Written By Tom Schreier (ColdOmaha.com)
Photo Credit: Minnesota Timberwolves
For a crime against the gods…he was condemned to an eternity at hard labor. And frustrating labor at that. For his assignment was to roll a great boulder to the top of a hill. Only every time Sisyphus, by the greatest of exertion and toil, attained the summit, the darn thing rolled back down again.
— Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology
In ancient Greek mythology, Sisyphus, the king of Ephyra, was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll a large boulder up a hill, only to watch it come back and hit him for the rest of eternity. In many ways, the 2016-17 Minnesota Timberwolves have been given a similar task by the basketball gods. Talented enough to hang with the best teams in the NBA for half a game, they often see their lead rapidly turn into a deficit in the second half, resulting in a devastating, repetitive loss night after night.
“The big thing right now is still trying to be a 48-minute team,” said head coach and president of basketball operations Tom Thibodeau in mid-December. “We’ve had leads that we haven’t been able to hold onto, so we have to figure that aspect out of it and try to improve in that area.”
Thibodeau has harped on his team’s inability to play 48 minutes all year long, going back to the preseason. “We’re still striving to be a 48-minute team,” he said in early November. “We’re not close to that yet, we know we have to work each day. There are no shortcuts for us. We have to try to build the right habits each and every day.”
“We’ve just got to get a better attitude,” star shooting guard Zach LaVine told the media after the Wolves gave up 11 straight points at the end of a 94-92 loss to the Utah Jazz on Jan. 7. “We’ve got to stop playing so relaxed like we’ve done something. Stop letting go of the leads. Even though we’re up, it doesn’t really matter. It’s the NBA and we’ve blown almost every lead we’ve had.”
It’s become the same old story, one that is difficult for fans to watch — or justify paying for, if they want to attend a game — on a nightly basis. Thibodeau is clearly frustrated with it, given his sideline demeanor and increasingly visible frustration in post-game press conferences. The players, too, are upset with the results and are often left searching for answers.
After losing to the Mavericks in Dallas on Sunday afternoon, which ended a three-game winning streak and officially marked the halfway point in Minnesota’s season, the Wolves are 14-27, on pace for a 28-win season — well under the 40.5 over-under mark Vegas set for them at the beginning of the season and a far cry from the lofty 40-plus win mark that many in the local and national media had them finishing at.
The Portland Trail Blazers, however, are holding down the eighth and final playoff spot with an 18-24 record. In a conference with seven solid teams and eight bad ones, Minnesota could conceivably make the postseason for the first time since 2004. The question for many comes down to whether or not that offers any value to the franchise.
On one hand, the Target Center has been understandably empty for most of the team’s home games this season, save for matchups against marquee teams like the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs. A playoff run would help sell season tickets the next year and potentially give the Wolves a better home-court advantage next season. The playoff experience, albeit likely a sweep at the hands of the Warriors in the first round, would be valuable to Minnesota’s Big 3 — Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins and LaVine — as well as building blocks like Kris Dunn and Gorgui Dieng.
On the other hand, if the Wolves tank the rest of the way, they could get another high pick. The obvious downside there, aside from giving fans little incentive to pay attention in the second half, is that Minnesota yet again has a project on its hands in whoever they select. Also, instead of the adding veterans in the offseason who would be enticed by a team on the rise with three bona fide stars on its roster and a proven head coach at the helm, the Wolves would yet again be trying to sell hope to free agents and its fanbase alike in the summer.
All indications point to Minnesota trying to make the playoffs this year, although if they do so, it will be on Thibodeau’s terms. Thibodeau has been coaching this season as team president, meaning that he’s made personnel decisions that may have resulted in a few more losses in the first half of the season, but should pay dividends in the long run.
Thibodeau will have to decide if Shabazz Muhammad is part of Minnesota’s future, so he’s gotten playing time over Brandon Rush as the first guy off the bench. If Kris Dunn proves to be a capable point guard, Thibodeau can move on from Ricky Rubio, who does not have Dunn’s size and is not a great fit in Thibodeau’s offensive system — but so long as Dunn struggles with his jumper and decision-making at times, Rubio remains a part of the equation. Players like Jordan Hill and John Lucas III are not part of the team’s future, so Hill rarely ever plays and Lucas got released.
“One of the hard things is when you have to settle on a rotation, sometimes there are players that are deserving, [and] you can’t play everybody. Because if you do that, then you’re gonna take away from other people too,” Thibodeau said after the Dallas game on Jan. 9. “You make a decision, you go from there. But it doesn’t mean that it always stays that way.”
Thibodeau’s methods may come off as hard-headed, especially to fans of Rubio or Tyus Jones, who has been a capable backup this season, but it makes earning a playoff spot more meaningful. After all, if it is done with players who are not part of the team’s future — say Rush or Hill — it gives Thibodeau less of an understanding of how far Towns, Wiggins, LaVine, Dunn and Co. have come along.
Essentially, by leaning on his much-ballyhooed young players, he’s telling them that it is up to them to push the proverbial boulder up the hill. Right now they make great strides rolling it up the first half of the hill, only to see it slip from their grasp and crush them as the incline increases — often because one of the players thinks they can do it on their own when adversity sets in during the second half.
“The thing that we have to understand is, what we have to do to win is we have to be disciplined and we have to be connected, and we have to be tied together,” Thibodeau said after the 94-92 loss to Utah. “You can’t go rogue in the fourth quarter — you can’t. You can’t make it up defensively, you can’t make it up offensively; you have to stay disciplined. That’s how you win.
“Everyone has to know what the other guy is doing, right? If we just go random, no one knows what the other guy is doing. So the discipline that’s required, and to me that’s a big part of mental toughness — is doing what’s necessary, to know what your job is and then to do your job, so everyone knows where everyone is at all times.”
This repeats in some form or fashion almost every night, and will do so until the young players figure out how to play as a team rather than a set of talented individuals. Rarely do the Wolves win when they have a 40-point scorer, but they often do when all three of the stars get 20 points on the night. Thibodeau seems convinced that his message will get through by sheer will of force, even if it hasn’t entirely sunk in halfway through the season.
“I don’t know,” he said when asked when his message will sink in after the Utah loss. “We’re gonna keep banging away at it. It’s frustrating.”