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Mercifully, the season will end soon for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Currently with a record of 17-62, the Wolves have a better record compared to last year, but yet, somehow, this season was much more disappointing. While nobody expected them to compete for a championship or even a playoff berth this year, acquiring a significant amount more talent in the off-season gave hope maybe the team was about to begin the upswing.

"It’s taken us a long time to figure this out, and we, as a team, are still trying to figure it out because we have a lot of new players since the beginning of the season we’re still trying to figure out how to win games," Darko Milicic told HOOPSWORLD. "It’s not fun losing games. We’ve been through that all season long, so we’re still trying to work hard, play hard. A lot of games we’ve lost this year have been buy just a few points against good teams, then the next game we come out against a worst team and we just give up, we just lose by 30. It’s insane. It’s obvious we can do it, we just have to come out and do it."

It’s been another long season in Minnesota and, as a whole, the highlight of the year was the Kevin Love’s double-double streak. While it was an amazing streak for Love, if that is the highlight of your team’s season you know there is a lot of work still to come.

"People usually try to throw it onto our age and us being a young team, but I think it’s really just us not focusing and not executing during the crunch time of the game," Wes Johnson said. "We play a good 42 minutes, but the last six minutes we’ll lose focus, lose our composure and just give it away. We just need to buckle down, and we need those one or two pieces that will help us finish our games off."

Throughout the season the Timberwolves players have always said the right things. However, recently there are hints there may be issues they have been able to hide.

"We just have to try to get more guys on the same page," said Anthony Tolliver. "We just keep doing the same stuff and that’s what’s so frustrating. The same mistakes are getting us."

Without question, it’s understandable when a young team takes time to develop. Yet when there isn’t much noticeable growth throughout the season, there is a problem. While the team may not label them as "excuses" for a disappointing season, they do seem as such when definitive answers to the team’s woes are few and far between.

"When you have the youngest team in the league, and we have ten, now eleven new guys on the team so it’s very, very difficult to get everybody on the same page and doing the right things, playing the right way and playing together on both ends of the floor," Head Coach Kurt Rambis said. "That combination of the amount of new people that we have, the youth that we have, it was going to be a difficult season if everything went perfect. Then you have the injury factors that have gone on with this ball club, a lot of illnesses and family matters that have gone on. That happens to every team, but it’s more disruptive to a team that’s not solidified, and we’re not anywhere near that. That’s kind of the season that we’ve had. It’s been real up and down with all those kinds of things."

{AUTHOR_BOX}The heightened but tempered excitement coming into the season was justified. The Timberwolves were able to bring in a good group of players who better fit the philosophy in which they state they want to play. In order to compete, especially in the Western Conference, they became a much longer, more athletic team with high ambitions. While some believe youth is a major factor in holding them back, it may be stated more correctly their youthful ways off the court is the true issue.

"Guys really wanted it bad, but not necessarily understanding what it takes to be good because they just haven’t been playing this game that long," Martell Webster said. "It comes with experience and that’s pretty much the only way to explain it. Seasoned with experience, you start to understand things and you start to get more of a sense of urgency and the things you thought really mattered don’t. They become non-existent."

Webster, who is one of the oldest players on the team at the 25, was a part of a team in Portland, before coming to Minnesota, full of young players who play the right way. Of course, they also had a fine veteran presence on the team to help mentor those youthful players, which is something the Timberwolves lack. That is why it is imperative for the front office in Minnesota to address that issue in the off-season.

"All young guys want to be the top scorers in the league," said Webster. "They don’t understand what it takes to win. You have to let them flush that out. … Just hope they get it out of their systems fast. Then you can move on."

There are many areas to upgrade for the Minnesota Timberwolves this off-season. With the impending lockout keeping players away from the game in an official capacity, this may be a time for each player on Minnesota’s roster to use the time wisely. Hopefully, a silver-lining of the lockout will force the young players on the Timberwolves to work on their individual games, only to come together as a better team whenever the potential lockout ends.

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