Category Archives: Blog Posts

Are the Wolves better without Kevin Love?

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The team was expected take off when Kevin Love and fellow comrade Ricky Rubio returned from injuries. Well the two did come back and have since played rather pedestrian basketball. While Rubio has been underwhelming since coming back from a knee injury, it was somewhat expected that he would be slow to start. Love on the other hand (see what I did there?) is the one that has gained more of the attention and criticism for his lousy play. Now with the news that Love re-broke his hand in the team’s win over Denver last Thursday, this team may be lucky to limp into the playoffs. Love is expected to miss significant time with the broken hand, some are even speculating that he may miss the remainder of the season. Regardless of Love’s current play, a crushing blow for a franchise that is in desperate need of making the postseason.

Before Love came back in late November, the Wolves where barely bobbing their heads above water with 6-5 record. After last night’s win, the Wolves are now again one game above .500 at 16-15. That makes the Wolves record 1-1 since Love re-injured himself, they were 9-9 with him in the lineup. He was expected to help the team win more games, but instead the Wolves found themselves in the same spot they were before Love came back. Fans are frustrated, especially with his recent comments about the team and the organization in an interview with Y! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski. The knee-jerk reaction from fans was the front office should trade him before he bolts for free agency in two years, demanding “get value for him now”. Can the Wolves survive without Love? Are they better without him, right now?

So what was Love giving the squad while he was on the floor? Let’s examine.

First let’s look at how the Wolves in general were doing when Love was on the court vs. when he was not on the court.

Love OnOff Stats

The Wolves have a net 4.4% eFG% increase when Love sits on the bench. The Wolves are making more shot and preventing the opposition from making shot with Love on the bench. They are turning the ball over more without Love, but forcing more turnovers on defensive end without Love to offset for that. Their defensive rating is also better without Love on the court. However the Wolves offensive rebounding has taken a bit of a hit as they generate fewer possessions on offense and allow other teams more possessions via the offensive rebound. The team also has a positive net rating when Love is off the court at 1.4, while they have a 0.3 when he is on the floor. That is a net difference of 1.1 pts per 100 possessions.

The biggest gripe with Love’s play was his inefficient shooting and lack of hustle. Let’s take a look at his shooting compared to his past seasons (data via thenbageek.com)

Love Shooting StatsLove was easily having the worst shooting season of his career. A career-low 1.11 points per shot, while also jacking up a career-high in three-point attempts, but only shooting 21.7% on threes was really hurting his numbers and more so the team. A career 81% free-throw shooter, was shooting just 70% from the stripe and was on pace for the first sub-50% true-shooting percentage of his career. Via SynergySports, Love was shooting just 18% (0.54 points per possession – ranked 263rd in league) on spot-up shots — last season that number was 37% with 1.00 ppp (ranked 117th). In other words, Love’s shot was broke. In fact, Love was the only player this season playing more than 25 minutes per game and taking at least 10 shots per game while posting a sub-40% effective field goal percentage. A sub-40 eFG% is really bad. Love was essentially one of the worst shooting players in the league before he hurt his hand again.

In a league and game where shot making is one of the most important things to do, Love was not surviving with the shooting numbers he was posting. Pair that with his defense (or lack there of) and all he was bringing to the table on a nightly basis was his rebounding prowess.

The team could be faced with the reality that Love is gone for the season. They do have a better record without him (7-6) than with him (9-9). If this was any other season, the loss of Love would have be devastating, but since his defense and shooting was hurting the team (i.e. preventing them from winning), his rebounding is the only skill that this team might miss. Just watching this team play without Love, it is hard not to notice how much better the offense flows as they are no longer defaulting to Love on almost every possession for bricked three attempt. The defense is noticeably better as well, specifically with their defensive rotations and communication.

Don’t get me wrong, Love is a good player. His shooting, size and rebounding is unlike any other player the league has seen in quite some time. The problem is that he came back too soon from a hand injury which caused his shooting to go into a direct tailspin and his conditioning was killing his ability to effectively play both ends of the floor. This may be a lost season for Love, but with Rick Adelman and co. this team can still survive, even in a loaded Western Conference.

The Broken J of Derrick Williams

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When drafted, Derrick Williams was billed as an efficient scorer, who rarely took bad shots and finished with power at the rim.

Since Kevin Love went down with injury the door has never been more wide open then it is now for Williams. However, nine games into this season and much of last season Williams has done very little in the way of showing that he can survive as a regular NBA starting forward. Lately Williams has looked confused and disinterested on both ends of the floor while shooting poorly — from both outside and at the rim, regularly getting his shot blocked by bigger forwards and centers inside. For being taken at the number two overall pick in the 2011 draft, Williams sure doesn’t look like much of a prize.

The biggest problem with Williams is that he can’t shoot the ball efficiently enough to be relevant right now. Lately he has been in the mode of taking more shot than actual points scored — doing  his best Michael Beasley impersonation. He has had four instances so far this season where he has finished a game with more field goal attempts than points, including a dreadful 0-10 performance in Chicago a few weeks ago. He is shooting just 37.8% in the restricted area (at the rim) this season and 34% away from the rim (three-feet and beyond) right now. Even more depressing is the fact that he shooting just 36.4% (12-33) on lay-ups and dunks, the kinds of shots one shouldn’t miss. It is a small sample-size yes, and his finishing ability has to go up as he shot 63.2% at the rim and 64.9% on lay-ups and dunks last season.

It is his outside shooting that is really troubling and may never get much better than it is right now.

He shot just 27.2% from three-feet and out last season, ranking dead last in the NBA among shooters with at least 300 shot attempts from that area of the court.

Take a look at where Williams ranks since entering the league last season. He is right up down there with the likes of Tyreke Evans, John Wall, Corey Brewer. These are players who are notoriously known for their broken J. Even Ricky Rubio, who by no means is known as a good shooter has better shooting numbers than Williams in every situation, except for at the rim, where Rubio was one the worst in the league last year.

With Kevin Love’s return looming, it is hard to argue in favor of Derrick Williams seeing extended minutes when Love comes back. The question now become can Williams, at just 21 years old, improve to be anything of significant value in the league?

So I took a look back at a pair of “tweeners” who just like Derrick Williams were taken in the top-5 the past few drafts. The two that stuck out the most were Marvin Williams (No. 2 in 2005) and Jeff Green (No. 5 in 2007).

Comparing Green and Williams’ first 75 games stats to those of Derrick Williams’ first 75 games (his NBA career). The numbers are pretty similar, especially the shooting marks.

(Click to enlarge)

Now Marvin Williams and Jeff Green did get better after their first 75 games in the league, but now with both players at age 26 their career arc has plateaued. Marvin Williams and Jeff Green have improved their career shooting percentages of 38.4% and 35.7% respectively on shots from outside the restricted area, and much like Derrick Williams struggled in their first 75 games from outside the restricted area, each shooting about 33%. Note though that Williams’ 26.6% career mark is still almost 6.5% worse than the two others and those two were not exactly lighting up either.

Based on Derrick Williams’ first 75 games, the probability that he turns into a star anytime soon is decreasing rapidly or already gone. His ceiling is about where Marvin Williams and Jeff Green are at right now — a borderline NBA starter. These are guys can all be classified under one group: those who never reached the potential and superstar label that came with their draft position.

Take a look at the pre-draft profiles for each of these players. Sort of fun to look at in hindsight.

(Click to enlarge)

So is it really worth it for the Wolves to stubbornly continue to invest minutes into the next Marvin Williams or Jeff Green, while at the same time the team is vying to make the playoffs for the first time since 2003-04.

It was rumored that the Wolves were fielding trade offers for Williams from teams this past summer. Kahn admittedly missed on Jonny Flynn and Wes Johnson, and wisely cut his losses. With the current direction the team is headed, Derrick Williams may be left out in the cold, soon joining that list.

It may be the case that David Kahn already has some of those teams who called last summer on speed dial, ready to call them back.

Kevin Love is Injuried, Where Do They Go?

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Today Y! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski broke the story that All-Star power forward Kevin Love broke his hand and would miss the start of the season. It came as no surprise to Minnesota fans that yet another star athlete went down with an injury (see: Adrian Peterson, Trevor Mbakwe, and Ricky Rubio) as fans are getting to a points where this sort of thing is inevitable. Now the good news is that it is just a broken hand that will keep Love out for six weeks. Down two of their better, if not best players in Rubio and Love, the question becomes how will Timberwolves respond to start the season?

Love’s scoring, rebounding, free throws, and floor spacing ability will be sorely missed by the club while he is away. Face it there is no way you can replace one of the ten best players in the league overnight. So, who will step in for Love while he is out? Who will pick up the scoring?  Where will they get 25 points of night from? Love did in fact account for 22% of the team’s total points last year.

Let’s check out some possible solutions.

Andrei Kirilenko

A year away from the NBA did his body some good, but he has been prone to injuries recently. The once defensive ace could get by with guarding the opponent’s four-man, but he could get worn out by the games end.

His last season in the NBA, 2010-11, Kirilenko was pretty solid when playing the power forward spot; averaging 14.2 ppg/7 rpg/4.7 apg/1.6 bpg  per 36 minutes of action. It seems unlikely though that Kirilenko would be the one to take a majority of the minutes left by Love, but Adelman will not hesitate to deploy him down low if others do not answer the bell.

Derrick Williams

One of the remaining leftovers from last season’s team still has a lot to prove. At just 21 years of age, Williams is now just looking for consistent minutes to make that impact. His moment may just be right on the horizon as the season is two weeks away and no else on roster fills the description of power forward better than Williams does.

Last season, Derrick Williams had a rough season trying to adjust to NBA play and figuring out what position he would play. William’s actually had a tougher time last year at the four than at the more athletic small forward spot. When playing the four, Williams produced 15 ppg/7.9 rpg/1.2 apg/.8 bpg per 36 minutes while playing relatively bad defense.

But Williams is said to have dedicated himself to being in better shape this season. And for what it is worth, Williams also was the only Wolf to play in all the team’s 66 games during last year’s compacted season.

The chart below shows William’s game log from last season using WP48 (Wins Produced per 48 minutes). The size of the circles indicate the amount of minutes Williams played in the game. The darker the circle, the more efficient scorer Williams was (i.e. points per possession) in that game.

Click here to interact with the chart.

Williams had a nice stretch for about a month from late-February to late-March after that *bleep* hit the fan as most nights Williams was below league average.

The thin vertical black line indicates the point when Love went down with a concussion to end the season. The games to the right of that show an eight-game stretch where Williams had a chance for major minutes. So how did he respond?

William’s played very little even then, averaging only 19.5 minutes, 8.5 ppg and shooting a horribly 29% from the field.

When trying to find a temporary solution for Love’s minutes, Williams only scored 20+ points in a game four times (6% of games) last season. Now granted he did always play the most minutes to do that. Nonetheless there is no guarantee that Williams will get the nod on opening night, but he certainly offers the most upside even without much of a track record.

Nikola Pekovic

Already slated as the team’s center, Pekovic may be one of the team’s biggest beneficiaries of Love’s absence. In the same aforementioned eight-game stretch, Pek picked up the slack, providing a healthy 19.1 ppg/10.5 rpg/1.3 apg per 36 minutes on a bum ankle. During that time he saw his usage rate increase from 21% to 23%.

Pek is uber-efficient around the basket. In other words, give Pek the damn ball and get out of his way.

Pekovic lost an estimated 15 pounds this summer and has looked lean and mean in the team’s first couple exhibition games. Don’t sleep on Pek, he might just kill. I am serious, the dude is scary good and scary looking.

Dante Cunningham

The sneaky trade acquisition of Dante Cunningham could prove as a nice insurance policy as the Wolves go forward. Cunningham should fill in nicely off the bench for whoever takes Love’s starter minutes.

The guy has always been a pest for other teams to deal with and one gets the sense that Adelman likes what he has seen from Cunningham thus far in preseason. Cunningham is a name to watch.

What They Are Saying?

I think you can chalk this one up to Love being on the court a whopping 68% of the time. Paired with the fact that the Wolves bench was so brutal last year, it comes as no surprise that everything would fall apart like it did without him. With a revamped roster, this should no longer be the case.

Note: 12% of the total 32% of the time without Love came when he was out with his concussion at year’s end. That -8.1 may be a little inflated. The wheels were already falling off as the team was in tank mode of sorts, winning just one of their last 14 games to end the season.

Pelton still has the Wolves projected at 52.4 wins even considering the Love injury.

Just Look at Schedule 

Let take a look at that November schedule and project where the Wolves should be by November’s end. The arrows by each team is my opinion of if they will be better, worse, or the same as last year’s team.

They will have to travel on the road a fair amount to start, playing five of their first seven on the road. They’ll play five of their first six games against the inferior Eastern Conference, which should help some. Then they finish up with a week long west coast road trip. To be a game above or under .500 would be ideal given the current situation.

Now lets project the wins with wins produced:

There you have it. The Wolves will win somewhere around eight or nine games in November before getting Love back.

I think many fans would be thrilled with an 8-7 or 9-6 start.