For analysts who study basketball, the Timberwolves are an enticing experiment to gauge the value of Kevin Love and to test their historically poor clutch play in another season. The season will be a disappointment, but it’ll be interesting to see in which specific ways the dominoes crash. Rubio, as always, will be entertaining, and they’ll remain a great transition team.
2014 in review
Somehow Minnesota’s season fitting: Kevin Love had a breakout season, Rubio remained healthy and played every game, and yet they still missed the playoffs, losing an alarming number of close games. Love followed in another power forward named Kevin’s footsteps by visiting the lottery despite outstanding numbers. Minnesota saw their future in Rubio, but he has failed to develop a jump shot and has become a liability in some situations, including crunch time. Minnesota, however, used its franchise contract on Rubio, which frustrated Kevin Love and led to him signing a contract with an early opt-out option. Luckily, they were able to deal him for first overall pick Andrew Wiggins and other pieces, but the organization failed to keep a young star. The team rated well by most metrics with an adjusted point differential that was 9th best in the league due to an above average offense and defense. They were quite potent when Love and the other starters were on the court, but due to a weak bench and a collapse in close games the season was a failure.
Changes
Exit: Kevin Love, Dante Cunningham, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Alexey Shved, Derrick Williams, A.J. Price, Othyus Jeffers.
Enter: Thaddeus Young, Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett, Mo Williams, Zach LaVine.
Obviously, the team lost Love, but they’ve completely remade their power forward depth chart. Cunningham, Mbah a Moute, and Williams all served time there. Thaddeus Young was hidden on a terrible Philadelphia squad, but he’s a quality starter and is one of the more underrated guys in the league. He can’t replace Love, but he won’t make it embarrassing for Minnesota. Wiggins may not produce much right away, and he’s a lesser player on offense than some think, but he’ll be thrown into the mix too, of course, given his draft status. Bennett’s another number one pick, yet I wouldn’t count on him breaking into the rotation for heavier minutes other than backup power forward. LaVine’s a super skinny point guard, leading some to wonder if the Wolves are about to ship out Rubio, but at least we’ll get some time with Rubio throwing alley-oops and fast break lobs to Wiggins, Brewer, and LaVine. Mo Williams is replacing Shved as a guard — a role that could even be phased out with LaVine on board.
Player spotlight
Rubio’s a unique player, some amalgam of Jason Kidd, Rondo, and Pete Maravich, and his stats are remarkably one-sided. He’s either near the best at a specific skill or is among the worst. He has a low usage rate, but in the context of a point guard who often has the ball it’s even more glaring. He’s among the least inefficient shooters too, making him one of the poorest scorers in the league. Yet he’s one of the best playmakers in the league with a high assist rate and generates an exceedingly high number of points for his teammates relative even to point guards when he drives, which is very often. However, he’s heavy with turnovers and spots up sparingly — he wouldn’t work well with another ball dominant perimeter player.
Rubio’s defense, luckily, is very good and makes up for some of his deficits on offense. He’s a master ball thief who was only behind Tony Allen in steal rate and a surprisingly good rebounder. His eFG% defense percentile is low, but it doesn’t include his influence on the other factors where he’s a positive like foul rate, and based on every other metric we have he’s a good defender and one of the best at his position. (The low eFG% value is apparently an indication his superior defense is not derived from forcing poor shots but everything else.)
As Rubio is an extreme player, it’s natural his shot chart is alarming. What’s fascinating is that he’s a terrible shooter only inside the three-point line. For his career he only shoots 33% on both long two-pointers and three’s, but since the average percentage for three-pointers is lower his accuracy looks better in comparison. Yet his real problem is that he’s arguably the worst at converting shots at the rim in modern history. As a non-threat to score, it makes his team much easier to defend.
Thankfully, Rubio’s an incredible passer. The Wolves were dynamite in transition thanks to a guy with the skill to throw a three-quarters of the court alley-oop. His assists in the first four clips below, all in the first quarter, are electric (link’s also here.) In the first video he throws a pass to a streaking Brewer on a break, but the second video is the real treat. After picking up a steal, Rubio throws it between a defender’s leg to a running Kevin Martin, who scores down the court. The third video includes a nice dish on a drive around Robin Lopez to Pekovic, showing how useful Rubio’s drives are even without scoring. The fourth video shows a perfect pass thrown across half the court to Kevin Martin. The accuracy and the speed of the decision are impressive. The other videos are pretty standard including hitting Love with an assist on an off-ball pick-and-pop.
Although Ricky didn’t lead the league in assists, he did lead in steals. From the videos below (link’s also here), he has exceptional hands, coming up with loose balls with ease, like in the first video. Passing lanes aren’t safe around Rubio: see the third video. Of course, with an exceptional steal rate, he can also pick a guy’s pocket like the last video when he strips Curry right in front of him. What’s interesting, however, is how he immediately turns every steal into a fast-break opportunity and he does it quickly.
Rubio can hit his free throws and is sufficient at three-pointers, but he’s an awful scorer who shouldn’t be able to put pressure on the defense. Yet his passing is so creative and so valuable Minnesota is still at its best on offense when he’s on the court. With his size and length, he’s also one of the most effective point guards on defense. As Love has left Minnesota, he’s the star now and one may look forward to his synergy with Andrew Wiggins — or all the trade rumors if the Wolves decide to totally reset when they don’t know what to do with his talents.
2015 projected
The central issue to projecting the Timberwolves in 2015 is not how they’d do without Kevin Love — we should have a pretty good understanding of how valuable he is — but if their terrible play in clutch situations would continue. They lost a number of close games and within the last two minutes of the game with no team ahead by more than three points, they were horrific. Over a full game, their clutch stats would have translated to a 55 point deficit, worst in the league. Looking at the total point differential of every one of their games, and they did indeed lose more close games, but it wasn’t to an extreme. The problem is that they lost a few more close games than usual and they had so many blowouts it inflated their season point differential, making them look like a stronger team.
In 2013 and 2012, the Wolves were -16.4 and -34.9 in net points per 48 minutes in the last two minutes, respectively. Those were certainly poor in clutch situations, but they weren’t to the same degree as 2014. Two minutes are, of course, an arbitrary threshold. Tuning that to one minute, and the Wolves now look extreme: they were outscored by 52 points in only 24 minutes. So yes, that translates to a point differential over a full game that’s under negative one hundred points. They were never that bad in previous seasons, freeing Rubio and Love of full responsibility. Tom Haberstroh found that they were the worst “superclutch” team since stats have been available in 1997 (one minute or less) and the one constant to nearly half these teams is Kevin Martin. It was, in his words, a perfect storm of clutch failure including poor defense. Another note is that the team’s offense was heavily dependent on fast breaks, and those are harder to come by in clutch possessions.
Although I don’t expect the Wolves to match their late game woes in the same magnitude, losing Love and bringing in Young and Wiggins does nothing to alleviate those issues. They will remain a transition team as Thaddeus excelled at this for his entire career and his speed advantage at power forward will lead to many quick buckets from Rubio’s passes. Love’s outlet passes will no longer be there, but Wiggins is another athlete who can finish high above the rim. They’ll be fun to watch — at least until the final minute.
One player not mentioned is Pekovic, and going back to the delay over his restricted free agency and how few teams pursued him, the reasons why are clearer. Between him and Love they had no one to protect the paint, and running the offense out of the low-post through a non-passer is less than ideal. Thus, Gorgui Deing’s ascendance will be an intriguing storyline. The team might be better off with him on the court rebounding and blocking shots. Given the hyper-competitive west, making the playoffs requires slim margins, and the team might rebuild completely if it doesn’t see a future.
Summary
The team is without a doubt worse without Kevin Love, and anyone citing him as a non-star has to realize even legends like Kareem and, you know, the other Kevin from Minnesota failed to make the playoffs in their primes too, not to mention the other myths perpetuated by the media and fans. Unfortunately, since the team is unlikely to repeat last season’s disaster in crunch-time, their win-loss record could rebound more than expected. The difference between Minnesota’s total wins and their predicted wins last year via their team strength ratings was 8. That’s enough to make up significant ground with the loss in talent, but since they still have Kevin Martin and a point guard who can’t score they’re more likely to drop a couple more close games than normal. Plus their adjusted point differential (a team strength rating) was partly so strong because they had a lopsided distribution of blowout wins and closer losses. But exactly how bad they’ll be in crunchtime possessions will be a fun test for basketball analysts — just not fun for Minnesota.
Wins: 31
Losses: 51
Conference rank: 12th
League offense rank: 18th
League defense rank: 21st
Edited 10/27/2014
