Unfortunately it's looking more and more like it Tannenbaum. After seeing AB hit the navy seals program and stay healthy, I thought for sure we got a steal from the Cavs. But he's showing very few signs of greatness, not even starter level play, I think getting Payne means AB is done this year.
I am really starting to understand what Cool was so upset about. How can some of you continually rip AB a new one when his stats easily compare to Young's. While Young is more efficient (and still below average) offensively, AB blows him away in rebounding and guarding the PnR. The biggest problem I see with AB is that when he does post up, we aren't getting him the ball. A lot of that has to do with our lack of a true PG backing Rubio up. It is amazing that several of you had no problem making excuses for Young not having our starters next to him, but AB not only has the bench guys with him the majority of the time, but he had third stringers out there for a good portion of his minutes as well. Coming off the bench meant continually changing lineups and no significant ball handler.
Bennett was playing pretty well early on, and still wasn't rewarded with consistent minutes. He may be averaging 16 minutes but he has not seen them doled out evenly like Young has. What if Flip had treated Wiggins the same way when he was in his slump?
I will take the 21 year old with the better skill set making about 60% of the guy getting minutes in front of him. We aren't going to do crap for the rest of this year, and likely next, so why haven't we been trying to develop him? Instead Flip is pulling him out regardless of his play, just to get Young back on the floor. If Flip had worried half as much about D as he has offense, we might be holding teams to under 50% FG shooting on most nights. Instead we watch Young continually sell out the D by going for steals, or standing around watching his man offensive rebound, and yet there are no consequences. What kind of message does that send to Bennett.
Jesus Christ, sjm. If I have to read you talk about Bennett's defense as a plus one more time I'm going to go insane. He's awful at pretty much every facet. He looks as confused on defense as he does on offense.
And there's too reasons why Bennett doesn't get a ton of post-ups. He's trash in the post. He also doesn't fight for good position either. How many hooks has he taken this year? Even his face up game is weak. I've seen enough of Bennett catching the ball in the post and settling for that turnaround jumper that he's made ONE of all year. He's not a post threat. THAT is why he doesn't get touches. Not because of who the PG is. Even LaVine is prone to dumping the ball in the post just to get rid of the thing before he makes a mistake. He does so with Pek, Young, Wiggins, Muhammad and Dieng. You're telling me he just doesn't want to feed Bennett there and that's the reason? Give me a break.
And had Flip treated Wiggins with the same role (backup), I'd be inclined to say that he would actually be a productive player despite not having the numbers he has right now. Bennett isn't productive when he's on the court. It's a mess. There's the difference.
sjm34 wrote:I am really starting to understand what Cool was so upset about. How can some of you continually rip AB a new one when his stats easily compare to Young's. While Young is more efficient (and still below average) offensively, AB blows him away in rebounding and guarding the PnR. The biggest problem I see with AB is that when he does post up, we aren't getting him the ball. A lot of that has to do with our lack of a true PG backing Rubio up. It is amazing that several of you had no problem making excuses for Young not having our starters next to him, but AB not only has the bench guys with him the majority of the time, but he had third stringers out there for a good portion of his minutes as well. Coming off the bench meant continually changing lineups and no significant ball handler.
Bennett was playing pretty well early on, and still wasn't rewarded with consistent minutes. He may be averaging 16 minutes but he has not seen them doled out evenly like Young has. What if Flip had treated Wiggins the same way when he was in his slump?
I will take the 21 year old with the better skill set making about 60% of the guy getting minutes in front of him. We aren't going to do crap for the rest of this year, and likely next, so why haven't we been trying to develop him? Instead Flip is pulling him out regardless of his play, just to get Young back on the floor. If Flip had worried half as much about D as he has offense, we might be holding teams to under 50% FG shooting on most nights. Instead we watch Young continually sell out the D by going for steals, or standing around watching his man offensive rebound, and yet there are no consequences. What kind of message does that send to Bennett.
I really don't get it either. Most of the year they have been on par with each other yet there's been loads of excuses for Thad. The ONLY thing Thad dealt with that AB didn't was losing his mom. Thad got to play with better players more often as well.
khans2k5 wrote:I just want 5 games with Bennett starting and getting 30+ minutes without being pulled after the first mistake. Is that so much to ask for? I just don't think he is a spray bottle player needing to be punished after each mistake to prevent it from happening again. His confidence is shot so I'm interested in how he would play in a punishment free zone for a few games with big minutes. It could be a disaster, but relegating him to the bench has done nothing to get his confidence back and he plays with no energy as a result in my opinion. At least give him the chance to get some positive momentum to see if he can grow more that way than punishing him through his minutes.
That is exactly the point I was trying to make Khans. It would be different if we had a Blake Griffin, Zach Randolph or Dirk Nowitski waiting to come back in, but it's fucking Thad Young that is getting 30 some minutes a game, playing lousy D, not rebounding and providing below average offense as well.
Playing him for more consistent minutes would at least let us know if we should pick up his option for the following year.
This is nonsense. AB has been getting regular minutes off the bench nearly all season. He's not just coming in at garbage time or in spot situations. He's been our #2 PF for the large majority of the season and is averaging 16 minutes per game. Yet we continue to hear this tired argument of "just give him a chance! He needs more minutes!"
Once a player gets regular playing time, simply ratcheting up their minutes from X to X+5 or X+10 isn't going to magically turn him into a different player.
I have a feeling Bennett is going to be one of these players that might need to hit some sort of bottom for a period of time before maturing and figuring out who he is as a player. Unfortunately, with a large contract and #1 pick label hanging over his head, he's got the albatross of high expectations to compete with. It's probably been messing with his head.
My idea has him playing almost twice the amount of minutes as he is now. Your crazy if you don't think literally doubling his minutes wouldn't give a better chance to get in a rhythm. 16 minutes in short inconsistent stints on the court to get those minutes is not how consistency is developed. There's just going to be more consistency to his game if you play him twice as many minutes and don't pull him after every mistake.
Camden wrote:Jesus Christ, sjm. If I have to read you talk about Bennett's defense as a plus one more time I'm going to go insane. He's awful at pretty much every facet. He looks as confused on defense as he does on offense.
And there's too reasons why Bennett doesn't get a ton of post-ups. He's trash in the post. He also doesn't fight for good position either. How many hooks has he taken this year? Even his face up game is weak. I've seen enough of Bennett catching the ball in the post and settling for that turnaround jumper that he's made ONE of all year. He's not a post threat. THAT is why he doesn't get touches. Not because of who the PG is. Even LaVine is prone to dumping the ball in the post just to get rid of the thing before he makes a mistake. He does so with Pek, Young, Wiggins, Muhammad and Dieng. You're telling me he just doesn't want to feed Bennett there and that's the reason? Give me a break.
And had Flip treated Wiggins with the same role (backup), I'd be inclined to say that he would actually be a productive player despite not having the numbers he has right now. Bennett isn't productive when he's on the court. It's a mess. There's the difference.
They usually have him sitting outside from to the play call.
You really think Lavine just dumps the ball off b/c he doesn't want it? They run plays where he is to pass the ball off a lot. They don't give him that much opportunity to keep the ball in his hands.
AB from what I'm told within the Wolves organization is very timid and tends to second guess himself a lot. They don't know why, but one would have to guess that being the first pick overall and struggling thus far, puts doubts in his head. Not to mention, he doesn't have the "starters" leadway when he's in. So any mistakes, and he's afraid that he'll be taken out. Players don't do well if they know that they're on a shorter lease.
So, the propose Thad trade for Garnett (at lease we're trying) is our way of saying-----hey kiddo. We believe in you. We just cleared the starter----now it's your turn to seize the moment. Cause let's be honest.....Garnett is NOT here to get those starter minutes. It's gonna go to AB or Payne.
And if it doesn't cost us a first rounder to "discover" AB----so be it. We can fit everyone on the roster anyway.
Nice rant SJM, but you are off the mark pretty badly as Cam mentioned. Here are a few other rebuttals:
1. I find it funny that last season you were so quick to judge the rookie Robbie Hummel in spot minutes as someone not fit to play in this league, yet somehow Anthony Bennett - who has played about 400 more minutes than Robbie so far in his career - needs even more minutes for us to truly understand who he is as a player. Please help reconcile why you could judge Robbie with so few minutes on the court, yet with AB it's impossible for us to understand who he is without more minutes?
2. Psssst....Not sure if anyone told you this, but Bennett isn't a rookie.
3. Bennett's two five-man lineups that he has played the most minutes with are the following:
Bennett-Brewer-Wiggins-Dieng-Mo Williams (-23.8 points per 100 possessions)
Bennett-Budinger-Wiggins-Dieng-Mo Williams (-44.7 points per 100 possessions)
Young has played with those two four-man combinations as well. Let's see how that panned out:
Young-Brewer-Wiggins-Dieng-Mo Williams (-4.5 per 100 possessions)
Young-Budinger-Wiggins-Dieng-Mo Williams (-8.5 per 100 possessions)
That's a massive difference with only one variable changing - Young in place of Bennett.
And when you look across all the minutes and lineups played, Bennett is a -17.4 and Young is a -6.6. And keep in mind that Young played a very large stretch of minutes with two 19-year olds starting next to him in LaVine and Wiggins. Bennett was often coming off the bench paired with the more experienced Mo Williams.
4. As Cam mentioned, have you even watched when Bennett has posted up? He's simply not comfortable. He either kicks the ball out or takes a really tough fadeaway. Don't you think the coaches see this in practice? What will 5-10 more minutes per game do to help his post game? Was this even a strength of his in college?
5. There is more to defense than hard hedges on pick and rolls.
6A. Why is it around here that the only acceptable form of development is to play someone as many minutes as humanly possible? It's perfectly normal for young players to grow and develop as backups to more experienced players.
6B. In what other realm of learning and development is the theory of "give more to someone not qualified or who hasn't earned it" even valid? If I'm an entry level accountant, my boss isn't going to hand me the Citigroup account on Day 1. This applies to sports too. Yet we insist that the only way a Zach LaVine or Anthony Bennett will ever develop is if they get over this magical 20 minute per game threshhold that Kahns pulled out of thin air. Then, voila!, all our problems are solved and now we really know what we've got in these players, nevermind that the coaches watch them everyday in practice!
As I said in my prior post, I actually would be in favor of keeping AB and being patient with him, but man, that's a lot of money invested in someone that might take years to develop. I don't think playing him 20 MPG vs. his current 16 MPG is going to change the calculus on what we do about him moving forward.
