Timberwolves Notes: Windhorst on Wiggins, Towns an All-Star?

As we inch ever closer to the regular season, predictions and previews of the Timberwolves continue to grace the internet glow over Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.

If one wants find a pump-up article concerning the up-and-coming Timberwolves, you don’t have to look far. They’re all over the place, and we’ve noted them as they’ve posted here at Dunking With Wolves.

But now the Wolves have three preseason games under their belt, and we’re only two weeks out from real basketball.

ESPN’s Zach Lowe published his 30 “crazy predictions” for the 2016-17 NBA season. More than a couple included the Timberwolves, including the possibility that the Wolves could land a playoff spot and the Lowe’s thoughts on Towns making the All-Star team.

Lowe’s premise when it comes to the final playoff seeds in the Western Conference is basically that he doesn’t think either Dallas or Memphis will make the playoffs, and there are a few teams that will battle it out for their vacated spots.

Here’s Lowe, parsing through the remaining potential playoff teams after coming to terms with the respective fates of the Mavericks and Grizzlies:

"Look, this hurts. I love Dirk, and I write a column every year called The Marc Gasol All-Stars. But these teams make me feel queasy. Having both miss the playoffs requires a leap from either Denver, New Orleans, Minnesota or, gulp, the Kings. Denver is trending the right way, but the Nuggets have to play through Emmanuel Mudiay‘s growing pains. Still, they won 33 games last season as Mudiay found his footing, and it might not take much more than 40 wins to sneak in.If Anthony Davis has the season a lot of us (raises hand) expected last season, the hardscrabble Pelicans should hang around. New Orleans is also a good candidate to rush into a win-now move. The Wolves are everyone’s pick to steal a spot, but cracking .500 while starting three 21-year-olds is really hard."

A couple points later in Lowe’s list of 30 is the idea that both Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Wolves’ Towns will make their first playoff teams. Here’s what he says about KAT and, more broadly, the Western Conference:

"The West is a bloodbath. You can probably reserve eight of the 12 spots for Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, James Harden, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Anthony Davis and Kawhi Leonard. That leaves almost two dozen plausible candidates, including Damian Lillard and two incumbent Golden State All-Stars, fighting for four spots. Good god, Lemon.Still, Towns is legit. If the Wolves are in the playoff race, maybe the coaches reward him."

Towns could very well make that leap this year; he was playing at a near-All-Star level in the final weeks of his rookie season. But the West is absolutely stacked, and it’s tough to see Towns earning that type of ‘respect’ from the grizzled, you-have-to-earn-it-by-winning coaches that often give the edge to longevity.

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But, you never know. Towns is special (or as Lowe puts it, “legit”) and anything could happen. If the Wolves are a feel-good story during the first part of the season, the All-Star team is absolutely on the table.

Elsewhere, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst posted a feature column about Andrew Wiggins and the third-year leap that the Wolves and their fans are hoping that he makes this season.

The article features a number of new quotes from Thibodeau and is a great read. My favorite part, with astute observations from Windhorst and a solid quote from Coach Thibs:

"Wiggins has developed a strong midrange game, and he has gotten more comfortable with this back to the basket. He gets to the foul line at a high rate, driving his scoring numbers, and although his 3-point shooting numbers aren’t great — 30 percent for his career — he made them at a 41 percent clip after the All-Star break last season. He has added bulk, though he still sometimes gets bodied by bigger small forwards.More alarming is his rebounding, just 3.6 per game last season, and his squishy defensive numbers. He ranked 38th among small forwards in real plus-minus, not surprising as the Wolves finished in the bottom five in team defense last year. Beyond the numbers, though, the eye test shows he’s not yet reaching his capabilities as a defender. This is clearly an area where Thibodeau is going to work.…“His first two seasons have been very good, but it hasn’t translated into wins,” Thibodeau said. “Commitment to improve is huge for us.”"

Also, Wiggins himself is apparently finally aware of his embarassing lack of rebounding stats over his first two seasons in the league.

"“I looked at my stats, and I was like, ‘I’m too big and too athletic to average three rebounds a game,'” Wiggins said. “A lot of people can score. What else can you do?”"

Take a few moments to read the article in it’s entirety, as it seems to be a pretty fair representation of what the Timberwolves are expecting of who now appears to be Karl-Anthony Towns’ sidekick as Minnesota looks to make the playoffs for the first time in 12 years.

Next: Timberwolves Dominate Nuggets In Third Preseason Game

Our season series previews will pick back up on Thursday with a couple of likely playoff teams in the Eastern Conference, so stay tuned…