Can The Timberwolves Win The NBA Finals With Julius Randle?

Can The Timberwolves Win The NBA Finals With Julius Randle?

[Music] All right. Hello and welcome or welcome back to the Worldwide Wolves podcast YouTube channel. We’re both, you know, we’re on Apple Spotify now, so we’re also a podcast and a YouTube channel. But welcome. I’m already rambling. It’s what I do here, but we’re coming to you at the Worldwide Wolves Timber Wolves channel. Because why is it called that? Because we’re all around the world. I’m coming to you from Pittsburgh. I just moved here. And my co-host Jake over here. Where are you coming to us from? I’m coming to you from Melbourne, Australia. Um, bright and early. I am hung over. So, yeah, that’s that’s where we’re at right now. Um, but I’m excited to be here. We obviously we were both sick last week um at different times. So, you know, worldwide, but still managing to to have our immune systems ravaged at different times of the year. But, um, yeah, I’m I’m happy to be back. Last week was interesting. Yeah, it was about the same time as we’re recording right now that I texted Jake was just like, “Dude, I really want to, but oh my god.” And I was so happy when you said you were sick, too. It was such a huge relief. I didn’t have to feel that. I woke up like, “Ah, you know, I’ll peel myself out of bed here and I’ll go do this podcast.” And then you messaged me and I was like, “Oh yeah, I’m rolling back over and going back to sleep.” I was sitting in this chair and like just like dizzy. But anyways, we’re back. Um, two weeks ago we did do the it was a fun video that I didn’t actually end up tweeting out at all. So, I’m just going to say now, go check out last week’s video. We did the all 2010 to 25 team and that was so much fun. Um, yeah, couple disagreements in there. Go check those out and then, you know, give us your disagreements in the comments as well. Otherwise, any any house cleaning before we get started here. I don’t think so. No, I don’t think so. Like you mentioned, we’re on Spotify and Apple, so so go tune in to that if you are a audio listener, but we do, I think, prefer people to watch on YouTube. We’re both YouTubers, so um yeah, we’re kind of spreading our wings a little bit. Yes. Um yeah. All right. What we’re going to do today is just kind of go over some Timberwolves news. They brought in a couple players on, you know, back of the roster contract. So, we’ll just touch on that and then we’re going to go over some comments, specifically Julius Randall focus, some questions, comments from you guys. So, should be fun. Looking forward to getting into that. But yeah, um it was kind of, you know, the big thing, big story for a while. was the Wolves still have a roster spot or two open and they filled it. They got Enrique Freeman on one contract and yeah, I mean starting with that one, Enrique Freeman signs with the Minnesota Timberwolves. I guess just I’ll throw it to you to start. Um any any hot takes on this guy? Any any big news you got? No, I don’t think so. Um obviously it’s a two-way deal, so we know that how they work. um kind of the split their time between the G- League and and maybe the end of the bench for the big team. Like I said to you, I watched a little bit of his college tape. He went to Akran. Um he was a fun player. He 6’8, I think. Um athletic, got the makings of a three ball in there. I know he was shooting threes at summer league. Um just had a really good summer league as well. So, kind of a modern a modernish um power forward, which I don’t know this how many big guys this team really needs, but they are valuable players to in today’s NBA. I don’t expect to see either of the guys that that they’ve just signed to play any minutes, but I think it’s always smart business to get players who fit in this modern NBA kind of style and provides some sort of punch if a crisis does happen. And we need to see Enrique Freeman playing real minutes. He did he was the player that shot the free throws against the Wolves last season when they picked the player from the bench against Indiana. So, and he made and he made both of them. So, um he’s got that he’s got that dog in him. Yes. For what it’s worth, 6’7, 220 pounds. I definitely knew that before going in and didn’t just pull it up. But yeah, uh he was the guy who played for the Pacers last season and shot those free throws. That’s a That’s I like that. That’s a good trivia fact for Enrique Freeman going forward. But um yeah, he’s going to be on the end of the bench. Did He’s the one that replaced Jesse Edwards. Is that right? He replaced Jesse Edwards. That’s the big news on this podcast. Yes. If you’ve It does feel better now to say how much I dislike Jesse Edwards as a basketball player because he doesn’t play for my team at all anymore. So that in itself is good business. Yes. Very nice. Jesse Edwards, as Jake coined, the worst basketball player he has ever watched. So, good stuff. Glad he’s got No, not personal. All right. He’s probably a great guy. But, uh, yes, you know, whatever. Other other news, they brought in Johnny Juang on a non-G guarantee. It’s just like a camp invite. Yeah. Yeah. I think a training camp deal. They do. The interesting thing is they do need to sign a player. They have two open spots. So, this this isn’t It’s It’s a weird Well, I think it’s I guess he’ll be in the camp with the other two-way guys. I’m guessing there’ll be another one or two training camp deals that they sign in the next few weeks. Um, and I guess all of those guys will kind of just be fighting it out for a spot at the end of the bench. Um, Juang did play he’s played 84 games fourth season. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He’s 84 games in the last two seasons. 64 last season and 20 minutes a game for the for the Jazz who obviously were a tanking team, but this is a guy who has NBA experience. Um, he kind of makes sense a little bit, you know what I mean? Like he he can shoot the ball. He’s 6’7 and he can shoot the ball. He doesn’t do anything else really. He’s not a good rebounder. He’s not a ball handler. He’s not a good defender. But he did shoot 38% last season on five attempts a game. shot 41% the season before on four attempts per game. So, you know, this is a guy who does again make sense in the modern NBA. There’s a lot of players out there who are 6’7 and can shoot the ball who end up making NBA teams and playing NBA minutes. So, I don’t really again I don’t really see the downside in in this, but um there’s not really much upside either, right? Yeah. you know, we got to talk about it because they brought these guys in. But, uh, 24 years old and played 20 minutes on the Jazz, which sweet. I mean, I could have done that. But, uh, anyways, yeah. Should we get to the comments or we got any other takes on these these couple of signings here? No, I’m happy to get to the comments. Sweet. All right, we’ll start it off. We were going to do some from, you know, just our own stuff. Maybe we’ll save a little bit for the end, but it was a lot of just rehashing the conversations that we had last week if we were to go about that. So, if you want to hear about that, just go listen to last week’s episode. Anyways, um starting off with some comments here, just on Julius Randall for the most part. Um all right, this one’s from Noah Welch. I’m actually quite familiar with Noah from my live YouTube days. He was always in my comment sections. Appreciate you. Yeah, we love Noah. Thank you for for watching House and Dra. I appreciate you. Yeah, he’s probably watching this. Noah, leave a comment. If you’re not, we’ll know because he won’t comment. So, all right. He says, “Stalistically, I think OKC loves to go up against bullyball type of guys like Randall. They’re so excellent at ball pressure and pokeaways. However, Randall’s bully ball play style was crucial in the first two rounds. He was so good against LA and Golden State. I’m very torn on him.” So, not really a question, but a question that we can kind of formulate off of this is just, you know, Randall’s style did work extremely well in the first two rounds and then in OKC was exposed. I think we saw it quite a lot in just Randall’s bullyball style when he’d go into the post, try backing someone down, they’d pull the chair, just take it away quite a few times and it’s just because we’re also very torn on Randall. So, I guess my question here to start it off and throw it to you is when they eventually do face OKC in the playoffs again because they’ll probably have to get through them, you know, to make it to the finals. Um, Julius Randall, do you think he adjusts his play style dramatically or do you think it’s more of just getting more comfortable with this Wolves roster and then the Wolves can kind of adjust around him? Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, it does make sense. I I’m just so torn on using the OKC series as a measuring stick for everything because and obviously it needs to be taken into heavy consideration. They are the powerhouse right now in the Western Conference. The odds are that you are going to have to go through them to win a championship. They were also just a really really great team that did this to everybody. They and obvious and some players handled it better, other players didn’t handle it better. Randall we know didn’t handle it very well, but they turn they turned everybody over. I don’t like using it as a measuring stick for just every part of the game. Whether it is Anthony Edwards being a point guard like we were talking about last season last episode, um Randall being whatever player he’s going to be, Dillingham is viability in terms of minutes, whatever issue you have or kind of question you have with this Wolves team. Saying, well, they can’t do it against OKC is a bit reductive because there is 82 games that you need to win enough games to become, you know, you want to be a top four seed in the West. There’s other playoff rounds that are really good teams that you need to beat so you’re not a first round exit. And there’s even the potential that OKC aren’t one of those teams if something happens to them. So I do think you need to look at this in terms of you know what he is I guess as a player overall and then separately what he can do against OKC and weigh those up. So I think I’m struggling with that a little bit. Like I don’t know first like what do you think about kind of that point like how much do you think using OKC is like can this guy play against OKC should how much should that factor in to these conversations? It’s I mean at the end of the the answer is like it should be a lot but then the other side of the coin is how many players in the league do you look at and go this guy’s really good against OKC like there’s there’s very very few and then Julius Randall is a player that has the talent to you know be a second guy on a team to get you to a six seed or a four seed hopefully going forward here. So, Mhm. you know, I’ve been torn on Julius Randall, but at the end of the day, he finished the season extremely strongly. Looked very comfortable with this Minnesota team and yeah, it might get rough when you do play OKC, but again, it was rough for everyone every single player on the roster essentially. So, you know, a lot of pressure was on his shoulders to kind of be the guy. And I think I don’t know. I think maybe if the Wolves see offensive steps from guys like Jaden, Anthony Edwards even and Nas Reed, it just takes a little bit off the shoulders of Julius Randle and maybe he can settle more into his own play style and try to maybe probe more into that OKC defense at more opportune times rather than I think he had to just do it, you know, a lot and it just didn’t work. But yeah, they didn’t have they had no other answers, you know, like Yeah, exactly. and and it’s obviously magnified on a big stage like you can’t dismiss the fact that you build a roster you you build a season out in the hope that you get to this point. So two years in a row, not just not just with Randall, I think it was important with Cat against Dallas. I think it’s important when Ant has these flaws in the Western Conference Finals that you need to build something that can hold up in those situations. So it is important but like like Hallebertton who obviously had the calf strainer and then the Achilles unfortunately in the finals like he averaged six assists and three turnovers per game in those in that series and 14 points. So it’s it’s kind of like they did it to everybody and I feel like Hallebertton is the best low turnover high usage guy in the entire league but pretty much by a long way. So, I just think that it the turn the turnovers that just they make you look silly, OKC. They make they made everyone look silly last season and because they they are they have so much ball pressure. They foul a ton and don’t get called for it. That’s just a thing. But they’re also just a great great defense. So, it is hard for me to to and I was sour on Randall and as you know, I’m still not sold on Randall as a building block in a fr in a like franchise kind of foundation, but I think using the OKC series scares me a little bit because I don’t know of any any player that played good against them consistently all season. So, I’m trying to separate that from the Randall that we saw at the end of the season. I don’t think it’s completely fair to just wipe away the Randle that we saw at the start of the season as well who who didn’t fit on the team. And there are still things that he that he doesn’t fit with on this team. So, I think my problem with Randall is I don’t know if bully ball how far bully ball gets you. And maybe it’s two rounds, maybe it’s less than that if they But that’s not all his game is, you know. Exactly. Yeah. And that and that I think was the point of the video that of the comments we are looking at is I think he leaned away a little bit away from bully ball at least until the playoffs. Like they had great matchups in the playoffs. So I understand the bully ball and against Draymond he was awesome as well which isn’t even technically a great matchup but OKC uh sorry the Lakers perfect idea. Let him bully smaller defenders, draw helpers, make passes, store in the post. I think it was it was good. and and then same thing against Golden State. So, but I think in the second half of the season, he did start to conform a little bit to the way that Finch wants to play. He drove the ball way more efficiently. I think he passed it. I’m going off the top of my head here cuz I don’t have all my numbers from that video in front of me, but I think he’s pass percentage on drives was about 12% higher um in that after he came back from injury. I dropped it in in the playoffs like I said, but I think if they had have had matchups where he didn’t have to play volleyball, it would have stayed pretty high. His efficiency on drives skyrocketed in both the second half of the season and the playoffs. So, I do think that he conformed a little bit to that to the way they wanted to play, which I think was shoot more catch and shoot threes. He at the start of the season he shot a lot of those like he’d do one jab step or he’d hold it for a second then he’d shoot the three. um second half of the season he was shooting catch and shoot threes without hesitation. They went in more and then he was driving attacking close outs and making passes and scoring. So I think I do think they found the blueprint for how they want Julius Randle to play. Now is that always going to work? Is it going to work against OKC? I’m not sure. I I’m not sure if OKC are playing really well. anything the Wolves have can like beat them in an overall sense. But I do think they’ve found the way they want Randall to play and I guess the logic there is that it should should be better from the start of next season if he holds to that. Yeah, he’s such an interesting case cuz whether it was the beginning of the season or you know the injury when he came back playoffs, it was all either like really low or really high. We didn’t get a ton of just middle ground Julius Randall. So if he can I mean ideally he takes off and continues to play at that really high level but the Wolves were also like 21 and four during that stretch and he was elite. So like consistently if he can find somewhere in the middle. I’m curious to see what that looks like over a full season cuz you know we’ll see. I mean I’m not super confident he becomes that super great player as he’s getting older but we’ll see. We’ll see. Um intrigued by what we’re going to get from Randall this season. the Wolves clearly have confidence in him. Um, but just to go back to the comments here, this one’s from James Gorum, and it’s just kind of anti a lot of what we just said. He said, “Jake, I hope you’re right about your video about him being able to change his game in his early 30s. In my opinion, the Wolves will never win a title with him on the team. He’s a career 33% three-point shooter and a ball stopper, not to mention the turnovers. OKC showed the blueprint to stopping him. He quit on the team in that series. Hope they trade him in the winter or earlier. That guy does not like Julius Randall. But I think this kind of goes into our OKC point again where it’s hard to build a team around just you know solely that series and you know you could if maybe you could look at it and say OKC did figure him out, but there’s no other team as good at as OKC at they figured everyone out. That’s why you pretty easily like they they figure Julius Vandal out, but you know if they send that blueprint over to the Raptors, are the Raptors also going to execute the same thing or the P, you know, like OKC is maybe the one or couple teams that is completely capable of just executing that blueprint. So I get it, but what’s the alternative right now? you know, so that’s and yeah, I and I completely agree with kind of your line of thinking there because and I agree with the line of thinking that OKC showed the blueprint to stopping him and he twid on the team in that series. I think that I think he twid on the team that last game. I think he he he couldn’t be bothered with how badly it was going, which is a poor trait to have and you know, we’ve seen it before with other players and it’s always going to get criticized and but that’s I’m not I’m not really going to hold him to that start next season I guess but I am going to file that away as something that I keep in mind. Um but I think there’s a lot of the problem with Randall is I think a lot of this comment is true like he is a career 33% three-point shooter. He is more ball stopppy than you would like and I think maybe a little bit less ball stopppy than his reputation is or at least last season towards the back end of the season. I thought he was very unbally in the second half of the season. And that’s and like he said it’s to change your game in your mid-30s is a thing that we don’t see very often. But I don’t think he changed I don’t know how to explain this. I guess I don’t think he changed his game necessarily. I just think they got cuz he did all the things he did. I just think they got him to do the things that he does 20% of the time 30% of the time instead. And the things that he does, you know, the other things that we don’t like that he does 20% of the time, they got him to do that 10% of the time. Like I don’t think he’s he’s never going to stop doing the bad things that he does. He he will be a turnover player. He will get a bit ball stopppy at times, but he always was a good driver off the catch. He was always a good passer off, you know, off attacking closeouts and in the post. I just think they accentuated the things he does well a bit more often, which is a coaching thing, which is a credit to to Chris Finch that I think that was good coaching, having a good relationship with the player enough to get him to buy into that. So, I don’t think he changed his game necessarily. I just think that they they kind of shown a light on the better things and but again I I don’t disagree necessarily necessarily with this comment because there is always he’s not a perfect player and you have to you have to build around Rand the thing that bothered me with the signings is I think Randall needs like a you need he needs a builtin section of your game plan and of your roster in structure and as of your system and is he always going to be good enough to warrant that? I don’t think so. But maybe this if the system and the game plan and all these things that he’s being built into are good enough, it can lessen the amount of times that he he doesn’t fit kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just going back to, you know, the fit, a lot of it he mentioned throughout the season that he kind of observed while he was on on the bench and I think we just, you know, while he was injured and a lot of um credit goes to him for that. we not we but just in general we kind of forget about like the that he came from an entirely different system where he was kind of you know the the superstar in a way there with Brunson but he was he was a huge name and just coming over here with Anthony Edwards and just you know guys who are much more familiar here and sliding in in a completely different I don’t know just system it it’s interesting it’s very very difficult for a a player like of his caliber so yeah the injury sidelined him and just allowed the Wolves I think to settle in as a team and then figure out how to integrate Randle because you know he came here on media day man like there really wasn’t time maybe he played the last preseason game um and I I don’t this is a kind of weird subject because I’m half the world away but watching all of those games you know from the start of the season and then when he came back I thought he looked in way better shape in the second half of the season I think he looked like when I’m watching them back to back like I’d watch game the fourth game of the season and then I’d watched the 70th game of the season an hour later. I thought he looked noticeably slimmer and noticeably quicker and it just whether that was buyin like I just think that’s the a huge part of the buyin where maybe I think it’s I think it’s part of the injury as well like he he probably just wasn’t in as good a shape as he would like to be. They probably wanted him in maybe a different kind of body type than what they wanted him for. And I think he looked faster and slimmer and maybe not as, you know, beefy and able to to bang in the post quite as much, but I think he’s always going to be pretty good at that. But I think he looked fitter. And again, I don’t know if that’s true because I don’t know Randall in not seeing him in person, but I think it looked noticeable through the through the screen. So, um I think the expectation would be that he comes into camp in that same fit at that same fitness level next season and with a bit of um preconceived knowledge behind him on what they need him to do. So, we everyone most people I think listening to this will know that we’re not completely bullish on Randall, but I don’t want to write him off either. I just I’m kind of in wait and see mode. I’m in hopeful wait and see mode with him and and they I don’t think they were probably going to get better than him, you know, unless they were able to try. I I think they they would have had conversations around the league about trading Julius Randle. And if they came to the the decision that keeping him is better than getting whatever they could have got, then I guess that’s, you know, we just have to take that at face value kind of. Yeah, that’s a large part of my offseason analysis here, just because we we really got to see it in action. But a large part of it is I trust Tim Connelly so far. And Chris Finch has been more has had more faith in Julius Randle than anyone else on the roster that he seems to have ever talked about. Like he really really likes working with Randall. So a full off season here. They brought him back on a you know pretty solid contract. So I don’t know. Right now I’m trusting the Wolves front office and the Wolves coaching staff to see what happens here. Hey, maybe they can actually adjust pretty well to the OKC series. Again, OKC’s a juggernaut, so we’ll see. But yeah, I mean, I guess that that’s the Julius Randall portion of today’s, you know, episode. You got any other big thoughts on Randall? Not really. I do think that it’s it’s a weird place for us as well when we talk about these things. I think we’ve both said that we don’t really expect the Wolves to be championship contenders. Like I think they’re like a like they’re like a fringe everything goes right and they could be contenders type of team. So I think if you’re viewing them as this team needs to be and I think we’re both okay with that. Not in a way where we’re like we don’t care if they win a championship. Obviously, that’s what we want to see, but like we don’t think that it’s I I think speaking for myself, and I don’t know if you feel the same, but I’m not going to get myself worked up about them not winning the championship if I don’t really think they can win the championship. I think they’re a good team. I enjoy watching them. I think everything could break right and they could have this miracle run. And they have Anthony Edwards who could all all of a sudden just ascend into the fourth best player, third best player in the league next season. and then it would make more sense. But I think it’s easier to handwave some of Randall’s misgivings when you’re not thinking, well, they need to win the championship next season. Yes, I I agree. I It’s It’s weird, right? because obviously they’re backtoback Western Conference Finals teams and the next step naturally and we’ve we’ve gone over this and the next step is you know championship but it is still kind of I don’t know if I’ve changed my tune on this because I think the first time we’ve talked about this Randall and Reed were still kind of in limbo. Same with maybe even Goar and like now that they’ve fully established the roster it is kind of like this team seems to believe that they are bringing everyone back. So I, you know, we mentioned like we didn’t even know if the coaching staff believed it, but they brought back everyone. So part of me believes they they are fully committed to winning the championship. Yeah. And I guess you could use what I’m saying or my belief as an indictment kind of on that front office because I don’t think the team that they think can clearly win the championship can. So, I guess, and I’m not saying that, I guess in in a way to criticize them, but I’m like, if that’s what they’re thinking, I guess I’m saying I don’t believe I I I think the if it’s a carbon copy repeat of like last year’s team, no. But like it is a carbon copy, but I think there’s a lot of guys that can take steps forward and that’s probably what they’re going into this thinking obviously. Yeah. They’re betting on Anthony Edwards. They’re betting and you know they’re betting on McDaniels and Nars and that Randall’s a bit better next season and but how many of these actually can come to fruition, you know? Yeah. And it’s dangerous to just believe you have a divine right to be in the Western Conference Finals and take the next step again next season. Like that worried me last season and they went and got there again. But like making it two seasons doesn’t guarantee that you even make the playoffs next season. Like I think obviously the Wolves will make the playoffs, but it doesn’t really matter once the season starts whether you how many Western Conference finals in a row that you’ve made. So I’m that sounds like a negative thing, but I’m kind of just like I think they’re there or thereabouts, but I wouldn’t be betting them to win the championship. So I think I’m okay with like hoping that you figured out a way to get a little bit better of a Julius Randle next season. I was I just looked it up. He’s so his on ball percentage which is a stat that um a website data baller does which is a great website. Um it’s like usage rate but it’s literally just how many times you touch the ball. Okay. So you know it’s not how many times you I think usage is like you know shots, shot attempts, turnovers, assists. This is literally like if 100% of the time the ball is on in play, how many times how many how much percent do you touch the ball? Randle is at 18.9% which is some players around him would be Shaden Sharp 19%. Um Anthony Davis 18.9 like Amen Thompson Nquille Alexander Walker was more than him really. Yeah. Chris Dunn, uh, Kyle Henderson. What is like what’s what’s the higher end of this, I guess? So, the higher end is the high the highest is 48.7% which is Jaylen Brunson. So, that’s 30% more than Randall. Uh, Ant is about 30th on this list. Um, at 30 the highest Wolf, but is Yeah, he’s what’s Julius like fourth, fifth, third. Um, yeah. So, I’m not looking at full Wolves list, but I got Connley’s at 27.7. He’d be second. And obviously dribbling dribbling the ball up the court, right? But Randall does that sometimes. So, like I I don’t know. That’s interesting. Yeah. So, he’s fourth at 18.9. Dante 17.8 is just, you know, a little bit under him. So the ball stopy thing I guess cuz I kind of believe that as well. But now I’m looking at this I’m thinking you know like it’s 30% less than these point guards which obviously he’s not a point guard. It’s still pretty it’s pretty low. Even Ant is like Ant’s next to Kevin Porter Jr. Fred Van Vleet Jaylen Green. So he’s not even in that upper tier of you know Shay is at 40% Maxi’s at 40%. Um, Hala Burton’s at 40%. LaMelo Ball 42, James Harden 42. So, this isn’t a team that is very balltoppy maybe or maybe they just don’t I don’t know how to explain those numbers, but I just thought that was interesting that Randall is so low. I honestly would have guessed quite a bit higher. So, I mean, hey, interesting. Okay. Um, where do you put the Wolves right now? I guess just, you know, we’re looking at it and saying we don’t know if they’re finals contenders, but just in the West, not even NBA period, are they are they fourth? I think they’re fourth right now for me for sure behind the Thunder. Probably the Rockets. I think they’re I got to put them ahead of the Nuggets. I think until the Nuggets show they can actually start beating the Wolves again. But they’re in the group with like the Nuggets, Mavs, Wolves. It’s very It depends, I guess, how you if you’re talking like I I would be pretty confident in the Wolves beating the Nuggets in a playoff series. And I think the Nuggets got a lot better, but I just again I need to see them beat the Wolves. Like I need to see I need to see Yotic be able to defend while Anthony Edwards is on the court because again I’ve been watching Anthony Edwards videos uh games all the Wolves games but every Nuggets game I don’t know how their fan like I know that Jokic is the best player in the world. I don’t think I’ve seen a worse defender than Yotic vers the Wolves in the NBA. Like he stands around and does nothing. Ant does whatever he wants when Joic is on the court. Like he I’ve they lost that series because Joic couldn’t defend. And I’m like I am a Jokic fan, but I think it’s weird that that got brushed under the carpet that he Well, he scored 60 in one of the game, you know, it helps and he’s obviously like offensively maybe the best player I’ve ever seen with my eyes like, you know, but like until they prove that Yotic can like not be the worst defender I have ever seen on the court when Ant is playing like playing drop coverage 14 ft behind the screen and letting Ant walk into threes or playing up in coverage and just letting Ant walk around him all game and Ant you can see like Ants walks into those games like I’m just going to score 40 tonight cuz Yoki’s trying to stop me. So, but if you’re talking regular season, let’s phrase it like this. How many teams again, you know, in the West seven game series are you taking not the Wolves? Uh, so definitely those three. I think I think I’d take the Rockets cuz I just think their defense was awesome and they’re getting better and now they’ve got KD Kevin Durant. Yeah. who will at least give them some scoring. Um, OKC, who’s the other team? Nuggets, I guess, were the other team that are up there. I think Mavericks, everyone likes them. I don’t know, man. A healthy a healthy Clippers team I would take against over the Wolves. And that’s a big if with them because they’re so old, but they were like they were awesome last season in the regular season to a healthy Hawaii in a playoff series terrifies me. Um, the Mavs, I don’t think I would. I see. Everyone’s talking up the Mavs and I like I get it, but I got I got to see it first. And there’s other teams that I’m not There’s so many good teams in the West. I bet there’s a team that I’m just not thinking of right now that would at least The Wolves are the Wolves are there, man. They’re top four. Yeah, the Wolves are there. Yes. Yeah, that’s I’m sure there’s other teams that would would be worth a conversation, but yeah, it’s probably four, which means you’re a fringe contender in my mind. Yeah. And then you get to the East and it’s really without, you know, no Tatum. I don’t know. I mean, I’d take the Wolves against the Knicks. Uh yeah, pro I pro I probably would take the Wolves against any Eastern Conference team. Yeah, I think you know with a little bit of bias in there as well, but I don’t think that it would be silly to say that they could beat any of those teams. The other teams I guess that I’m thinking about here were were the Lakers? Probably. I mean, we just saw that. No. Uh the Warriors? No. But I I don’t know how Jimmy, you know, maybe Jimmy and Steph clicked with a with a full season again. I got I got to see it. Yeah, exactly. Like, and there’s other fun teams in the West that the the problem is the regular season, I think, more than I think the Wolves are built for to win playoff games. I think they play with a slow pace. They have multiple tough shot makers. They play defense. Like, they’re a playoff team. What worries me is more regularly. Like, they came they were a six seed last season just Yeah. It seemed like they were going to be playing like all year. Yeah. So, it’s kind of like I’m like, could the Lakers finish above the Wolves? Yeah, I think they could. Like the Clippers, I think probably will. Um, the Warriors, I think I like I like the Wolves being the seven seed wouldn’t I wouldn’t bet on it, but it wouldn’t stun me at all because there are a lot of good teams in the West and the regular season is just a grind. Like the Wolves need to prove again that they can win 50 50 plus games. The overunder is 50 and a half. I think I would pretty confidently take the under. Yeah, I Yeah, I just think that and I think maybe because there like last season, there’s going to be a ton of teams that are like bunched up between 45 and 50 like a 50 win team on paper, but I don’t believe they can actually win 50. And I think if you have to choose between the two, I would rather be a team who’s good in the playoffs and not as good in the regular season. But there is a balance there that you need to be there’s a there’s a bar you need to clear. Well, it’s the seven seat. you need to be able to miss out on the plan because we’ve it’s been proven that how important it is to have that extra week break and to not have to play elimination games right off the bat. So that worries me more than the playoffs to be honest like that they I’m I’m worried that they’re not going to win enough regular season games. They’re trying new things. They’ve got rookie or you know secondyear players playing heavier minutes. go Baron Connley, the the grind that they have to go through throughout the season at their age, you know, Randle’s inconsistencies in, you know, over a bigger sample of games and not games where you need to play really well. So, that worries me a little bit, but I I that’s I think also intriguing me to see how they approach it, what they do. I don’t think they’re not good enough to be a team that just kind of, you know, coasts through. Coast is the word I’m looking for. Exactly. They need to they need to win I think they would you need to win 50 games to guarantee not being in the play which is just utterly insane. Yeah. I mean it’s a team with the talent that should be they should be hosting a playoff series based on the talent and I think they would be disappointed if they don’t. Agreed. Agreed. I mean we just said they’re a top four team in the West. So at the end of the day I mean one thing that can can really push you there is having the MVP on your team. Maybe that’s Anthony Edwards. We’re going to talk about that in the next episode that we’re going to be recording shortly. So, I don’t know when it’s going to be posted, but uh check that one out. Should be fun. You got any other major thoughts for this one before we get out of here? No, that was fun. Like everything, I think we kind of it’s therapeutic to talk through our Yeah, we seem to like find in the back half, we really find what we want to say more. We like really get into it. Yeah. Well, we started this podcast because we felt like we had wolves takes in our brains that we never got out. they were just like building up in there and you know at some point it was going to start causing problems in our personal life when you’ve got too many wolves. It’s like we’re gonna have a mental breakdown you know so um I think we got there in the end today. Good. I agree. All right folks hit the like button, the subscribe button, the the bell, the every other if you see a button just click it. All right, thanks for watching. Leave a comment as well. Give us a question or two tell us about tell us your thoughts on Randall. Yeah. And yeah, do you agree with us? Do you disagree? Because comments on the last one were really fun to read. Even though a lot of them really didn’t like what we said, but I did not stop reading them real quick. Thanks everybody. See you in the next video.

Thanks for watching! In this episode, Jake Paynting and Cooper Carlson dive into the Wolves finalizing their roster and also answer some key questions about Julius Randle. We would love to hear your thoughts so leave a comment and hit the subscribe button! For more content from Jake, check out the link below!

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