Brian Scalabrine

Minnesota.

No, I think Minnesota has been...

they've been my stealth title to contender the entire year, but I would still, the pedigree of Jokic and Murray, and I just want to see how they look and what lineups they can play now that everybody is back.

And, you know, Watson is probably their best individual defender.

Aaron Gordon is right there with him.

Brown is fine.

He's just a little overtaxed.

Like he's not that good at the point of attack.

He's not going to stop like an Anthony Edwards.

He's, he's okay getting around screens, et cetera.

They don't play those three guys together hardly ever because I think they've concluded it's not viable offensively.

I wonder if they might dabble in Watson, Gordon, and Christian Brown altogether.

Cam Johnson is starting to find a rhythm again.

So it doesn't feel like it's going to be their year.

And whatever chance I thought they had of winning the West before the season would shrink by now.

But I just can't ever dismiss a team with Jokic and health around him.

Even...

They had a recent game against the Blazers that they won.

It was too close for comfort.

But there were just very basic communication breakdowns where one guy would switch and another guy wouldn't, or two guys would rotate to the same guy and look at each other like, wait, I thought... I know you guys have had a lot of injuries, but this is an experienced team.