Timberwolves Thoughts

With the 2013 NBA Draft coming up on Thursday I'm feeling compelled to voice a few thoughts on my favorite team, the Minnesota Timberwolves.  I keep hearing some rather outlandish trade rumors involving them and it's honestly making me a little nervous.  Their problem last year wasn't so much lack of talent as much as it was the fact that they couldn't stay healthy.  Their best player, Kevin Love, missed most of the year due to injury.  Their second best player, Ricky Rubio, missed much of the early part of the season and only seemed to be back at full strength down the stretch.  Brandon Roy, who they signed to play OG, never panned out.  Chase Budinger who was brought in to provide some outside shooting missed most of the season.  Nikola Peckovic & Andrei Kirlenko both also missed stretches of time.  Josh Howard was also signed during the season to provide depth and he immediately got hurt and was never a factor.  It was almost comical.  Had they all stayed healthy I'm convinced they could have won an additional 10-15 games (at a minimum).  I really don't see the need for drastic changes.  With a healthy K-Love & Ricky Rubio they will be set at the PF and PG spots.  Pekovic looked great when he was healthy, I really hope they sign him to an extension.  If so, that leaves them pretty well set at 3 of their 5 starting spots.  I also liked the way Andrei Kirlenko played, while limited athletically, he just does so many of the little things well, many of which don't seem to go unnoticed, I'd be happy to see him back at the SF spot (albeit at a lower salary).  Derrick Williams had a much better 2nd season and is still just 21 years old, he can provide some nice depth in the front court at either forward spot.  IMO it would be much too early to give up on him (unless they do very well in a trade for him).  Alexey Shved showed a lot of promise as a rookie, I suspect that he will continue to improve as he adjusts to the NBA game, he can also play either guard spot which provides depth in the backcourt.  I would also love to see them bring back Budinger, his game is really a good fit with Rubio and Love, I'd like to see what the three of them could do if all healthy.  If they could somehow keep that nucleus together (and healthy) and somehow find an OG, then make a few other tweaks, I think that they'd be fine.  They do have some trade chips available to make a few moves, they've got 2 first round and 2 second round draft picks available, plus they've got Luke Ridnour & J.J. Barea available for trade and they both have some value.  I could see them maybe packaging a few of those assets together to either move up in the draft or trading for an established player.  I'm hoping for the best at this point and I'm confident that Flip Saunders will make the right moves.  It'll be interesting to see what happens.