lipoli390 wrote:Q-was-here wrote:kekgeek1 wrote:lipoli390 wrote:https://twitter.com/devinthelab/status/1597001247436914689?s=42&t=JroBKuD4c-B-c5-iKKewWg
Rudy has some rough clips no doubt but I will say for the most part Rudy has held up his end of the trade.
Leads nba in rebounding, #2 in the amongst center defending the rim only behind Turner, wolves are a 90th percentile team in defense (elite) when Rudy is on the floor and 32nd percentile defensive team with Rudy off the floor (below average), Rudy is also shooting a career high from the line on his career average on attempts.
At the end of the day this franchise goes how Ant goes and Ant has not improved and goes in and out of games, Kat/Jmac/dlo/Nowell/Forbes/rivers all shooting a career low from 3. Let that sink in 6 players with 4 or more years of NBA experience shooting a career low from 3. Wolves shooting 28% from 3 in losses this year what is absolutely pathetic, for reference wolves shot 33% last year from 3 in losses.
At the end of the day the wolves go how Ant goes and his lack of improvement this year so far is troubling.
I will still defend Rudy though because wolves have been an elite defensive team with Rudy on the floor statistically and have fallen off when he is off the floor. Also he leads the nba in rebounding. So for the love of god can someone else box out
Good stuff Kek.
Yeah, I think folks are nit-picking the fact that we are trying to get the ball to Rudy and involve him more in the offense, which has had mixed success and looked clunky at times.
BTW, Ant's lack of improvement would have been just as troubling without the Rudy trade. Middling draft picks weren't going to save us then either. It's an unfortunate reality - not all players improve on a linear path and some stagnate after just a season or two. Let's hope with Ant that he's on the non-linear path...still so young.
Rudy's defensive stats overstate his contribution to the Wolves in my view. Among other things, they fail to fully capture the negative impact he has on the team's offense and overall chemistry. Those stats also fail to reflect the negative impact of losing the players the Wolves traded to get him. Last night against a good team with its best players in the game provided a more realistic account of Gobert's defensive contribution. And regarding Gobert's rebounding, I'll mention again the fact that Rudy is pulling in rebounds that KAT used to get - exact same area of the floor. He's just a better at it than KAT, but the net impact on team rebounding isn't there and that's what matters. We're not getting the longer rebounds and loose balls - not getting the 8.5 rebounds we were getting from the mobile Vando flying around or the 4.5 rebounds we got from Beverley. It wasn't imperative to keep those two particular players, but those are the types of players we need around KAT.
More important, however, is the fact that we didn't and couldn't know how much the 20 year old Edwards would improve or whether he'll ever become a star. Same for McDaniels. As Draymond Green and others have said, Edwards becoming a star was the key to whether the Gobert deal would be a success. I think that was one key, but not the only one. The folly of the deal has never been about middling draft picks saving us. It's been about preserving assets and using them to take this team to the next level at a time when we know what level the team is currently at. Last year's late season success didn't provide a solid enough foundation for those judgments. Then it's about using those assets to add players who are optimal fits for the team we already have. I've always thought the Gobert deal was the wrong deal at the wrong time because we didn't know enough about the young team we had after last season and because Rudy's fit was at least questionable - not to mention the fact that Gobert is 10 years older than our most talented player.
Watching how the Wolves coaching staff is attempting to use Gobert offensively in ways he's never been used is telling. It suggests that the Wolves organization premised the trade in part of their mistaken belief that they could get materially more from Gobert than all those well-coached Jazz teams over the past 8 years. It was a classic example of smartest guy in the room syndrome. There's a reason no other team was willing to give up anything close to what the Wolves gave up for Rudy. If the Wolves put Rudy on the trade market right now I wonder what they'd get? Any realistic answer to that question provides the most telling insight into the folly of the trade.
Maybe the Wolves will turn things around in the next couple months. The team's talent is definitely better than the team's quality of play. That fact alone offers a glimmer of hope. But if it were up to me, I'd trade Rudy for as many pennies on the dollar as we can get - a good player or two and a couple future first-round picks if possible. I'd sign Garza and put a team on the floor that plays hard all the time - a team that's fun to watch. Right now, watching the Wolves play is the antithesis of fun.
Teams that lose eventually stop being fun to watch no matter how hard they play.
As fun as last year's team was, I also have a feeling we would have hated them too if they remained intact.
