Chris Finch Comments

[Lipoli390]

Here are some excerpts from Britt Robson's recent interview of Chris Finch:

ON BEASLEY:
Q. I know you have only had four games with him, but what do you envision from Beasley?
A. Obviously a high-level shooter. I was with him his rookie year (in Denver). The growth he showed as a worker, as a professional, and he has like a kind of pitbull mentality -- he is really fiery and brings that juice to it, which is something I think our team needs. Yeah, I love his competitiveness. Sure, he is limited defensively but he is going to try. He is not looking for a shortcut. He's got all the factors to keep being a better and better player.

[Lipoli390]

ON KAT & ROSTER CORE

A couple of things about the following exchange. First, Finch went out of his way to highlight JMac and Vando after discussing what appears to be his core four of KAT, DLO, Ant and Jaden. Second, he left Beasley as part of what he referred to as "the rest of the roster." Yes, he praised Beasley in the first excerpt I posted above. But I thought mentioning MJac and Vando specially and not mentioning Beasley in this exchange was fairly significant. I also thought his comment about Jaden having the best foundation of basketball fundamentals was really interesting.

Q. In 2016, NBA general managers said KAT would be the guy they would start a franchise with above all others.

A. 100 percent. And he still is; he just has to get back to that, right? He has that and he knows that. DLo is healthy, feels good, believes in his team and his teammates. So those two guys.
Then the development of Ant and Jaden. Ant is, as we all have spoken about many times, incredibly gifted, has glimpses of being truly special. He has got to figure out routines. He has got to figure out what it means to be a professional with the right approach, and he is doing it. He cares. His competitive drive might be the highest on our team. But how do we harness that so it becomes productive for everybody, right?
And Jaden, as we talked about, has probably been our most diligent worker in the gym. He has the best foundation in terms of his basketball fundamentals, that is easy to stack skills on.
That's the core four. Then our other pieces. We are really excited about Vando and really excited about J-Mac (Jordan McLaughlin). We want to get these guys back in the fold. From an analytics point of view, they are checking some boxes that drive winning. And then the rest of our roster.

[Lipoli390]

ON DEFENSIVE SWITCHING

I thought this exchange was telling in that it might explain Blair's somewhat odd departure. Blair talked about wanting to do more switching. But check out Finch's comment on switching.

Q. You did a little bit of Nurse's x-out philosophy last year, especially in the corners and I know (before he departed for Washington) Blair stated that he wants to switch a little more. How much do you think you will switch and will you switch everywhere do you think?

A. No. We won't be a high-volume switch team. For a couple of reasons. One is I think the league has kind of sussed it out. Not totally, but they are far more ready for it and you then get caught like playing the manipulating game and they are going to put your guys into (mismatches) anyway -- you're not tricking anybody. I think situational switching is definitely something we'll do; switching to be disruptive is always good. But if you have a Jaden or you have a Vando, you don't want to switch those guys off matchups that you have. Also, it drives accountability if you don't switch. If your job is to do something then we can decide if you are doing it well enough (if you don't switch off).

[Lipoli390]

ON THE UPCOMING SEASON

Q. So you are feeling realistically optimistic about this season?

A. Absolutely. 100 percent. And it is not just how we played at the end of the season. I was in the gym this morning at 8:00 (during Summer League in Las Vegas) and there were six guys in the gym: KAT, DLo, Ant, Josh, JC and Naz. They were excited to be there, they are working hard. It is all a cliché right now, I get it. But we have new coaches on our staff that weren't here last year and they are more excited than anyone else. Because they think, we've got talent. We've got talent. And we've all been in situations where we didn't have talent. Micah Nori, he was with Jokic and he was like, 'KAT is [does a weighing with his hands] with KAT and Jokic.'

[FNG]

Thx for posting this, Lip. I remain high and Finch and think Rosas made the right choice, and I always enjoy hearing his comments.

I believe that Robson's interview preceded the Beverley deal, and that might be why he mentioned JMac in his core comment. I suspect he would be less likely to mention him now.

I also found it interesting that he didn't include Beasley in his core. He also didn't include Okogie, Naz or Nowell. Not sure what to make of that.

I'm not optimistic about next season...still think it will be difficult to get to 35 wins. But hearing Finch's optimistic comments and hearing about our core guys being in the gym at 8am brightens my day a little.

[Monster]

Thx for posting this, Lip. I remain high and Finch and think Rosas made the right choice, and I always enjoy hearing his comments.

I believe that Robson's interview preceded the Beverley deal, and that might be why he mentioned JMac in his core comment. I suspect he would be less likely to mention him now.

I also found it interesting that he didn't include Beasley in his core. He also didn't include Okogie, Naz or Nowell. Not sure what to make of that.

I'm not optimistic about next season...still think it will be difficult to get to 35 wins. But hearing Finch's optimistic comments and hearing about our core guys being in the gym at 8am brightens my day a little.

I read both articles. Finch said a big reason the were comfortable about trading Rubio was how good they felt about McLaughlin. He said they are really excited about him. Beverly is on a 1 year deal and is more of a combo guard than a PG plus he and Russell tend to miss games. They are probably trying to lock up McLaughlin on a cheap multi year deal. He also said both Wright and Isaiah Miller are a jumpsuit from being NBA players. That's obvious but it was interesting he mentioned Miller.

[Lipoli390]

FNG - Monster's comment is spot on. The following excerpts from that interview suggest that Finch contemplates JMac as part of the team even with the acquisition of Beverley which came after the interview. I suspect that the Beverley trade was one of those "tweaks" Chris was referring to. You can see that Finch sees DLO playing off the ball some, which means you could see Beverley or JMac on the floor with him and the other one serving as backup PG. You can also see Finch's reference to Wright and Miller that Monster mentioned.

Q. Let's take point guard first. You successfully worked well with DLo off the ball, grooming him that way, knowing he could always play on the ball. He did work well with J-Mac but that can't happen as often if J-Mac is going to be the primary backup at point guard. So do you think DLo will have to be on-ball more often as it shakes out?

A. I think now, but hopefully, we've got a few more tweaks we are going to make here. I think you are 100 percent accurate in that DLo, he is such a good shooter that you want to have him off the ball. When you have as much skill as we have, you can play a lot of different lineup combinations.

Editor's note: As stated at the top, the Wolves have indeed tweaked and Beverley will provide more opportunities for Russell to work off the ball.

Q. But in terms of initiation, can Beasley or Anthony Edwards initiate the offense do you think or would you be less comfortable with that?

A. They can both initiate. Because ultimately we are still going to play through KAT -- get it to KAT early. [But] that is something certainly that we are a little concerned about. We probably need a little more roster balance for ball skills; attacking and playmaking with the ball. We have skilled bigs, which really helps us, but we could use a few more skill players. The two guys we have playing in this (Summer) League, McKinley Wright and Isaiah Miller, they both have a chance. I mean, Ricky (Rubio, traded to Cleveland) is going to be a big loss at the other guard, but we feel J-Mac is ready to be a backup.... I mean we felt comfortable doing the Ricky trade because of how much we believe in J-Mac.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

JoMac is definitely more of a pure PG than Beverley and miles ahead of Miller and Wright (that's less about JMac and more about how ill-prepared Miller and Wright are to be NBA PGs IMO). I'm much more comfortable bringing him back now as a 3rd string insurance policy versus being our primary backup pre-Beverley trade.

[Lipoli390]

JoMac is definitely more of a pure PG than Beverley and miles ahead of Miller and Wright (that's less about JMac and more about how ill-prepared Miller and Wright are to be NBA PGs IMO). I'm much more comfortable bringing him back now as a 3rd string insurance policy versus being our primary backup pre-Beverley trade.

I agree, Q. Signing JMac makes even more sense now that we've acquired Beverley and after watching McKinley Wright in Summer League. JMac shouldn't cost more than $2M per year and he's a terrific 3rd-string PG who I believe has shown he can be a sold 2nd-string. I don't see Wright as an NBA-caliber player and I'd rather see his two-way deal go to someone else. I actually have more hope for Miller than Wright. Miller's perimeter shooting is worse than Wrights, but he's quicker and far more athletic. He plays bigger than his height and looks like he can play in the League if he can develop a perimeter jump shot.

[Coolbreeze44]

Nice job of putting this together Lip. Very informative and interesting. I think the big takeaway is we DO have a lot of talent. Now we have to learn to win, hope it doesn't take too long.