lipoli390 wrote:I'll add to my last comment the following thought. A number of folks have complained that the Wolves have done a poor job of developing players over the years. So I'll come back to a point I've made before that the keys to player development are opportunity and patience. The successful player development we've seen from organizations like the Spurs and Warriors hasn't resulted from some special wizard coaches on their payrolls. Those organizations have done a great job of identifying young talent and then they've done an equally terrific job of given their young talent the opportunity to play and showing patience as they developed. I agree that a culture of accountability is important. But there's something I'd call a culture of patience. The organizations that excel at player development have it. Kevin Looney is a great recent example of the Warriors culture of patience.
The Wolves have shown recent signs since the Rosas regime of adopting that culture of patience. I think they've shown it with Nowell and I believe it's about to pay off. They need to do the same with McDaniels, who came to the League younger and less experienced that Nowell. I want to see the same patience with Bolmaro, Kessler and Moore.
* We were patient with Wiggins. He was decent for six or seven years, but never became great. We couldn't wait any longer.
* We were patient with Rubio. That damn outside shot never developed....unless he played for another team of course!
* We were patient with Okogie. Again, the shot never materialized. I consider him to be one of the biggest disappointments in recent Wolves history to be honest. He would be a $10-15M per year player if he could hit the corner 3, yet the Wolves and Josh could not move the needle even one tick up in his entire Wolves tenure. That is just pathetic for someone that showed promise as a shooter in college.
* I'll even bring KAT into the equation here. How much better is he really now vs. Year 2 or 3? He started out really good....and he's still really good. Never took that next step like Jokic and Embiid. Remember that KAT was a guy a lot of GMs said they'd start a team from scratch with earlier in his career. That is definitely not the case anymore. He's incapable of playing drop coverage without making the wrong decision half the time - not good for an NBA starting Center.
* Jaden McDaniels....still early, but not a good sign that he shot the 3 worse in year 2 vs. year 1. Seen this movie before. We need him to knock down that shot if he is going to be playing mostly the 3. Again, work in progress, etc.
* Kevon Looney....I really wonder if he would be nearly as well regarded on a different team. I just think the planets aligned for him last season with the surrounding pieces and he was a great fit. Not sure how that looks like in a different context.
I certainly hope the Rosas-Gupta-Connelly thread of POBOs has us pointed in the right direction, but I'm still suffering from PTSD from our long and sordid history as a franchise.
