Analytics support Timberwolves' claim that they aren't tanking rest of season

Gersson Rosas offered a pointed rebuttal last week to those who say the Wolves are tanking — maybe not losing on purpose, but not doing everything in their power to win — in order to enhance their draft position.

I'll buy it for a couple of reasons, which we'll get to in a minute, though there's this: The Wolves are 7-34 since Dec. 1, the worst record in the NBA during that three-month stretch. If people think Minnesota is tanking instead of just organically that bad, perhaps Rosas should be flattered instead of annoyed.

"I wouldn't say it gets under my skin, but it's just disappointing when you don't have all the facts," Rosas told the Star Tribune's Chris Hine of the tanking accusations. "The reality is if individuals knew what was going on behind the scenes, how hard our coaches are working, our players are working — that's the disappointing part because I think it's disrespectful to them and what they're putting in."

To that end, Rosas is right. The Wolves have stressed systems and process over results all season, and there is a difference between actively trying to lose — you know, like when Mark Madsen shot seven three-pointers in the final game of the 2005-06 Wolves season — and having it be the more or less natural byproduct of rebuilding.

And as bad as the Wolves' overall record is (17-42, third-worst in the NBA), they fare better when taking a deeper look. For example, Basketball Reference tracks a team metric called "Simple Rating System" that takes into account point differential and strength of schedule. The Wolves are actually ahead of eight teams in SRS, including seven of them in the dismal bottom half of the Eastern Conference.

Nobody knows the Wolves' true motivation this season, and it is true that Minnesota is incentivized to capitalize on this year's draft after dealing away its 2021 first-round pick as part of the trade that sent out Andrew Wiggins and brought in D'Angelo Russell.

But they pass the test of being simultaneously better than they look and bad enough to lose without trying — at least until they sign Madsen for the rest of the season.

• • •

If the hope is that Lindsay Whalen's Gophers women's basketball team can make a leap from Year 2 to Year 3 similar to the one the football program made under P.J. Fleck, the outcome Sunday in the regular-season finale at Williams Arena was pretty discouraging.

The Gophers were drubbed 99-44 by Maryland — a far cry from the Fleck-led upset at Wisconsin in 2018 to end that regular season. Maybe Whalen can engineer some better outcomes in the Big Ten tournament starting Wednesday.

• • •

The Wild entered Sunday with a 57.6% chance of making the postseason, per Hockey Reference. As someone who checks on that number more than he should, I can't recall it being that high in months.

• • •

I'm interested to see what Rachel Banham brings to the Lynx. She played just 12.8 minutes per game for Connecticut in 2018, her best WNBA season, but Banham made 37% of her three-pointers and put up huge advanced stats — including an offensive rating of 121.0 that was good for seventh in the entire league, just below Sue Bird and just above Diana Taurasi.

She followed that up with a disappointing 2019 season, which is likely part of the reason she was available — similar to how Whalen had her best year with the Sun in 2008, dipped a little in 2009 and was traded that offseason to the Lynx.