The Timberwolves Are Good Again

You saw that right. The Timberwolves are good! Shocker, right? But seriously, the Timberwolves are one of the best teams in the NBA. But why? How? As of December 29th, the Timberwolves have the 2nd best record in the league and the best record in the Western Conference. The main reason is Anthony Edwards, right? Maybe, but there are lots of other reasons.

One reasons is the resurgence of Karl-Anthony Towns. At the start of the season, it was looking bad for him. In the first 5-10 games, he was shooting 15-30% on three-pointers, by far a career low. But after that he has been shooting the lights out, surging up to 40% from three, a career high. His defense has also been standout. Before this year, he was always a liability on defense. But this year, everything has changed. His defensive rating is 107.6, which is great. The eye test is also working, as he looks so much better this year on defense than any other year in his career.

But Anthony Edwards is the guy on this team. It is really hard to talk about this team and not mention him a billion times. Everything has taken a jump with him. But the biggest thing that some people are dazzled about is his defense. People are taking notice (finally!) of his defense specifically. People like his playmaking, too. His net rating has skyrocketed to around ten (which is incredible). His scoring is still incredible, just as it always is. On December 28th, Edwards scored 44 points, which is a lot. In that game, he attempted a career-high 18 free throws, which has been an addition to his offensive game.

Even though this team is so good, there are still a couple of disappointments. Fans would say that there have been only two disappointments, though. The first is Shake Milton. The Wolves signed him from the Philadelphia 76ers this offseason and thought that he would be a glue guy for our team. They needed bench three-point shooting and historically he was a good 3 point shooter. But this year he hasn’t been and hasn't been productive at all. But the main disappointment has been Jaden McDaniels’ progression. Everyone expected/hoped he’d take a leap in his scoring and start being a star. They just haven’t seen that yet. Even his defense has gotten worse. Instead of a progression, they got a regression out of him. But luckily it hasn’t mattered much, because the Wolves are very good this year. In previous years, the Wolves have had so many disappointments, but only 2 this year.

The real thing that helped them this year is the Rudy-KAT (Karl-Anthony Towns) connection. Last year, in the limited games they played together, they were horrible together. They just didn’t work together. When they were on the court together, they were just horrible. But this year, everything flipped. They have worked together really well. Last year it was bad defense and bad offense with them together, and this year it has been the opposite. They have been great. But their backup, Naz Reid, has also been incredible with both of them on the court. Naz has been incredible by himself too. Overall, our team has been very good this year.