AbeVigodaLive wrote:Any preseason optimism was from conjecture.
Any pessimism right now is from actual performance.
Which one carries more weight?
[Note: Again, it's not impossible for the Wolves to improve with 87% of the season remaining... but it's more likely that the Wolves are closer to what we're seeing than what many predicted they would be.]
Yep gotta agree. The only offseason moves were for guys like Prince and Beverely and expectations rose based on those two moves. Seems ridiculous now. If we expected this team to be better based on a 10 wins / 14 loss stretch to end the season last year ( disregarding the other 50 games) then I think it's fair to see this team for what it is now going 3-7.
Many people thought the coach mattered as well. It was all Ryans fault. Finch was going to be the difference maker.
As of now, we are actually worse. It's still a long season though so I doubt this pathetic start holds all year.
Wolves now on pace for 24 wins.
Is that why the Lego man is a teacher now instead of Assistant or Head Coach somewhere?
It's a players league. Coaching doesn't matter all that much. Give me Giannis before Popavich.
I think my point was that Saunders was so inept he's not even in the league anymore.
Obviously I take Giannis over Pop but you can't look me in the face and tell me with this roster that Pop wouldn't have this team at least in the playoffs. Obviously I take Giannis over Pop but you can't look me in the face and tell me with this roster that Pop wouldn't have this team at least in the playoffs.
Edit: Also if a coach can't help win games he can sure help lose them. This is what I Complained about Saunders the most about. His rotational awareness was so bad that it was effecting the team.
I criticize finch this with Doper in the Memphis game saying there was no reason for Naz not to be in the game. I have no doubt in my mind if Naz was in the game we win that game instead of blowing it. I think Finch contributed them losing that game as much as Mcdaniels missing a point blank lay up did.
Jester- I probably admire Pop as a coach as much as anyone here, but I don't think he would be able to take this roster to the playoffs. However, I think he would be persuasive enough to management to convince them that we have to move on from at least one of our max players, and perhaps two, and he would have us in the playoffs within a couple years. But get this current roster to the playoffs? I don't think so. He's a great coach, but he's not a magician.
Agreed. My takes on the impact of coaching should be well known by now. Obviously, it's important but not as much in a schematic way or even with rotations... since those moves are in the margins.
NBA teams win or lose primarily behind how the star players perform.
Obviously, the Wolves weren't winning much when Wiggins was deemed the 2nd "best" player. I don't care who was coaching. That's why I think the most important part of a coach's job is connecting to the team's star player(s) and putting them in the best positions.
The star player HAS to buy in. Or else nothing really matters.
AbeVigodaLive wrote:Any preseason optimism was from conjecture.
Any pessimism right now is from actual performance.
Which one carries more weight?
[Note: Again, it's not impossible for the Wolves to improve with 87% of the season remaining... but it's more likely that the Wolves are closer to what we're seeing than what many predicted they would be.]
Yep gotta agree. The only offseason moves were for guys like Prince and Beverely and expectations rose based on those two moves. Seems ridiculous now. If we expected this team to be better based on a 10 wins / 14 loss stretch to end the season last year ( disregarding the other 50 games) then I think it's fair to see this team for what it is now going 3-7.
Many people thought the coach mattered as well. It was all Ryans fault. Finch was going to be the difference maker.
As of now, we are actually worse. It's still a long season though so I doubt this pathetic start holds all year.
Wolves now on pace for 24 wins.
Is that why the Lego man is a teacher now instead of Assistant or Head Coach somewhere?
It's a players league. Coaching doesn't matter all that much. Give me Giannis before Popavich.
I think my point was that Saunders was so inept he's not even in the league anymore.
Obviously I take Giannis over Pop but you can't look me in the face and tell me with this roster that Pop wouldn't have this team at least in the playoffs.
Edit: Also if a coach can't help win games he can sure help lose them. This is what I Complained about Saunders the most about. His rotational awareness was so bad that it was effecting the team.
I criticize finch this with Doper in the Memphis game saying there was no reason for Naz not to be in the game. I have no doubt in my mind if Naz was in the game we win that game instead of blowing it. I think Finch contributed them losing that game as much as Mcdaniels missing a point blank lay up did.
Naz can't guard Morant. Neither can DLO, Bease and probably not Ant. Run a 3-2 zone maybe, leave him open for a 3P? Maybe. I mean his most dangerous at the rim getting easy buckets.
So that's why JO was in the game. Despite being terrible on offense he is pretty good at slowing down guys like Ja.
It's purely speculation at best that the team would have won a ton more games with Finch all last year then Ryan. The team was majorly injured. Ant started the year raw and got better throughout the year.
I would say Pop could be one coach who could maybe get a guy like KAT to improve his weaknesses. We've seen a half dozen come in here with no change. Pop could possible get through to guys where 99% of coaches can't.
Eventually you simply have to blame the players, not the coach for not winning.
I'm simply saying there is little difference between Ryan and Finch and 90% of other NBA coaches. It's nearly all on the players to win or lose.
As far as Ryan not in the NBA. Not that many jobs to go around. It's not surprising.
Naz should've been for Mcdaniels to help with spacing which was the problem in the final 6 mins of that game. JO could've still been in to guard Morant.
Well just have to agree to disagree. But Ryan Saunders cost this team at least 5 games with bonehead rotations and not knowing what to do at the end of games with late substitutions and timeouts.
As for his Job there are Ton of schools out there and ton of assistant jobs. He got jobs cause of his father was not because of his basketball knowledge. These coaches at the NBA level are a fraternity and look out for each other and not one team said hey come sit at the end of my bench.
I have 5 years of Girls Varsity assistant basketball at a charter school in MN under my belt now. I should call the wolves and tell them to hire me for a fraction of the price. Since it doesn't matter who the coach is.
Coaching doesn't matter. Ryan Saunders is a very nice man with a fun haircut; leave him alone. Minnesota sucks because they always suck, and they always will suck regardless of the talent they accumulate. This year they suck and it's all D'Angelo Russell's fault. This team needs more Josh Okogie. Ricky Rubio is the real difference-maker and would have this team 10-0 right now. All hail the plus-minus gods except when they don't contribute to my narrative. Trading Andrew Wiggins was a huge mistake. Gersson Rosas was a terrible President of Basketball Operations. Jaden McDaniels is untouchable and has Scottie Pippen's blood coursing through his veins. 72 games left on the schedule means 72 more losses.
I think that just about covers it for this board. Good morning and happy holidays. Zzzzz...
Camden wrote:Coaching doesn't matter. Ryan Saunders is a very nice man with a fun haircut; leave him alone. Minnesota sucks because they always suck, and they always will suck regardless of the talent they accumulate. This year they suck and it's all D'Angelo Russell's fault. This team needs more Josh Okogie. Ricky Rubio is the real difference-maker and would have this team 10-0 right now. All hail the plus-minus gods except when they don't contribute to my narrative. Trading Andrew Wiggins was a huge mistake. Gersson Rosas was a terrible President of Basketball Operations. Jaden McDaniels is untouchable and has Scottie Pippen's blood coursing through his veins. 72 games left on the schedule means 72 more losses.
I think that just about covers it for this board. Good morning and happy holidays. Zzzzz...
Minus the obvious hyperbole, I actually agree with some of the takes in this post :cool: .
(I only see 51 more losses on the schedule though, but if we do get 72, we also "Get Chet"!)
Camden wrote:Coaching doesn't matter. Ryan Saunders is a very nice man with a fun haircut; leave him alone. Minnesota sucks because they always suck, and they always will suck regardless of the talent they accumulate. This year they suck and it's all D'Angelo Russell's fault. This team needs more Josh Okogie. Ricky Rubio is the real difference-maker and would have this team 10-0 right now. All hail the plus-minus gods except when they don't contribute to my narrative. Trading Andrew Wiggins was a huge mistake. Gersson Rosas was a terrible President of Basketball Operations. Jaden McDaniels is untouchable and has Scottie Pippen's blood coursing through his veins. 72 games left on the schedule means 72 more losses.
I think that just about covers it for this board. Good morning and happy holidays. Zzzzz...
LOL, your going off the deep end again Cam! It reminds me of your Rubio meltdown on a late season game thread last year.
No one here in good faith can say they expected this awful start. Folks are casting about for answers because what we've seen is a 180-degree turnaround from a solid pre-season and 3-1 start. What the hell happened?
PorkChop wrote:It wasn't my intention to mean that Beverley and Prince were the sole reason fans expected improvement. But people were on here talking themselves into believing they could be factors.
The Wolves won 19 games last year, and those two guys are the only additions. Team's that won 45 -50 games last year upgraded their rosters better. The Wolves aren't gonna leap frog anyone making 0 moves.
We actually won 23 games last year and did so with three of our better players missing a ton of games. A lot of people's projections for this season assumed KAT, DLO, and Beasley wouldn't miss 20+ games each. That's not an illogical assumption to think we'd get better by simply being healthier.
How much improvement have we seen from year to year from any of those three guys? I think those guys are tapped out.
PorkChop wrote:It wasn't my intention to mean that Beverley and Prince were the sole reason fans expected improvement. But people were on here talking themselves into believing they could be factors.
The Wolves won 19 games last year, and those two guys are the only additions. Team's that won 45 -50 games last year upgraded their rosters better. The Wolves aren't gonna leap frog anyone making 0 moves.
We actually won 23 games last year and did so with three of our better players missing a ton of games. A lot of people's projections for this season assumed KAT, DLO, and Beasley wouldn't miss 20+ games each. That's not an illogical assumption to think we'd get better by simply being healthier.
How much improvement have we seen from year to year from any of those three guys? I think those guys are tapped out.
They might be tapped out in terms of improving, but I'm talking about health. We had a winning record in the games DLO and KAT played together last year. It wasn't irrational for people to predict a similar outcome this season.
Camden wrote:Coaching doesn't matter. Ryan Saunders is a very nice man with a fun haircut; leave him alone. Minnesota sucks because they always suck, and they always will suck regardless of the talent they accumulate. This year they suck and it's all D'Angelo Russell's fault. This team needs more Josh Okogie. Ricky Rubio is the real difference-maker and would have this team 10-0 right now. All hail the plus-minus gods except when they don't contribute to my narrative. Trading Andrew Wiggins was a huge mistake. Gersson Rosas was a terrible President of Basketball Operations. Jaden McDaniels is untouchable and has Scottie Pippen's blood coursing through his veins. 72 games left on the schedule means 72 more losses.
I think that just about covers it for this board. Good morning and happy holidays. Zzzzz...
No reason to get all huffy.
Or hyperbolic in your wide-sweeping generalizations.
The team is struggling and it's more than fair to prognosticate about the future based off the early season struggles. Do we know the future with certainty? Of course not. But can reasonable takes be made even 13% into a season based on real-world results? Will some of those be right? Will some be wrong?
Maybe. Some might even think it's why the topic is decent fodder for a message board.
Camden wrote:Coaching doesn't matter. Ryan Saunders is a very nice man with a fun haircut; leave him alone. Minnesota sucks because they always suck, and they always will suck regardless of the talent they accumulate. This year they suck and it's all D'Angelo Russell's fault. This team needs more Josh Okogie. Ricky Rubio is the real difference-maker and would have this team 10-0 right now. All hail the plus-minus gods except when they don't contribute to my narrative. Trading Andrew Wiggins was a huge mistake. Gersson Rosas was a terrible President of Basketball Operations. Jaden McDaniels is untouchable and has Scottie Pippen's blood coursing through his veins. 72 games left on the schedule means 72 more losses.
I think that just about covers it for this board. Good morning and happy holidays. Zzzzz...
No reason to get all huffy.
Or hyperbolic in your wide-sweeping generalizations.
The team is struggling and it's more than fair to prognosticate about the future based off the early season struggles. Do we know the future with certainty? Of course not. But can reasonable takes be made even 13% into a season based on real-world results? Will some of those be right? Will some be wrong?
Maybe. Some might even think it's why the topic is decent fodder for a message board.
