the Timberwolves began a long rebuilding project. But with so many unknowns concerning this team, Rambis may end up getting a lot more than he initially bargained for.
So as the 2009 season begins, here are the three biggest questions facing the Timberwolves.
1. How long will it take for the new roster to gel?
New GM David Kahn’s remade roster features just five holdovers from the squad that finished the 2008-2009 season. Only Corey Brewer, Brian Cardinal, Ryan Gomes, Al Jefferson and Kevin Love remain from last year’s 24-58 team. Of those five, only Gomes, Jefferson and Love played significant minutes.
The biggest change is the completely remade backcourt, which sees Jonny Flynn, Wayne Ellington and Ramon Sessions take over for Randy Foye, Mike Miller and Sebastian Telfair. Foye, Miller and Telfair accounted for 35 percent of the total minutes played by the team last year and also had a combined 14 years of NBA experience. Flynn and Ellington are rookies, while Sessions has just two years under his belt.
It will be interesting to see how what is essentially a brand new team is able to develop chemistry in the early part of the season. There were definite ups and downs during the preseason, with Minnesota producing a 3-5 record that had a five-game losing streak sandwiched between wins.
One of the biggest possible obstacles in creating a team out of the roster is the early rash of injuries to strike the Wolves. Love will miss at least the first month of the season with a broken hand, while Jefferson has a tender Achilles tendon. Jefferson said there’s “no doubt” that he’ll play the season opener Wednesday against New Jersey, but if the injury lingers, it could spell trouble for the team. Jefferson is clearly the team’s most important player, having led the Wolves in points and rebounds last season before tearing his ACL. Minnesota went just 7-25 after Jefferson’s injury, emphasizing the importance he has to the team. The Wolves will need Big Al in the lineup consistently if they want to get a true reading on how they are progressing through the season.
2. What to do with Jonny Flynn and Ramon Sessions?
Flynn seemed to have the starting point guard job handed to him once it was clear that Ricky Rubio would not be joining the team. Then Kahn went and signed Sessions as a restricted free agent from Milwaukee. Both players – Flynn especially – are projected as point guards, with neither really possessing the size or mentality to play as a two-guard. This is the same problem the team would have had if Rubio had signed with the team, and after the draft, Kahn was adamant that they would find a way for both Flynn and Rubio to be on the floor at the same time.
It appears that the vision of having two point guards on the floor at the same time is just wishful thinking. Flynn and Sessions didn’t appear on the floor together until the fourth quarter of Minnesota’s sixth preseason game, a 100-129 loss to Denver. Flynn got the starter’s minutes in the next game against Detroit, playing 34, while Sessions got just 14. The next night against Toronto, Flynn again got 30-plus minutes, with Sessions playing just over 15. It seems pretty clear that Rambis has no intentions of playing the two together, and if he does, that the two haven’t yet reached the point where they can both be productive on the court simultaneously.
Over the course of the preseason, Flynn averaged 26.9 minutes per game to Sessions’ 20. Though he played just six minutes more than Sessions per game, Flynn almost doubled the older guard in points per game, 14.6 to 7.5. The rookie also averaged over one full assist more per game than Sessions (4.5 to 3.3).
Sessions probably came to the Wolves with the impression that he’d be starting, or at least splitting minutes evenly. Rambis could find himself in a pickle trying to get both point guards adequate minutes every night. The team committed a first round draft pick on Flynn and a $16 million, four-year contract to Sessions, so it doesn’t make sense to sit one more than the other. If Rambis is unable to keep both players happy, Dealer Dave may have to make a commitment to one and deal the other mid-season.
3. Will the team be able to keep fans’ interest the whole season?
Following the end of the 2008-09 regular season, the Wolves suddenly became relevant for the first time in years. There was an open search for a new general manager as well as a new coach, plus three first-round draft picks to play with in June. The possibilities seemed endless after a draft where Spanish phenom Rubio fell into the Wolves’ lap at fifth overall.
By July, it was clear that the Kahn era would be much more active than the McHale era of team history, at least initially. Minnesota had a GM that wasn’t afraid to make moves and a new coaching staff with a strong playing history.
Rubio backing out of a deal at the eleventh hour was a PR punch to the stomach for Kahn. The new-look roster was well, new, but also somewhat unbalanced and full of unknowns. A 3-5 preseason that ended with an injured Love and an uncertain Jefferson, give the beginning of the season a much more ominous feel than was probably envisioned in late June.
Minnesota will try to overcome the temporary loss of one of its most charismatic players early on, while also keeping its fingers crossed that Jefferson’s heel doesn’t remain a lingering issue, or heaven forbid, become a season-ending injury. The Wolves will need to balance playing time for many of its young players while trying to figure out exactly what roles guys like Oleksiy Pecherov and Ryan Hollins will play on the team.
On the bright side, there are no expectations for the team to do even as well as it did last year. Flynn continued his strong summer league play into the preseason and could contend for Rookie of the Year, especially now that No. 1 overall pick Blake Griffin will miss time with a broken kneecap. Corey Brewer had a breakout preseason, leading the team in points per game and minutes, giving hope that he can finally deliver like a first round draft choice should. If Jefferson’s Achilles isn’t a problem, he should finally earn a spot on the All-Star roster.
But should injuries and inexperience lead to an early collapse, fans might choose to tune out and wait for the offseason, knowing that the team has lots of cap space and again, an abundance of draft choices. The team needs Flynn and Jefferson to play well and for other players to emerge as intriguing to keep interest in the team in what will inevitably be a long season. Kahn was completely up front about this being a multi-year rebuilding project. While nobody expects the team to even contend for a playoff spot, the team needs to put something interesting on the court consistently, or people might just wait the three years to see Kahn’s final result.
For more on the Wolves as the season begins, check out fellow Examiner Patrick Rogers' 5 things to watch in '09-'10
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