The Timberwolves are 7-3 through 10 games, and they will have that record for the next handful of hours before playing Golden State (minus Kevin Durant) out at their place Wednesday.
Because I like numbers and have an unusual fascination with Timberwolves history, I had to look back at how that mark compares with the 10-game records compiled by every Wolves team that has ever existed going back to 1989-90.
Counting this year, there are 29 seasons in all. And, as you might expect, the news was (mostly) not good. Here are some of the takeaways:
*The Wolves have only had a winning record after 10 games in seven of their 29 seasons in history. Four of those were 6-4 starts. This year marks their only 7-3 start. The 1998-99 team started 8-2 before Stephon Marbury forced his way out via a trade. The 2001-02 team started 9-1 for the best 10-game record in franchise history.
*Oddly enough, the best team in franchise history — the 2003-04 squad that went 58-24 and reached the conference finals — is not among the seven. That team started 5-5, as did four other Wolves teams in history.
*And then we get to the 17 Wolves teams that had losing records through 10 games. The most common 10-game record in franchise history is 3-7. And sadly, tied for the second-most common 10-game record in Wolves history is 1-9, which has happened five times — most recently in 2009-10.
*If you prefer to look at things in the big picture, here is a graph on a continuum of every 10-game start in franchise history (in each case, the year noted is the year a season ended, so 2001-02 would be marked as 2002 and so on).
You can see pretty much what you'd expect: the early years were lousy, the bulk of the KG era was pretty good, then things got pretty depressing and now they're inching upward again.
