The Minnesota Timberwolves are the perennial ‘League pass team’ for many basketball fans across the world. They are young, full of exciting talents such as Zach LaVine and they play really hard every night. Despise these seemingly useful positives coming from a team that no expectations on them, there are some negatives coming out of the season. Sam Mitchell is fiery and comes across as somewhat arrogant in his press conferences, especially when he is asked about the offence or his rotation decisions. After 20 games, Mitchell can expect even more questions about the teams offensive system because it has frankly been dismal to watch and it is hampering the development of these young players.

Rotations for a team like this don’t bother me a ton in first half of season. Offense is very basic. That’s my gripe https://t.co/kjMn260F7M — Zach Harper (@talkhoops) December 12, 2015

Zach Harper of CBS Sports best sums up the Timberwolves offence in the tweet embedded above, it is most certainly basic and it is completely uninspiring. Sam Mitchell has said on many occasions he is against drawing up a lot of three point shots for this team on the basis that no other teams do it. This statement is not only completely wrong, but it also suggests that the former Raptors coach has no idea how to get the best out of the roster.

The group doesn’t have any real lockdown distance shooters but people like Wiggins, Towns and LaVine have it in their lockers, questions need to be asked as to why they aren’t being allowed to showcase this side of their games. Only Brooklyn attempt less threes per game and they don’t have anywhere near the amount of raw talent Minnesota do, it doesn’t make any sense.

Minnesota’s offensive possessions usually start with the Horns set up, it is somewhat archaic in Modern basketball and it often creates stagnant basketball due to the lack of off ball action. The horns set up often leads to less three pointers and there is a sense of rigidity about the play calling from this set. Minnesota nearly always run it and the basketball ends up with a mid range shot around 40% of the time according to NBAMiner.com .

Horns Basketball set courtesy of CoachesClipboard.com

A team with so much raw talent and raw shooting ability should not be shooting an inordinate amount of mid range jump shots, there are better looks to be had and Mitchell needs to modernise this offence. It shouldn’t matter that this is only a developmental year for these players, not having a true offensive system in place means this year isn’t being utilised to its full potential. The offence looks better than it is because players like Andrew Wiggins are able to knock down ‘bad looks’ more often than other players. This causes us to go on a lot of streaky runs during games which means a lot of leads are blown and gained. Rotations are not important for this season and the only real complaint we can have over Mitchell is the outdated offence. Sadly for him and for us loyal fans, this is a huge problem which could cause a collapse later on in the season.

Sam Mitchell is getting the team to play hard and the defence is good, sadly the other end is causing the team to blow leads and this surfaced against Denver last night. Giving the ball to Wiggins over and over again in crunch time will not always work, there needs to be more of an offensive plan. Mitchell is not the kind of man who adapts for anyone so Wolves fans shouldn’t be expecting anything any time soon. The hope is that his contract doesn’t get extended and someone with a bit more of an offensive mind comes in to try and sort the team out on that end, the defence will coach itself within this group of players.