Minnesota Timberwolves: Defense + Depth = 30 Plus Wins

While it remains to be seen how chemistry, and inexperience will ultimately affect the Minnnesota Timberwolves, this now is a team that truly has some young talent that can very well compete for 30 wins next season.

Coming off 15 wins last season, I've never heard one analyst say that the Minnesota Timberwolves were better than 15 wins, yet I've heard plenty say that the New Jersey Nets were better than 12 wins.

But the biggest difference between the New Jersey Nets and the Minnesota Timberwolves was the consistency of how badly  the teams were in certain areas.

For the Nets, it was inexperience and being able to score the ball. For the Wolves, it was having inexperience and being able to defend.

The Minnesota Timberwolves underwent a season in which their coaching staff was changed (also the offensive style), their front office shifted around, but most of all, their top overall draft choice remained in Europe. That's a recipe for disaster, and ultimately, the stability which once was thought to be just below average, turned out to be abysmal.

Going into last season, the Minnesota Timberwolves had a big three, Jonny Flynn, Kevin Love and Al Jefferson, that later escalated to adding Corey Brewer. The problem? The Minnesota Timberwolves two top players, who are both arguably top 30 players in the league, were both power forwards, who had the very distinctve characteristic of being terrible defenders.

That in itself, means that if both of your best players are below average on the defensive end, something has got to give, and it was ultimately the older low post beast in Al Jefferson.

With that being said, the Minnesota Timberwolves have once again experienced a lot of turnover. Let's look at this roster from the majority of last season.

PG: Jonny Flynn/ Ramon Sessions

SG: Corey Brewer/ Wayne Ellington/ Alando Tucker

SF: Ryan Gomes/ Damien Wilkins/ Sasha Pavlovic

PF: Kevin Love/ Brian Cardinal/ Oleksiy Pecherov

C: Al Jefferson/ Ryan Hollins

One thing you have to notice, is that only five players on that roster are worth mentioning as being consistent (of some level) contributors. Jonny Flynn, Corey Brewer, Wayne Ellington, Kevin Love and Al Jefferson.

The rest of the team was a bunch of role players, Ryan Gomes at times was a high quality role player when his jump shot is falling, other than that, there's nothing to say about the rest of the team.

Let's look at next seasons roster, by consensus (subject to change).

PG: Jonny Flynn/ Luke Ridnour/ Ramon Sessions (to be traded?)

SG: Martell Webster/ Wayne Ellington

SF: Wesley Johnson/ Corey Brewer/ Lazar Hayward

PF: Kevin Love/ Michael Beasley/ Nemanja Bjelica*

C: Darko Milicic/ Nikola Pekovic*/ Ryan Hollins

*- Remains to be seen

The one thing that I notice that glaringly sticks out about this roster, is the amount of depth, versatility and potential that this team has now. With this team, the Minnesota Timberwolves have plenty of starting caliber players, and plenty of solid contributors.

Minnesota Timberwolves GM David Kahn have added players of the same mold. Young, run-n-gun jump athletes with upside, to compliment the triangle offense, and a running style of team.

The Timberwolves are now geared to run like never before, while not sacrificing on the defensive end, or being held to just an inside presence with no outside shooters. The team makeup couldn't be more obvious.

• Shooters: Jonny Flynn, Martell Webster, Wayne Ellington, Wesley Johnson, Corey Brewer, Kevin Love, Michael Beasley
• Atleticism: Jonny Flynn, Martell Webster, Wesley Johnson, Corey Brewer, Michael Beasley, Ryan Hollins.
• Defenders: Martell Webster, Wesley Johnson, Corey Brewer, Michael Beasley, Lazar Hayward, Darko Milicic.
• Run-gun players: Everyone except Nikola Pekovic. (Darko and Love make this list because of ability to rebound and outlet pass).
• Inside Presence: Kevin Love, Nikola Pekovic, Darko Milicic.

Can you see where this is going. Let's do a list of last seasons roster, but in the same fashion as the list you see up above.

• Shooters: Jonny Flynn, Corey Brewer, Wayne Ellington, Kevin Love, Olekisiy Pecherov.
  
• Athleticism: Jonny Flynn, Corey Brewer, Ryan Hollins.
• Defenders: Ramon Sessions, Corey Brewer.
• Run-gun players: Jonny Flynn, Corey Brewer, Kevin Love, Ryan Hollins.
• Inside Presence: Al Jefferson, Kevin Love.
  

Absolutely no depth on this team whatsoever. Again, the makeup of this new Timberwolves team can't be any more obvious.

But where does the 30 wins come from? What's to say that this Timberwolves team will not just suffer less than 20 wins once again? Well for anyone who actually watched their games, I can stress once again, that depth and defensive players was the ultimate downfall for this ball club.

I cannot stress enough ow many times that the Timberwolves would blow a first quarter lead, or get killed in their third quarters, all because of the lack of depth. Last years Timberwolves team had 5-6 solid contributors. This season, the Wolves have at least 10.

While I won't get into a player evaluation about every single player, it's blatantly obvious that the Wolves will be a better team, simply because of their play on the defensive end. The Timberwolves played at the fourth highest pace last season, despite being the worst defensive team in the league. Usually teams that run, are more likely to be slow half court teams, Timberwolves could have been argued to have been the exception.

The Timberwolves gave up on average 106 points per game. Let's just say if the Wolves were to give up just a mere 100 points a game, meaning if you took six points away from every single game that the Timberwolves loss last season, they would have won 19 more games.

Again, I cannot believe that, if you just subtracted six points from every loss they suffered, that put the Minnesota Timberwolves to win 19 more games. That equates to 34 wins.

So once more, if the Wolves just gave up 100 POINTS A GAME, they would have won 19 more games. That's ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.

So if you use that as a base, to compliment with better offensive firepower, then 30 wins is not out of the question at all.

Add another lottery pick and Ricky Rubio, then your talking about one of the better upcoming teams in the NBA