It will be a daunting start for the Timberwolves this season, with Giannis Antentokounmpo and Miami Heat first up but Lewis says the team are ready for the challenge.<\/p>\n
“We come out of the gate hard, Miami, Orlando, and then Toronto,” he said.<\/p>\n
“They’ve all got three bruising power forwards, which is one area where we’re a bit light. <\/p>\n
“Everybody’s worried we don’t have size at the four, but Chris [Finch] will figure out how that looks.<\/p>\n
“One of the things Minnesota’s going to be lucky to do is be able to play different ways and the team’s going to be exciting to watch.”<\/p>\n
The ambition is clear for Minnesota and Lewis, the NBA title is the ultimate goal for 2027.<\/p>\n
“We want to make the play-offs and get to the championship games, everybody wants to win a championship, but you’ve got 29 other teams that are trying to do the same thing,” said Lewis. <\/p>\n
“50-plus wins a season is what you want, that puts you in a great position to make the play-offs and to be a contender for that first seed.<\/p>\n
“You don’t ever want to jinx it but everybody’s saying this team has an opportunity to go a long way this year, but you never know, we’ve been close every year. <\/p>\n
“Teams are going to have to adjust to the way Minnesota plays and the personnel we have.”<\/p>\n
In terms of his own predictions for the season, Lewis offered a few suggestions for potential Larry O’Brien trophy winners.<\/p>\n
“It’s one of the things about the NBA at the moment, it’s somewhat unpredictable,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Teams that maybe surge in the regular season but aren’t built to compete in the playoffs. <\/p>\n
“San Antonio could be that team, Minnesota could be that team. <\/p>\n
“We’ve had Denver’s number now for a number of years, other than the year they won it [2023].<\/p>\n
“Who knows what Philly’s going to do with the additions they’ve made.”<\/p>\n
Lewis says an NBA title would mean “so much” to Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
The franchise formed in 1989 as an expansion team, with the supporters patiently waiting to make it to the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n
“Minnesota fans are unbelievable,” he said. <\/p>\n
“It goes way back to Minneapolis Lakers [1947-1960] that are now the Los Angeles Lakers, who did win a championship.<\/p>\n
“As an organisation, being able to win in that environment against a bigger market team is always a huge success. <\/p>\n
“It’s more for the city, it would be an amazing accomplishment.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It will be a daunting start for the Timberwolves this season, with Giannis Antentokounmpo and Miami Heat first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":938429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-938428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/938429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}