The Minnesota Timberwolves<\/strong> had one goal entering the 2014 NBA offseason: trade Kevin Love. They successfully accomplished that goal, striking a deal with the new-look Cleveland Cavaliers\u2014and as a result, they have a drastically different look entering the 2014-15 NBA\u00a0gambling<\/strong>\u00a0season. Cappers Picks provides free NBA HOOPS handicapping tips all season long. <\/p>\n Western Conference<\/strong> Kevin Love \u2013 This one is obvious. Kevin Love is gone, and the entire look of the Minnesota Timberwolves franchise has shifted. As good as Love has been\u2014and don\u2019t get us wrong, he\u2019s been great\u2014this team actually got a decent return (but more on that later).<\/p>\n In the short term, this group is losing out on a player who was an automatic double-double machine, could score and rebound with the best of them and is a threat from deep range. There\u2019s no making up for the loss this season, but long-term success will be better with a trade than a free-agent departure. Rick Adelman \u2013 The other key loss for this group can be found on the sidelines. Hall-of-Famer Rick Adelman is officially retired, meaning Flip Saunders is in as the lead man.<\/p>\n Mo Williams \u2013 We\u2019ll start in chronological order here. Before the Kevin Love trade was ever made official, the team brought in Mo Williams in free agency.<\/p>\n The point guard\/shooting guard (combo guard?) won\u2019t be a true difference maker when it comes to making the playoffs or not making the playoffs, but he\u2019ll be a consistent threat from outside, especially considering his willingness to launch from downtown on a regular basis.<\/p>\n Andrew Wiggins \u2013 This is the big one. Kevin love is out, and while there\u2019s no replacing him this season, Andrew Wiggins will attempt to become the newest franchise player in Minnesota. Will he replace Love\u2019s stats this season? Not a chance. Anthony Bennett \u2013 Anthony Bennett was a bust in his rookie season. That said, he\u2019s finding his game entering his second year. His 2014 summer league gave him experience as a go-to option, and if second impressions mean anything at all, he\u2019s getting into shape, which is the best news of all.<\/p>\n Thadeus Yonung \u2013 Despite all odds, Minnesota brought back a solid group of players for Kevin Love. That group includes Thadeus Young, who was actually a go-to option at times for the Philadelphia 76ers last season.<\/p>\n Quite frankly, all you have to do is look at the four players we just mentioned when looking for the best players on this roster. This is a roster that is going to need improvement over the next few years to succeed, but there is one other player to mention\u2026 Youth and athleticism is all of a sudden a strength of this group. Will that translate to wins right away? Probably not. But it will create for exciting basketball, and it will create for a few high-scoring games when you least expect it.<\/p>\n Youth and athleticism, while a strength at this point in the rebuild, will also be the downfall of this organization in 2014-15. This is a group that was actually improved in 2013-14, but while an increase in wins is a positive, the Western Conference is only getting better.<\/p>\n Look for this team to be better\u2014much better\u2014in the next three-to-five years. Unfortunately for this group, that doesn\u2019t include the 2014-15 season.<\/p>\n Andrew Wiggins will be one of the top rookies of the upcoming campaign, and he\u2019ll be one of the best players on this team. The problem is that he\u2019s not going to be a LeBron James-esque player quite yet, and that\u2019s not good enough to lead this group to the playoffs just yet in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n [dfads params=’groups=63706&limit=1&return_javascript=0′]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0Timberwolves NBA\u00a0Picks The Minnesota Timberwolves had one goal entering the 2014 NBA offseason: trade Kevin Love. They successfully accomplished that goal, striking a deal with the new-look Cleveland Cavaliers\u2014and as a result, they have a drastically different look entering the 2014-15 NBA\u00a0gambling\u00a0season. Cappers Picks provides free NBA HOOPS handicapping tips all season long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":986,"featured_media":82693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[63714,5121,63721,63730,1595,3942,749,36294,63729],"class_list":["post-81914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","tag-2014-15-nba-season","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-minnesota-timberwolves-predictions","tag-minnesota-timberwolves-season-preview","tag-nba-gambling","tag-nba-handicapping","tag-nba-odds","tag-timberwolves-predictions","tag-timberwolves-season-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/986"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81914"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82895,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81914\/revisions\/82895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
2014-15 Minnesota Timberwolves<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n2013-14 Record: 40-42 (24-17 @ Home) .488<\/strong>
\nT-Wolves Betting Odds to win Title: 150\/1<\/strong>
\nT-Wolves Betting Odds to win Conference: 75\/1<\/strong>
\n[dfads params=’groups=63740&limit=1&orderby=random&return_javascript=1′]<\/p><\/blockquote>\nTimberwolves Key Losses<\/h3>\n
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\nBut when it comes to 2014-15, don\u2019t expect much out of this group.<\/p>\nTimberwolves Top Newcomers<\/h3>\n
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\nBut he has the talent on both ends of the floor to lead this team to success down the road, and that\u2019s all this franchise can ask for considering Love was as good as gone in the 2015 free-agent period\u2014or earlier.<\/p>\nTimberwolves Top Players<\/h3>\n
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\nRicky Rubio \u2013 Ricky Rubio is a distributor on offense and a pesky defender on the other end. He\u2019s not exactly a franchise player at this point in his career, but he\u2019s going to become a leader with Love gone.<\/p>\nTimberwolves Strengths<\/h3>\n
Timberwolves Weaknesses<\/h3>\n
Timberwolves 2014 Betting Prediction<\/h3>\n