As Losing Mounts, Wolves' Mitchell Sees Progress
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Six in a row. Ten of their last 11. Eighteen of their last 22.
That is a lot of losing.
"Yeah, definitely it's hard," Wolves forward Shabazz Muhammad said. "It's the NBA, and everybody's trying to step on your throat. Especially us, [because] we have a lot of young talent on our team."
The Timberwolves play Oklahoma City on Tuesday night, trying to snap yet another long losing streak. Everything they do at this point is about the future, and Coach Sam Mitchell is treating it that way.
But the question is whether what is happening in the present is helping or hurting.
Kind of like how you do not want a young quarterback to get sacked too many times early in his career, you have to wonder about the effect all the losing is having on all their young players -- especially their confidence -- and whether that might stunt their development.
To that, Mitchell had a pretty good answer.
"Well then guess what? They shouldn't be here," Mitchell said. "Because all the teams that are winning right now, they lost at some point. Those young guys had to get better. I tell our guys all the time, we learn more about them going through tough times than we're ever going to find out good times," Mitchell said. "Good times, you know what we find out? Everybody can enjoy good times. Everybody's on the bus during the good times. But the people you want on your team are the tried and true and tested people. People who have been through some things."
And this might be the biggest thing here: Mitchell is speaking from experience.
"I've been through it in Toronto," Mitchell said. "My first two years in Toronto, we put more onus on the young guys and developing them …Their third year we took off, won the division, made the playoffs."
It appears that message is getting through to his players, despite how hard the mounting losses are to experience.
"We've just got to keep maturing and that's something that we've got to stay patient with," Muhammad said. "But I know we're going to be a good team, and that's something that we're going to keep in our minds."
And Mitchell remains ever optimistic.
"In the back of my mind, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel," Mitchell said.
Tipoff for the Wolves and Thunder is 7 p.m. at Target Center.
