AbeVigodaLive wrote:FNG wrote:Here's some red meat from Jon K for the "doom and gloom" guys here...this might push you guys a little further out on the ledge!
https://theathletic.com/4218285/2023/02/17/nba-timberwolves-mike-conley/?source=weeklyemail&campaign=602288
A tragic 4th quarter led to our 6th straight loss to the Wizards during a period where they have not exactly been a dominant team. I'm going to give the Wolves a pass on this one though. Conley's comments after the game were telling...he said he was emotionally and physically drained after the turmoil of the post-trade week. Anybody here who either had or has young kids (and Conley has three...two in school) has to understand how having to uproot your family and make plans for a move to a new city can be draining. We can choose to mock him for that statement, or take him at face value and assume we will have a much more energized and focused Mike Conley after the break. In any event, we needed his leadership when the Wizards switched to a zone in the 4th, and instead the ball seemed to be in SloMo's or Ant's hands most of the quarter...and SloMo's missed 2 footers and Ant's turnovers didn't help. I'm not at all holding Conley faultless though...he needs to step up and right the ship when it's floundering, and he didn't. But I'm going to accept his reasons for his poor 4th quarter and look forward to better games.
I can't help but wonder if you would be so forgiving to D. Russell after he had a rough +/- night... other circumstances be damned.
[Note: One of the hazards of selling the farm is (1) what to do with Russell's contract (2) and if you choose to trade him, (3) accepting that the new guy is going to take time to gel with new teammates even though the team can't really risk any more losses. I don't blame Conley for his slow beginning in Minnesota. This entire season is on Tim Connelly... whether it ends well or embarrassingly terrible... it's all on him.]
First of all Abe, Conley was only a -3 in that game despite not scoring a single point. I might have organized a parade for DLo if he ever had an on/off number that good!
But you don't need to wonder...of course I would not be as forgiving of Russell if he had a poor night as I am of Conley! Conley has demonstrated throughout his career that he is a winner who makes his teammates better (the win-loss record of the teams he has played on is extraordinary, despite the fact he has always played on very small market teams), so I'm more likely to cut him some slack when he has a bad game like the last one...and going 0-6 from the field is definitely a bad game. But I'm not nearly as forgiving about a bad game from a guy whose teams have regularly throughout his entire career performed better when he was off the court than when he was on. My forgiveness has its limits...