Timberwolves Roundup: Grown-up Rubio, Lowe’s NBA tiers

Former Timberwolves point guard Ricky Rubio grew up as an NBA player in Minnesota, and he’s still speaking highly of his former teammates — even from Salt Lake City. Plus, ESPN’s Zach Lowe ranked NBA contenders by tiers.

Preseason play is officially over for the Timberwolves.

The team apparently arrived back in Minneapolis early Monday morning, and will now spend the next nine days preparing for what will be a tough, nationally-televised season-opener next Wednesday night in San Antonio.

While other teams round out their respective preseason slates and Wolves fans search for things to talk about over the next week-plus on non-action (but really — why hasn’t Andrew Wiggins signed that extension yet?), we have a rather timely article from Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune centering on old friend Ricky Rubio.

The Utah Jazz will be at Target Center on Friday, Oct. 20 for the Wolves home opener after the showdown with the Spurs on Wednesday, so it makes sense for Zgoda to make a pit-stop in Salt Lake City to talk to the Spaniard. From Jerry’s piece:

"“Life is short,” he said, “so you’ve got to change.”And change he has, in appearance and address. Traded by the Wolves to Utah last summer for Oklahoma City’s 2018 first-round draft pick, he now calls home Salt Lake City, which he compares in many ways to Minneapolis but perhaps without the same restaurant scene.“It was time, I guess,” he said.He played with his new teammates Monday night against the Australian league’s Sydney Kings.“Different,” he said when asked about wearing a uniform with new colors and bearing a new team’s name. “It feels different, but at the same time it’s basketball. You have to get to know your new teammates and a new crowd.”He made sure he watched his former Wolves team’s preseason opener Saturday against the Lakers.When asked what he saw, he said, “I see a lot of guys who can play, they can really have a great team and I miss my guys.”"

Rubio goes on to say that the Timberwovles should make the playoffs (I feel like we’ve had a Rubio quote about the Wolves making the playoffs every October for the past four or five years…) and that he keeps in touch with former teammates, especially Nemanja Bjelica. Also, he thinks KAT is/will be really good.

Please head over to the Star Tribune and read Jerry’s article in it’s entirety. It’s good to hear from an old friend — and so soon. The season hasn’t even started.

Elsewhere, Zach Lowe of ESPN.com released his 2017-18 NBA tiers, which more or less slots each team in their likelihood to compete with the Warriors (in Tier 1 all by themselves, of course) for the NBA title.

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After the Warriors, Tier 2 includes the usual suspects: Cleveland, Oklahoma City, Houston, and San Antonio (Lowe says the order within the tier doesn’t matter, but that seems about right). Then, the Celtics, Wizards, and Raptors in Tier 3 as Eastern Conference teams who are quite simply the best of the rest out East.

Then, what Lowe terms as “The Most Interesting Part of the League: The West, 5-11”, which references the grouping of seven teams that will likely fight for the final four playoff spots in the Western Conference. Here, in part, is what Lowe had to say about the Wolves:

"Most league insiders have the Wolves above this jumble. Some internal team projections around the league spit out 50 wins and a top-four seed.Bet the under. The paper-thin Wolves start two traditional bigs and three so-so 3-point shooters who dominate the ball in Jimmy Butler, Andrew Wiggins and Jeff Teague. Those three will diminish each other — at least over the first stretch of the season. The Wolves will have to bash through walls of defenders in the paint.…Butler became a well-rounded star on offense last season, and Towns has the potential to be the most versatile scoring big man ever — and the second, after Dirk Nowitzki, to join the exalted 50-40-90 club. You don’t want your monster big hanging around the perimeter too much, but Towns’ willingness to float there — and yield the interior to Butler and Wiggins — will help Thibodeau mesh ill-fitting personnel."

(Lowe actually spends a good chunk of words on the Wolves here, so I would suggest clicking through to read the entire section.)

Somewhat surprisingly, Lowe has them firmly in this third tier of Western Conference teams, behind Golden State, Houston, Oklahoma City, and San Antonio. It’s probably true that the Thunder would have to have some series chemistry problems or any one of the top-four teams would have to suffer through a serious injury bug (although Kawhi Leonard is already dinged up in San Antonio) in order for the Wolves to gain home court advantage in the opening round of the playoffs, but these are still relatively strong words from Lowe.

The potential issues he notes have been well-documented here at DWW, so we won’t spend much more time on them here. But it will be interesting to see how Tom Thibodeau and his staff attempt to overcome the perceived depth issues and lack of true sharpshooters. (“Ill-fitting personnel” seems to be a bit strong, however.)

Rounding out the Wolves’ tier are the Denver Nuggets (those Nuggets vs. Wolves games should be a ton of fun this year), Utah Jazz, Los Angeles Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans, and Portland Trail Blazers. Of that group, the Jazz, Clippers, and Blazers all made the playoffs a year ago, but Portland was an under-.500 team and the rosters of both Utah and L.A. look very different than they did just six months ago.

Next: Will the Timberwolves win the season opener?

We’ll have player capsules and roster analysis throughout the week, plus any news regarding the Wiggins contract extension that is apparently pending.