Growing up in the Twin Cities made me a Minnesota sports fan, for better or worse (usually worse), and with the news of Kevin Love's departure to the Cleveland Cavaliers I decided to take a look at some of the numbers behind the lackluster season that solidified Love's decision to leave. Heading into the 2013-2014 season, the Timberwolves knew they had to do everything in their power to make the playoffs to convince Kevin Love stay. Despite constructing one of the most productive starting lineups in the league, they fell well short of the playoffs with a 40-42 record on the season, good enough for 10th place in the competitive Western conference. So why did the Wolves fall short?
Starting Strong
The 2013-2014 Timberwolves failures can't be attributed to starting slow. The Wolves were an amazing first quarter team, scoring a league-leading 28.7 points on average in first quarters. I can't remember ever seeing a team open up so many huge leads in the first quarter. If records were based on first quarter performances, the T-Wolves would have been in the running for the #1 seed in the West. The Wolves main starting lineup of Kevin Love, Nikola Pekovic, Kevin Martin, Corey Brewer and Ricky Rubio scored an average of 50 points per game. The next highest scoring lineup in the league was the Portland's crew with 44.5 points per game. It should be noted that the T-Wolves starters played a league-leading 20.6 minutes together per game, so they had a little bit more time to do their damage than most starting lineups. Still, the Wolves starting group had a point differential per game of +5.3 on the season, good enough for second in the league behind Golden State's sharpshooting “splash brothers” Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. Minnesota also led the league in 3rd quarter points scored with 26.9 suggesting the starters continued to play well after returning from the halftime break.
Bad Bench
With a strong overall performance from the starters, the Wolves' bench players were one of the main reasons they failed make the playoffs. The bench had an average field goal percentage of 41.1%–the second worst in the league–and an average point differential of -1.3. Those first quarter leads often evaporated in the second quarter. Every bench player had a negative point differential on the season besides Robbie Hummel (and Othyus Jeffers who only played 13 minutes.). The bench started the season so poorly that they ranked near the worst in the league in almost every statistical category a month into the season.
Point Differential and Wins
The bench was undoubtedly a big part of the problem, but even with the poor bench performance, the strong performance of the starters suggests the T-Wolves should have been a borderline playoff team. As a whole, the team scored 2.7 more points than their opponents on average. Every single team with a higher point differential than the Wolves made the playoffs. In fact, every team with a positive point differential on the season made the Playoffs except for the Wolves and the Suns.
The following graph shows wins vs. margin of victory:

A regression model based on margin of victory suggests the Wolves should have won about 47 games. So why couldn't the Wolves translate more points into wins? They weren't scoring the points at the right times.
Choking in the Clutch
The T-Wolves had one of the most potent offences in the league, but it wasn't potent when it needed to be. The Wolves point differential stats were padded by creaming teams by large margins: Minnesota won 17 games by 15 points or more. Games involving large double-digit leads generally don't determine who makes the playoffs and who doesn't. Every team has off nights and every team has good days. The games that really matter are those that are close down the stretch. Teams that perform well in the clutch tip the playoff scales in their favor and the Wolves were the worst clutch team in the league.
The T-Wolves saw 12 leads heading into the 4th quarter evaporate into losses, 3 of which were leads by 10 points or more. The team had an average +/- of +5 through the first 3 quarters, second only to the Spurs and a differential of -2.3 in fourth quarters. In the last 5 minutes of games within 5 points, the Wolves were outscored by 2.2 points on average. In the final 2 minutes of games where the Wolves were tied or leading by up to 5 points, they were outscored by 1.4 points on average. Missing the playoffs wasn't just the bench's fault: the starters tend to play at the very end of games and they choked in the clutch.
If you question the importance of “the clutch”, consider this: every single one of the 15 teams with a non-negative point differential in the clutch (the last 5 minutes of games within 5 points) made the playoffs. The only team with a negative point differential in the clutch that made the playoffs was the Wizards.
Shooting and Defense
When it comes down to it, you usually need to shoot better than your opponents to win. The Wolves had a lackluster field goal percentage of 44.4% on the season and their opponents shot 47.1% against them, giving credence to the criticism that T-Wolves lacked defense. Allowing teams to score on 63.1% of shots from less than 5 feet, the Wolves were the worst team at protecting the rim in the league.
A plot of wins vs. shooting percentage differential shows just how poorly the Wolves shot vs. their opponents and how well they did considering their poor shooting and defense:

Shooting differential suggests the Wolves should have won about 16 games FEWER than they did! Somehow the Wolves managed to win almost half their games despite shooting significantly worse than their opponents. This can partially be explained by free throws: the Wolves averaged 21.8 points from charity stripe per game, second only to the Rockets. The Wolves also ranked in the top 5 in steals, assists and offensive rebounds per game while committing the third fewest fouls of any team.
Life After Love
The prospect of losing Kevin Love became increasingly inevitable as the Wolves poor bench play, defense and abysmal 4th quarter performances saw them fall behind in the playoff race. With only a year left on his contract, the Wolves seemed to have little leverage to get good value trading their superstar. But for once, the stars aligned in the T-Wolves favor: the Cleveland Cavaliers won the first overall pick in the draft beating odds longer than 1/50, LeBron decided to go back to Cleveland and then insisted that the Cavs trade for Kevin Love. This unlikely string of events completely changed the Wolves fortunes. Instead of losing Love to a bad trade or free agency, the Wolves picked up one of the top prospects in recent memory in Andrew Wiggins and the #1 overall pick from the 2013 draft in Anthony Bennett. They almost managed to deal under-performing bench players Alexey Shved and Luc Mbah a Moute to Philadelphia for a solid power forward in Thaddeaus Young.
Despite Losing Love, the Wolves have a bright future. While Love's scoring and rebounding will be missed, Pekovic is one of the Wolves' most efficient scorers and Love's absence will give him more opportunities to score. Thaddeus Young isn't the same offensive player as Love, but he can put up 16 a game leaving only 10 of Love's 26 per game unaccounted for. Wiggins, Bennett and Wolves draft pick Zach Lavine are young and unpolished, as are second year pups Gorgui Dieng and Shabazz Muhammed but they can't play much worse than the Wolves bench did last year and with the Wolves out of win or bust mode and new coach Flip Saunders hoping to make his draft and trade choices look good, the young players are likely to see a lot more playing time. Also, wannabe superhero and backup point guard JJ Barea appears to be on the way out with the Wolves acquisition of competent veteran Mo Williams. Less hero ball and more minutes for young players is exactly what the Wolves need to develop into a playoff threat.
I don't expect the Wolves to be a playoff team next, but they could be in contention sooner than people think and they'll definitely be fun to watch.
Data Sources:
http://stats.nba.com
http://www.basketball-reference.com
http://www.teamrankings.com/nba
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