Are the Timberwolves the seventh-best team in the NBA?
The Timberwolves have media day on Friday, and I look forward to asking as many players as possible this question: “Do you play for the seventh-best team in the NBA?”
We are, of course, still a month away from the start of the season. After media day, the Wolves will go to San Diego for training camp and bonding … and then China for some preseason games with the Warriors.
If the NBA season was a weekend in Vegas, right now is the part where you’ve checked into your hotel, it’s Friday at 7 p.m., and you’re about to go have dinner and drinks before hitting the tables. Nothing bad has happened. The only things you can imagine happening are good things.
All that said, the Wolves are looking fresh and ready as they check the mirror one last time. The latest heap of preseason praise to come their way: ESPN put out its Basketball Power Index preseason rankings this week, ordering teams 1-30 based on a formula that incorporates “game-by-game efficiency, strength of schedule, pace, days of rest, game location and preseason expectations.”
It starts with the Warriors (duh). Then the rest of the usual suspects: Houston, San Antonio, Boston, Oklahoma City and Cleveland.
And then, at number seven, is the franchise with the longest current playoff drought (13 years) in the NBA: the Timberwolves.
One spot below LeBron and co. What a time to be alive.