81-1: Week One Overreactions

Last week was some of the best sleep I had gotten in a long time. Climbing into bed with the biggest, dumbest grin on my face, giddily scrolling through my phone on Canis, Reddit, and YouTube, seeing what everyone had to say about just how awesome the Minnesota Timberwolves are. Seriously, it was great.

I would whisper myself to sleep, repeating the mantra “82 and 0, 82 and 0…,” then dream of show-stopping sequences like Ant juggling the ball through traffic and rocking the rim, Melo doing the jump rope shuffle into a one-footed rainbow three, Beringer blocks, Kuminga lobs, TJ step-back threes, and secret handshakes that will be studied by kinesics experts and nonverbal communication researchers for decades. 

There were also dreams of glory, of hoisted hardware, of an “anything is possible” redux with the legend himself, KG, sitting courtside, tears of joy glistening in his eyes. One can dream, but most of these dreams actually did happen, so why not that one as well? 

Why not us?  

Yes, I know the Wolves will officially not be going 82-0 this year, and that’s too bad. I had high hopes we could get it done this year. I’ve reached out to the NBA about reviewing the tape and possibly getting that loss to Cleveland reversed. They haven’t responded, but that’s on them.

Barring a reversal, just because we’re not going 82-0 doesn’t mean we can’t go 81-1, and putting the Cavs debacle aside there is still so much to be giddy about when it comes to this new look Wolves team. So let’s overreact, shall we? No single loss is going to stop us from listening to our hearts on repeat.

The heart is always right.

Best in the West

Is this year’s Wolves squad reminding anyone else of the 95-96 Chicago Bulls? You don’t even have to squint to see that Anthony Edwards is obviously MJ, while Scottie Pippen has undergone some sort of bifurcation process and split off into both LaMelo Ball and Jaden McDaniels. Then you’ve got defensive stalwart and human highlight reel Jonathan Kuminga, the Stifle Tower Rudy Gobert, Ayo Dosunmu, TJ Shannon, the French Prince Joan Beringer – hold up…

Are the Wolves actually better than the 95-96 Bulls? How is that even possible? 

With a small enough sample size, anything is possible.

Also worth noting, in that historic Bulls season, they played their third game at home against the Toronto Raptors, and their next game on the road against…you guessed it…the Cleveland Cavaliers. Of course, unlike us, they beat Cleveland, but they weren’t on the second night of a back-to-back. Just something to consider when we’re comparing our respective places in NBA history.

That Bulls team also still holds the best net rating in NBA history at +13.4. While I do think that’s beatable, I firmly believe the Wolves have a real shot at breaking the NBA record for point differential, previously held by the 2024-25 Oklahoma City Thunder at +12.9 PPG. 

Right now, even with the loss to the Cavs, the Wolves are second in the league in point differential at a still absurd +17 PPG, behind only Micah Nori’s Portland Trail Blazers. We love Micah, but there’s no way his team keeps this up. The Wolves, on the other hand, will, because of the power of friendship and Rudy’s goatee that Chris Finch strokes for good luck when no one is looking.  

If the Wolves continue to not just beat the teams they should beat, but consistently crush them, a double-digit differential is sustainable.

And it wouldn’t hurt to embarrass some of our fellow West contenders while we’re at it. 

By the way, last year’s Melo-led Hornets team had a double-digit point differential from January 3rd onward, and this team is leaps and bounds better than that fun but flawed Hornets squad. To add to that, as those mid-season buzzsaw buzzers were just starting to take flight, one game that especially turned heads was a 27-point drubbing of the Thunder in OKC.

Can we get in on that, please?

Ant is winning MVP

I’ve hitched my wagon to the Ant MVP train, and so far so good. With LaMelo allowing him to slide into his more natural shooting guard position, this fully realized version of Ant has never had this much space to work with. So far, after four games, he’s putting up 33.3 points per game on 72.1% true shooting. Ant has increased both his scoring and true shooting averages every year, which means…cue Disco Stu…

If the Wolves go 81-1, it will be hard not to give him the nod. But if, for whatever reason, something goes horribly wrong and the team finds itself struggling to claw its way to 60 wins, I think those numbers will still suffice, and Ant will have himself his first real piece of NBA hardware.

Ayo 6MOY campaign loading

It’s as simple as this: Ayo is a stud, and the Wolves are going to be the best team to come out of the West. Historically, the studliest bench player on the best team wins Sixth Man of the Year. This isn’t even an overreaction; it’s just the most logical take.

Jaden makes his first all-star game

Your favorite player’s favorite player gets to play on everybody’s favorite night. /s 

Jaden will get a considerable number of player votes. What remains to be seen is how he fares in the fan voting, but with this team’s popularity having skyrocketed, I expect to see some favoritism swing the Wolves’ way. He’s more than earned the recognition.

What’s more, Jaden will win all-star MVP because Ant will continuously feed him the ball, and then at some point Jaden will do this…

Terrence Shannon Jr. will finish top-10 in the league in three-point percentage

Hey, he’s shooting 50% from long-range. Did I see this coming? No. Is it sustainable? Yes. How so? I don’t know. Through Crunch, all things are possible.

We’ve all heard the stories of TJ as a known gym rat. First player to arrive at the gym, last player to leave. It should come as no surprise that a player with his work ethic has managed to add this wrinkle to his game. I, for one, welcome our new three-point overlord.

Elsewhere Around the LeagueMiami Heat will miss the playoffs, again

The Heat are bad. Like, really, really bad. It’s basically Giannis and an assortment of chips, and I guess Bam but sometimes he is so invisible that calling him out at all, I feel, is one acknowledgement too many. And by the way, aren’t you supposed to trade the bag of chips? That’s how we got Ayo. 

From what I’ve seen, this is a play-in team, at best. To all the talking heads out there who think the Heat will be fine: stop it. They will not be fine. They are atrocious, and after the Kalshi shareholder’s stunt in Milwaukee, I choose to bask in the schadenfreude of it all. 

If I go to the gym and the Heat are playing, I will watch the game while on the treadmill and declare myself an honorary member of the 2026-27 Miami Heat.

Ty Jerome for Most Improved Player is a lock 

Who had Ty Jerome averaging nearly 30 points per game on the 4-0 Memphis Grizzlies on their bingo card? And if you did, have you ever actually played bingo before?

With Ja finally gone, the Grizzlies are no longer just “fine in the West”. They’re on a roll, with Ty as the engine. He’s always been a bucket getter, but for the first time in his career he’s getting a chance to really let it fly, putting up nearly 20 shots a game (his previous high was 8.8 two seasons ago on the Cavs).

From logo threes to his signature floater, there’s no reason to believe he won’t keep his scoring output at least in the low-to-mid-20 point-per-game range. And if the Grizzlies keep winning, this race is all but over.    

Denver is on life support 

I will admit to this very much being confirmation bias. 

It doesn’t help that the Nuggets got absolutely dismantled the other night at home by a Golden State Warriors team we all project to be pretty bad this season. But the Nuggets peaked in 2023, and they haven’t done much to disabuse that notion.

While they still might win enough games purely on the back of professional horse whisperer Nikola Jokić, they are nowhere near the top-4 and should probably be looking over their shoulder at those pesky Memphis Grizzlies and Portland Trail Blazers nipping at their heels. However the regular season pans out, I’m just not buying it.

The top two West teams are not who we thought they were

With OKC’s devastating key injuries (Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace are expected to miss several months, if not the entire season), the sky isn’t falling for them, but it is lowering considerably and moving quickly while doing so. 

Meanwhile, the San Antonio Spurs’ rather clunky start is showing us that progress is indeed not linear. Even if they are choosing to cruise to the playoffs, that could make things awfully contentious in the upper bracket of the Western Conference as the rest of the season shakes out. 

The Houston Rockets have been the most impressive team in the West so far, besides the Wolves, of course. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if those four teams are the ones wrestling for top seeding. 

Obviously, the Wolves will be sitting comfortably in first, 20 or so games ahead of the next tier of teams when it’s all said and done. 81-1 is undefeated. That made more sense in my head.

Yaxel Lendeborg could be the first player to retire during his rookie season due to having lost all respect for the league

When asked what contributed to his surprise decision to leave the NBA so abruptly, Lendeborg simply said, “I ain’t no h**.”

Editor’s note: Technically, Gene Melchiorre retired from the NBA after his point-shaving scandal in college was discovered. Despite being the first overall pick, he had no way of fighting the story and walked away before Maurice Podoloff banned himNow, you have faces of the league convincing people to gamble their savings away on prediction markets with no repercussions.That’s sad.

What are your overreactions to the first week of NBA play? Do you agree that the Wolves will finish 81-1? Have you also reached out to the league about the Cavs game? Sound off in the comments below.