Minnesota Timberwolves: Are the Wolves a ‘superteam’?

In the midst of the superteam era, are the Minnesota Timberwolves considered a superteam as currently constructed?  If so, where do they rank league-wide?

When you think of the phrase ‘superteam’, what immediately comes to mind?

Possibly the Miami Heat of 2010-14, when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh teamed up. Or maybe even dating back to what many consider to be the original superteam: the Boston Celtics’ three-headed monster of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen, although all three of the stars were north of 30 years old at the time.

You certainly pictured the current Golden State Warriors, who boast an embarrassment of riches, and perhaps even last year’s Oklahoma City Thunder, with reigning MVP Russell Westbrook alongside Paul George and pseudo-star Carmelo Anthony. Or the Houston Rockets, with Chris Paul and James Harden.

But in this era of superteams, there are far more franchises that have decided to throw their hat into the superteam ring. Of course, there are only so many true superstars to go around, so there are certainly some squads that are more “superteam” than superteam.

ESPN’s Andre Snellings came up with a way to determine which NBA teams are, in fact, super, and then he ranked them. The premise is solid: he awarded five points for each player that finished All-NBA first-team or in the top 5 in ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus, which is a decent all-encompassing metric that factors in both sides of the ball, as well as the impact of teammates and opponents.

Snellings also handed out three points for a second-team All-NBA finish or top-10 in RPM, and one point for third-team All-NBA, top-15 in RPM, or an All-Star appearance.

However, there are a couple of issues with this process. One is that the last three seasons is painfully arbitrary and inaccurate in a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately league; it means that Isaiah Thomas received three times as many superpoints as Karl-Anthony Towns, and Carmelo Anthony twice as many, for starters.

Secondly, All-NBA and All-Star nominations are, almost by definition, a popularity contest, and while they at least were given the proper weight, metrics like RPM should have been weighted heavier if this list was to be accurate.

Plus, players couldn’t be awarded twice in the same tier. For instance, Towns was only awarded one point despite being named to the All-NBA third team and having been an All-Star. (He was No. 16 in RPM, which means he just missed that cutoff, too.)

Let’s take a quick spin through Snelling’s list. (Be sure to check out the article in its entirety for full points rankings and lists of players for each team.)

The first tier included the teams that you would expect in the Warriors (Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, DeMarcus Cousins, and Klay Thompson), and the Rockets (Paul, Harden, and Carmelo Anthony), who earned 44 and 28 points, respectively.

And herein lies one of the issues: Cousins is awarded five points but won’t play for several weeks and won’t be himself for at least a year after tearing his Achilles last season.

Then, consider that Anthony was awarded two points for past All-Star appearances, although anyone who paid any semblance of attention to the NBA last year knew just how atrocious of a season Anthony had in OKC. Remember, Towns only received one point, and there are exactly zero NBA teams that would take ‘Melo over KAT at this point in their respective careers.

Tier Two, “Superstar duos or trios”, includes Toronto (19 superpoints), Denver (16), Oklahoma City (15), San Antonio (9), Boston (5), and Washington (5).

Tier Three, which was termed as “On the rise”, included only two teams: Philadelphia (6 superpoints), and Minnesota (9 superpoints).

You may have noticed that the Timberwolves have nine superpoints, which is tied for sixth the entire NBA, but Snellings ranked the Wolves 10th on his list, behind San Antonio, Boston, Washington, and Philadelphia.

Instead of using the rankings system he created, Snellings clearly decided to add some subjective thoughts to the equation. It makes sense with Boston — they have a young core that simply hasn’t had the opportunity to accrue All-NBA and All-Star nominations, and it’s more of a deep roster than one driven by one or two stars.

The Spurs are kind of a tossup; Towns is better than Aldridge and Butler is better than DeRozan, but the overall team, including front office and coaching, is much superior in San Antonio.

But Philadelphia and Washington? Yikes. Those squads each have a high ceiling, of course, but benefit from being in the weak Eastern Conference and are not clearly better than the Wolves. Jimmy Butler is a better player than either of those teams put on the floor consistently (yes, I’m still ranking Butler ahead of Embiid), and it’s inexplicable why the Wolves would be slotted below both of them.

One last note: Denver had its 16 points inflated by three points awarded to Isaiah Thomas, who had an atrocious season last year and will likely never revert to his pre-injury form. Plus, Nikola Jokic managed 11 (!) superpoints on the strength of his RPM ranking, while Towns only received one. There’s an argument — albeit a challenging one — to be made that Jokic is better than Towns, but not 11 times better.

At any rate, this was a feeble attempt at ranking superteams. Truthfully, there are two true superteams, and the rest of the league is simply trying to catch up.