LaVine's negative impact on Wolves' win-loss record when he's playing is puzzling

After all the sifting, sorting and calculating are finished, sports tends to be very bottom-line oriented.

Did you win or did you lose?

For the Timberwolves this season, that question has had an interesting answer based on the presence or absence of one player: Zach LaVine.

With LaVine on the floor this season, the Wolves are 16-31. When LaVine has missed games — one early in the year, two more along the way and then the past 16 with a torn ACL that will keep him out for the rest of the season — Minnesota was 12-7 entering Wednesday's game in Boston.

It has created somewhat of a strange question: Why do the Timberwolves appear to be a better team without LaVine, one of their best scorers and a heralded member of the "Big Three" along with Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins?

As is often the case, the strange question doesn't have a perfect answer.

• A popular notion is that for as many strides as LaVine has made on offense — he was averaging close to 19 points per game when he was injured, and he has had binges with massive totals — his defense is still far below par. LaVine himself is aware of this, having joked in January that he would play his best defense as a birthday present for head coach Tom Thibodeau. Because of his poor defense, LaVine's net rating (minus-3.5) is the worst on the team. When a player with such a poor net rating is playing 37 minutes (more than three quarters) of every game, the results might not be pretty.

• That leads us to a more complicated suggestion that the Wolves more or less just fit together better in their current alignment — with veteran Brandon Rush having taken over the starting role for LaVine. This is perhaps harder to quantify, but anyone who has watched the Wolves lately could make that argument.

Towns and Wiggins were already standout offensive players, but in the 16 games entering Wednesday since LaVine's injury they have been even better. Towns is averaging 28.9 points and 13.4 rebounds (compared to 23 points and 11.9 rebounds before). Wiggins has scored 25.6 ppg (compared to 22.1 before). Ricky Rubio has been magnificent in that span, too — averaging 13 points and 11 assists while attempting 10 field goals per game. Before LaVine's injury? Rubio averaged 8.6 points, 8.2 assists and just 6.6 field goal attempts per game.

The uptick in scoring from those three players, plus whatever Rush contributes on offense, has more than compensated for the loss of LaVine's 19 ppg.

But is that sustainable? And does that really mean the Wolves are "better" without LaVine?

You could make the case that the starting lineup is better with a player like Rush — a veteran with more bulk who can spread the floor, typically makes the right play, is decent on defense and doesn't need to score to be effective but can hit open threes — than LaVine. But you could still decide within that conclusion that LaVine is a valuable player who is perhaps suited for a sixth-man role.