Five Most Surprising and Disappointing Players from The NBA’s first Two Weeks

A week into 2021 the real world looks like it is going to be exactly like 2020, which is to say very very shitty, but thankfully the NBA is not the real world. The first two weeks of the 2020-21 NBA season are going exactly how people thought it would go. The Knicks are 5-3 lead by perennial MVP candidate Julius Randle, while the Raptors might actually be the worst team in the league. In the West the Suns are atop the early standings, and if the season ended today the Mavericks and Nuggets would miss the playoffs altogether. See, exactly like we all thought it would go down. In this topsy-turvey season there have been plenty of fun surprises, and sad disappointments across the league. Today we’re going to run through the top five most surprising players during the start of the season, and then we’ll lament the top five most disappointing players to begin 2021. So sit back, get excited, and most importantly remain indoors.

Surprising

1.) Julius Randle, New York Knicks

Who had Julius Randle breaking out as a legitimate MVP candidate for the Knicks after the first eight games of the season? Be honest absolutely nobody saw this coming from the eighth year point forward. Randle looks like baby LeBron out there running the offense in the Garden. Randle is averaging 23.1 ppg, 12 rpg, and 7.4 apg in 38.6 minutes per game, all career highs, and has led the Knicks to a 5-3 record early on. New coach and NBA fashion icon Tom Thibodeau’s constant yelling from the sideline must be working for the first time since he coached the Bulls to 62 wins in 2011 (we don’t speak of his time in Minnesota). Julius Randle has always been a solid player with the post-Kobe Lakers and pre-Zion Pelicans, but after seven seasons in the NBA most people assumed we had seen everything the Kentucky product had to offer. In his eighth season Randle has, out of nowhere, become a point-forward under Thibodeau’s yelling. His 7.4 assists per game is more than twice his career average of 2.9. If he keeps it up Randle will be a frontrunner for most improved player in 2021. It is the Knicks so Spike Lee, if you’re reading, just brace yourself for the eventual collapse, we all know it’s coming.

2.) Collin Sexton, Cleveland Cavaliers

The leader of the SexLand backcourt sparked the Cavaliers to a 3-0 start this season and has looked like a bonafide all-star in his third season, and carried what many people thought might be the worst team in the league to a 5-4 record. The third-year guard is averaging a very efficient 25.1 on 53.1 percent from the field and 51.6 percent from three. After major struggles last year, the SexLand backcourt made up of Sexton and second-year point guard Darius Garland is thriving this season as Garland is also one of the most surprising players to start the year. The one missing piece for the Cavs is Kevin Love, not because he’s still an all-star, but because he completes Cleveland’s full sex lineup.

3.) Christian Wood, Houston Rockets

Speaking of sex lineup, Christian Wood might single-handedly keep James Harden in Houston if he continues to play the way he has to start the season. After a breakout season in 2020 in Detroit, Houston acquired Wood in a sign and trade with the Pistons and Wood signed a three-year $41 million contract. Wood has risen to the task of getting Harden to at least have to think about staying in Houston, becoming a potential all-star this season with 23.6 points and 10 rebounds per game. The Rockets have been a little slow out of the gate this season and are just 2-4, but Wood is exciting Rockets fans for another potential deep playoff run if they can keep Harden and Wood together all season. Even if Harden leaves Houston, Wood looks like he can be a franchise building block going forward and should keep the Rockets interesting with whoever they get back in a Harden trade. A list of players I would like to see traded for James Harden for the sake of a smooth transition are: either of LaMelo or Lonzo Ball, Devontae Cacok, Kevin Love, Rudy Gay, Nassir Little, or Shake Milton. Those are my terms.

4.) Jerami Grant, Detroit Pistons

Essentially Wood’s replacement in the Motor City, Jerami Grant has been the lone bright spot in a sea of troubles for the Detroit Pistons this season. The Pistons are probably the worst team in the league, but Grant is having a breakout season. The leading scorer for the Pistons is averaging 24 points and six rebounds in Detroit’s 1-7 start. He’s going to have to do even more since rookie Killian Hayes has been sidelined indefinitely with a hip injury. Grant looks great, but it is fair to say that he wouldn’t look as attractive if he was on any other team, a classic conundrum that I know all about cheering for guys like Al Jefferson, Kevin Love and Karl-Anthony Towns on a Timberwolves all these years.

5.) Jaylen Brown, Boston Celtics

It’s not surprising whatsoever that Jaylen Brown is playing well to start the season. Everyone knows he was playing at an all-star level last year, but he’s arguably been the best all-around players in the NBA this season. Brown is averaging 26.2 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 3.3 assists per game while shooting 54.7 percent from the field and 41.2 from three for the 6-3 Celtics. Brown looks like he’s finally taken the leap and should contend for at least second team All-NBA. Jayson Tatum is still their superstar, but Brown might be a much better sidekick than any of us thought he would be.

Disappointing

1.) Pascal Siakam, Toronto Raptors

At this time last year Siakam was playing his best basketball of his career, with a hot start in 2019-2020 propelling him to a third team All-NBA nod. Since play resumed inside the NBA Bubble in July, Siakam simply hasn’t been the same player. Last year he averaged 22.9 points per game and 7.3 rebounds, but dropped to 16.9 and 5.3 in the regular season bubble, and 17 and 7.5 in the playoffs. Siakam’s slow start to the season is one of the many reasons why the Raptors are 1-6 in the first two weeks, the second worst record in the league. The 26-year-old from Cameroon won Most Improved Player in 2019, was a candidate again last year, and was on the verge of becoming a superstar, but has completely regressed to start the season.

2.) Kelly Oubre, Golden State Warriors

Jesus Christ Kelly Oubre has been just about the worst player in the league to start the season. When Klay Thompson went down with an Achillies injury this offseason, the Warriors traded for Oubre hoping he could bolster the team’s wing depth and provide a spark in Thompson’s absence alongside fellow high flyer Andrew Wiggins. If Steph Curry and Thompson were the Splash Brothers during their dynasty run, Wiggins and especially Oubre have been the trash brothers in the Bay Area. In the first three games this season Oubre shot 7-40 from the field and 0-17 from three. Nobody in the history of the sport has had such a lopsided correlation between how many absolutely insane highlights he’s produced so far this season, while being the worst player in the league through two weeks.

3.) Jimmy Butler, Miami Heat

Butler’s struggles this season are probably mostly due to exhaustion rather than actual regression. Butler’s Heat had less than two months in between losing the NBA Finals to the Lakers, and opening the 2020-21 season against the Magic. Butler played his ass off in the finals, averaging 43 minutes and trying to single-handedly lead the Heat to a championship. Now Butler and the Heat are struggling in 2021. Miami is just 3-4 and Butler averaging just 13.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per game on 40.7 percent shooting. He is seemingly managing his load as he’s missed two games already and is just getting 27.6 minutes per game. Butler is one of the best players in the league, but it’s possibly his heavy minutes under Tom Thibodeau in Chicago and that other place ( remember what we don’t talk about here) is finally catching up with the 31-year-old.

4.) Blake Griffin, Detroit Pistons

Blake Griffin’s quick decline this year is really more sad than it is disappointing. After playing just 18 games last season because of a knee injury. This year Griffin has been sapped of his most important traits in his athleticism and has turned into a spot up shooter. Griffin is attempting 7.8 threes per game, the most in his career. Griffin, who turns 32 in March is currently on the worst team in the league and will be name people bring up at the trade deadline. The one time human highlight reel has seemingly left his best basketball in the past, so lets not remember this Blake Griffin, lets remember the guy who jumped over a Kia and dated Kendall Jenner, that’s the Blake Griffin I’ll always remember.

5.) D’Angelo Russell, Minnesota Timberwolves

The Timberwolves have a knack for being really, soul crushingly, terrible in every way imaginable. Whether it be defense, coaching, shooting, or just plain old basketball, the Wolves have not been good in almost two decades and have had a revolving door of B-list stars coming through the Target Center doors since our one true savior Kevin Garnett left in 2007. Enter D’Angelo Russell, the second overall pick behind Karl-Anthony Towns in 2015, who was traded to Minnesota last February for D-list star Andrew Wiggins and Minnesota’s top three protected first round pick in 2021. Wolves fans imagined Russell perfecting the pick-and-roll with his good pal Towns, giving this era of wolves fans their version of KG and Stephon Marbury, and the Wolves would finally be cool, and more importantly they’d be good for the first time in a generation. Alas for they are the Timberwolves bad things have to happen, it’s the law. Towns injured his wrist in game two, and Russell has fucking sucked ever since. Minnesota has completely cratered without Towns and are in the midst of a horrifying six game losing streak that will seemingly go on forever. While Russell’s stats aren’t far off of where they’ve been the last few years, he’s shown he’s incapable of really impacting winning in any significant way during the skid. Russell was brought in to be the second star in Minnesota, played like a fourth role player, and the Wolves are going to tank and still lose their 2021 draft pick because we live in a random and chaotic universe.

There we go, this NBA season boys have become men, men have become wolves, and there have been a lot of strange things happening in 2021. Here’s to more surprises and fewer disappointments as we get into the meat of 2021, but most importantly, remain indoors.

Minnesota Timberwolves season review

The Minnesota Timberwolves were finally bounced from the playoffs on Wednesday by the Rockets in Game 5 of the first round series 122-104. It was the first playoff appearance for the franchise since 2004. This season definitely had its ups and downs, but the season as a whole should be seen as a success.

Minnesota won 47 games this season, 16 more than the previous year. A lot f that can be contributed to the new additions of Jimmy Butler, Taj Gibson, Jeff Teague and Jamal Crawford. Butler was the key piece as he led the team in scoring and was top-10 MVP candidate until his knee injury in February. Karl-Anthony Towns notched his first all-star selection and is still coming into his own as a 22-year-old budding superstar. Role players like Tyus Jones and Nemanja Bjelica showed improvement in their third years with the team. There is plenty to like about the Timberwolves going forward but that doesn’t mean there weren’t bad signs this year.

The team struggled without Jimmy Butler in the lineup. Butler missed 23 games this year, in which Minnesota went 10-13. That could be chalked up to tough competition in those games, but it shows the Wolves relied too heavily on Butler this season. The young duo of Towns and Wiggins couldn’t step up to lead the team without Butler, and that resulted in sliding to the 8th seed and barely making the playoffs.

Speaking of Wiggins, he regressed majorly from the 2016-17 season to have his worst season as a pro. His shooting was down across the board, especially looking at his unexplainable 12% drop in free throw percentage. He seemed especially disengaged this year, and disappeared for quarters and halves at a time this season. While he may have made marginal improvements on defense, his overall game took a huge dive.

Overall though I think the season was a success, and showed why the Butler trade was necessary. I’ll grade it out as a B since the trajectory the Wolves were on before the Butler injury was the three or the four seed. If they grabbed a higher seed, maybe they would still be playing.

Looking ahead to next year it will be really interesting to see who they can add through free agency and the draft. Limited cap space may make adding a significant piece difficult. Hopefully they can add a three and D player or two to improve the bench and take the team to the next level next season.

The Timberwolves finally don’t suck anymore

For the first time since I was 13 years old the Minnesota Timberwolves are headed to the playoffs. That long gap spanning half my life sucked since I grew up in the Kevin Garnett era and watched the Timberwolves make the playoffs eight straight years from 1996-97 to 2003-04. I thought that as long as Garnett was on the team they would be contenders forever. But those dreams came crashing down as they missed the playoffs the season after making it to the Western Conference Finals. After that they traded the greatest player in franchise history for Al Jefferson and a bunch of nobodies. That’s when I figured out it was time for a rebuild, but I had no idea that rebuild would take well over a decade to complete.

The one thing that comes to mind during 14 years between playoff appearances, other than god awful basketball, was really crappy drafts. I always got excited for the drafts, especially when the Wolves had high picks, because it meant a new era could possibly start. They had some seemingly nice drafts from 2006-2008 drafting Brandon Roy, but trading him for Randy Foye in 2006, drafting Corey Brewer in 2007, and taking O.J. Mayo, but flipping him for Kevin Love in 2008. Put those guys together with young star Al Jefferson, and you would have thought the Wolves were on a decent track. Both Foye and Brewer had a few mediocre years before departing, but Kevin Love turned into a star and future building block. Then the most infamous draft in recent history happened. Minnesota had three first round picks in the 2009 draft. Seemingly ready to add some major talent to its team, David Kahn made what will go down as one of the biggest draft day blunders of all time. He chose Spanish phenom Ricky Rubio with the 5th pick, then turned around and took another point guard, Jonny Flynn with the 6th pick (and a third point guard, Ty Lawson with the 18th pick). It seemed like a huge draft at the time. Rubio and Kevin love could be the dynamic duo that the Wolves needed to get back to prominence, while Flynn and others could form a solid supporting cast. But there was one name in the draft that will forever be linked to the Wolves futility in the 2000s, that being Steph Curry. The NCAA tournament darling out of Davidson wasn’t supposed to be a great all around player. He might provide some shooting help, but couldn’t be a point guard and run a team is what scouts said before the draft. As we all know Curry went on to win two straight MVP awards and lead the Golden State Warriors to two NBA Championships in the past three years, while becoming one of the biggest superstars of this generation. The Wolves had two chances to nab the five time all-star, but instead got a huge bust in Flynn, and had to wait two years for Rubio to come from Spain and become a slightly above average NBA player. That draft alone set the franchise back several years. Minnesota had a string of first round busts in the years afterwards. They picked Wes Johnson fourth overall in 2010, Derrick Williams second in 2011, and traded Trey Burke for Shabazz Muhammad in 2013. Minnesota struck out in the draft more times than any other franchise, and I began to think we would never had another superstar again. Finally some hope emerged when The Wolves traded disgruntled star Kevin love to Cleveland for their two straight number one overall picks (Anthony Bennett from the 2013 draft, and Andrew Wiggins from the 2014 draft). This excited me as Wiggins was dubbed Maple Jordan and was one of the most highly anticipated phenoms in recent years (we all knew Bennett was terrible already).

Another major reason for the decade and a half long struggle was the absolute inability to find a decent coach. After the conference finals run in 2004, Flip Saunders returned with largely the same team. After  going just 25-26 through the first 51 games, he was fired and replaced by executive turned coach Kevin McHale, who for his efforts went 19-12 down the stretch, albeit failing to make the playoffs. Dwane Casey stepped in the next season going 33-49. The Current Toronto Raptors head coach actually had the Wolves off to a decent start in the 2006-07 season, but was fired to give Randy Whittman a crack at the position. The Wolves finished an abysmal 12-30 under Whittman to close out the season 32-50. He was back again next year and somehow got worse as the Wolves went 22-60 in his only full season. He only got 19 games of the 2008-09 season before enough was enough. He went 4-15 and was replaced by McHale again, who guided the team to another terrible 24-58 record. Then there was hope for the 2009-10 season, and hopes name was Kurt Rambis. Rambis was a hot commodity in the coaching world having been an assistant for the Lakers for four championships, including the previous season. That hope fizzled quickly as he amassed an amazingly bad 32-132 record over two season and was fired. After that even more hope for the franchise came in it’s next coach, Rick Adelman. Adelman was one of the greatest coaches in NBA history when he took over the struggling Timberwolves. He made his name guiding the early 90’s Trail Blazer squads to perennial playoff appearances, and did the same with the Chris Webber led Sacramento Kings teams of the early 2000’s. Most Timberwolves fans, including myself figured he would be the one to get us back to the playoffs. While he may have had the best run for a Timberwolves coach since Flip Saunders, it wasn’t enough to get into the playoffs. Minnesota won 26, 31, and 40 games in Adelman’s tenure thanks to the rise of Kevin love, and he was fired after three seasons. The white night of the franchise, Flip Saunders returned for another go with the Wolves, taking up a position as head coach after already becoming the President of Basketball Operations the previous year. Minnesota bottomed out at 16-66 that year but thankfully got the first overall pick.

For the first time in franchise history the Timberwolves were awarded the number one overall pick in the 2015 draft. After some debate over who to pick it became obvious that Kentucky big man Karl-Anthony Towns was the selection. They took Towns and planned to start him slow, but after putting up rookie numbers not seen since Tim Duncan, Wolves fans finally had some hope for the future. Tragically Flip Saunders passed away in October 2015, just before the season began. Sam Mitchell took over, guiding the young Wolves through some growing pains to a 29-53 record. Another turning point came that offseason when former Chicago Bulls head man Tom Thibodeau was hired as the head coach. Thibs led the Bulls to the playoffs in all five years he was there. Finally the Wolves had a blueprint for success. After they only managed 31 wins in the 2016-17 season though, enough was enough and it was time for the Timberwolves to make their biggest splash since trading away Kevin Garnett ten years prior.

The 2017 NBA draft was huge for the franchise not because of who they picked, but a blockbuster trade that changed the entire landscape of the league. The Wolves traded Kris Dunn, Zach Lavine, and the 7th overall pick (that would become Lauri Markkanen) for Butler, and the 16th overall pick (Justin Patton). Butler was a three time all-star, and one of the league’s top two way players. The excitement around the team was the highest since playing the Lakers in the 2004 Wester Conference Finals. With Butler, Wiggins, Towns and later additions of Jeff Teague, Taj Gibson, and Jamal Crawford, the playoffs were finally in sight.

Many thought the Wolves could compete in the West right away. They were chosen to be the fourth or fifth best team in the conference by many experts. They started to look the part right away, reaching as high as the three seed in the West. But Butler injured his knee, and the Wolves sputtered without him going 8-9 in his absence. Luckily he came back just in time to lead Minnesota into the playoffs with an overtime win against Denver in the regular season finale, in which Butler scored 30 points with five assists and five rebounds. The 8th seed isn’t glamorous, and isn’t quite where hopeful Wolves fans saw this team ending the regular season, but a playoff berth is a playoff berth in the eyes of fans waiting a generation for their team to get back in the postseason.

Now hopefully they don’t get embarrassed by the Rockets in round one. My prediction: Wolves steal a home game, but the Rockets blow them out for three of their four wins and take the series in five games.