Northwest Division

Minnesota Timberwolves Power Rankings - 2012-13

Power Ranking
WEEKRECORDRANKCOMMENT
Week 2430-5019With Kevin Love unexpectedly needing more surgery, this time on his knee, Team Injury Ravaged's season is ending just as it began. NBA.com counterpart John Schuhmann tallied it up and reports that Love, Ricky Rubio and free agent-to-be Nikola Pekovic played all of 13 minutes together.
Week 2329-4721Big week. Wins over Boston and Milwaukee added up to their first winning streak since mid-December, followed by Rick Adelman becoming just the eighth coach of all time with 1,000 wins. I do wonder, though, whether that milestone makes it a touch easier for Adelman to step aside.
Week 2226-4623How low have the Wolves' standards dipped since Kevin Garnett left 'Sota? We've been advised by ESPN Stats & Info that Team Injury Ravaged's mere 17 home victories in this miserable, forgettable season represent the franchise's highest win total at Target Center post-KG. Ugh.
Week 2124-4424Kevin Love's weekend appearance to collect his Olympic ring was a reminder that the Wolves were actually 9-9 with Love in uniform this season. Without him? They just clinched their eighth successive losing season and face the real and troubling possibility now of Rick Adelman stepping down.
Week 2023-4122Derrick Williams is up to nearly 19 PPG in the past 12 games in the best stretch of his pro career. But as Grantland's Zach Lowe keeps reminding me, 'Sota could really stand to see at least a little of K-Love, Pek and AK-47 back on the floor together before facing some tough contract decisions.
Week 1921-3926Not really sure what to say anymore. Our six-line limit doesn't leave nearly enough space for all the injuries, as watching what was supposed to be one of the most watchable teams on Earth lose by 15-plus in each of its past five L's has gotten so sad. Such a long, hard season for Rick Adelman.
Week 1820-3627A long-awaited spell of Derrick Williams productivity, Ricky Rubio's ongoing return to full-speed form after his ACL tear and Kevin Love's vow to come back this month sets up the Wolves to be Washington of the West. The quality team we expected all along, that is, but way too late in the game.
Week 1720-3326Ricky Rubio is diming freely again while Nikola Pekovic keeps building his free-agent case for the summer by averaging 15.8 PPG and 9.6 RPG in February. Yet Minnesota also is second only to San Antonio in first-quarter point differential, which only adds to all of its injury-related frustration.
Week 1619-3126Before their injury plague, most of us pegged the Wolves for the playoffs. But without Kevin Love and Chase Budinger, they are one of the worst shooting teams of the 3-point era ... and haven't beaten a team with a winning record since early January. (Benjamin Polk, A Wolf Among Wolves)
Week 1518-3028If Ricky Rubio really broke off three straight double-digit assist games just because we called attention to his lack of them in this cyberspace last Monday, we'd say something to trigger Kevin Love's immediate return. Sota is 4-17 in 2013, better than only Charlotte (3-16) and Orlando (3-17).
Week 1418-2627Don't want to hear about Ricky Rubio's 30.9 percent shooting from the floor. Or how he doesn't have a double-digit assist game yet. After injuries destroyed Sota's season, seeing Rubio in the Rookies/Sophs game at All-Star Weekend would have been, well, something.
Week 1317-2426As if Team Injury Ravaged hasn't suffered enough: Saturday night's 18-point blown lead in Charlotte -- wasting Ricky Rubio's best game so far in allowing the Bobcats to halt to their 16-game home losing streak -- took the Wolves to a league-high five Ls this season in games they led by 15 or more.
Week 1217-2024Starting to think we cursed 'em back in September when we gushed about "the most fascinating pack of Wolves since Sam Cassell left town." As my man Sean Deveney of the Sporting News notes, Rick Adelman has seen Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio in the starting lineup together just 27 times.
Week 1116-1821It's come to this for Team Injury Ravaged: When news began to spread last week that Cavs rebound machine Anderson Varejao needed another surgery, poor Wolves fans immediately started tweeting at the committee (of one) with streams of "We must have just traded for Varejao" snark.
Week 1015-1518Another long-term absence for Kevin Love means 'Sota, in this brutal West, faces the real threat of extending the longest active postseason drought from eight seasons to nine. But Love was clearly nowhere close to himself even before re-injuring that hand. Getting him right matters more than anything else.
Week 914-1315That it happened against struggling Phoenix dulls some of the shine, but it's still noteworthy that Sota, according to Elias, is the first team all season with all three members of its starting frontcourt (Nikola Pekovic, Andrei Kirilenko and, of course, Kevin Love) scoring 20-plus points in a non-OT game.
Week 813-1214It's been that sort of season for Kevin Love on the health front. Best all-around game to date for the star Wolf in Thursday's TNT triumph over OKC to halt the Thunder's 12-game win streak ... only for a poke in the eye in that one to knock Love out of Sunday's visit to Madison Square Garden.
Week 712-914The Wolves are one win away from their first five-game winning streak since January 2009. Ricky Rubio has been back for all of one game and has already thrown the pass of the season. Kevin Love is still ailing but presumably smiling more regularly thanks to those two developments.
Week 69-919Props to Kevin Love. His right hand is undeniably still messed up if he's shooting 38 percent from the floor and 22 percent on 3s, but he's giving Sota almost 35 minutes a game and averaging 21-and-14 with a pretty handsome PER (22.36) for a guy who can't release the ball how he wants to.
Week 57-819Sounds like the whispers about Ricky Rubio coming back by Christmas are true given the fact he's already back on the practice floor. I'm thus inclined to tempt fate and say 'Sota, right around .500 after all the injuries and with Kevin Love already back, has seen the worst of the storm.
Week 45-722Kevin Love came back two weeks earlier than scheduled from an injury caused by knuckle pushups. The inclination here is to hat-tip him, despite three L's all frustrating in their own way in Love's first three games back, because he's trying so hard to make it up to a beat-up squad.
Week 35-418It has to end someday. That's what you tell yourself after seeing Chase Budinger (knee) and J.J. Barea (foot) join Ricky Rubio (knee) and Kevin Love (hand) in the trainer's room with fresh injuries. Then you hear Brandon Roy, after his promising preseason, needs another knee surgery. No words.
Week 24-217Highlight of the week for the committee: Hearing from a handful of Wolves fans, after wins over Brooklyn and Indy, demanding apologies for dropping their Love-less, Rubio-free squad down to No. 24 after a 19-point hammering in Toronto. Midseason complaint form right there.
Week 11-124Cannot tell a lie. That glimpse of Ricky Rubio and Kevin Love on the Wolves' bench in Toronto with their street clothes on during Sunday night's League Pass channel-flipping keeps popping into my head more than anything we've seen on the court from the Wolves so far. Depressing but true.
Preseason0-017Surely everyone in Sota understands now why the committee has sworn off knuckle push-ups (or push-ups of any kind). Hopefully the playoffs aren't out of reach for the should-be-very-watchable Wolves if Love and Rubio are both back in the lineup by New Year's.
Training Camp26-4014When was the last time the Wolves were this interesting? Probably 2003-04 when they went to the West finals before trading away Sam (I Am) Cassell. We're still not quite sure how soon Rubio will be back from knee surgery, but K-Love and his overhauled supporting cast are must-see regardless.

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