Minnesota Timberwolves: Predicting each player’s stats

The Minnesota Timberwolves added a lot of different pieces to a roster that needed more talent.

The Minnesota Timberwolves had a lot that they had to do to their roster before the 2020-21 NBA season began. With the preseason beginning in less than two weeks, it is going to be interesting to look at how much each Timberwolves player is going to produce – statistic wise.

Box-score statistics are not a great way of judging a player’s impact on a particular team – advanced metrics as well as off-court/locker room presence can also make someone more/less valuable. That said, box-score stats are, overall, a good indicator of how a player performed over any given season – and predicting a stat-line for one player is inevitably going to be difficult – much less a whole team.

This offseason in particular is going to make it especially complicated to predict the core rotation player stat lines for the Timberwolves – there is a log jam at wing, a plethora of good, perimeter guards, as well as the addition of the first overall pick in a notoriously weak draft class (Anthony Edwards alone will be challenging to forecast).

First, we need to look at the NBA averages for last season. The mean for points scored was 111.8 per game, with 44.8 total rebounds, 24.4 assists, 7.6 steals, and 4.9 blocks.

The Timberwolves are undoubtedly going to have an above-average offense – scoring more than 112 points per game. They also are going to be above the total assist figure, with presumably two point guards in the starting lineup.

Looking further than that, the Wolves are an average rebounding team and had above average blocks/steals per game. Look for the latter to be different with Covington not being on the current roster as well as Josh Okogie’s minutes probably taking a big hit.

With all of that into consideration, let’s dive into the predictions.