At Their Core The Wolves Could Be The Second Best In The West

The Warriors are hands down the king of the West, there isn't one team that has a realistic shot to dethrone them, but the question is who fills the second spot?

On paper, the Wolves have put together an impressive roster and may have the second most impressive core in the West. That doesn't mean that they'll get the number two seed come playoff time but they're very likely to be a 50 win team.

If you put the Wolves core roster next to the other top teams in the West, there's really only a few spots that they don't edge out on top.

Wolves: 1.) Teague 2.) Butler 3.) Wiggins 4.) Gibson 5.) Anthony-Towns 6.) Crawford 7.) Dieng

Spurs: 1.) Parker 2.) Green 3.) Leonard 4.) Aldridge 5.) Gasol 6.) Mills 7.) Gay/Ginobili

Rockets: 1.) Paul 2.) Harden 3.) Ariza 4.) Anderson 5.) Capela 6.) Gordon 7.) Nene

Thunder: 1. Westbrook 2.) Roberson 3.) George 4.) Patterson 5.) Adams 6.) Kantar 7.) Singler?

As hard as it is for other fans to admit, one has to look at this roster and be afraid of the talent on it. The Wolves clearly have the top 7 most talented players in my opinion.

The only team that's close is the Spurs but all of their core other than Leonard are old, some very old. 35, 30, 31, 37, 39 and 28 to be exact. However, the Spurs have such a deep bench and such great coaching that it's hard to say that Minnesota could beat them.

While the Rockets and Thunder both have two superstars on the roster, their other options are pretty thin. I couldn't even think of who will be the second guy off the bench for the Thunder, I had to pull up the roster to think about it.

The area that the Wolves need to improve is after the second player off the bench. After Dieng, there isn't really much coming off the bench to get excited about. If they can go out and get a veteran to give them some quality minutes off the bench, this team will be scary.