Q12543 wrote:monsterpile wrote:AbeVigodaLive wrote:D'Natagal wrote:The big toe is a major injury. It was the same thing that ruined Jonathan Ogden's career in the NFL. Just walking is almost impossible and if you cannot walk, you cannot jump. I am not a pro athlete, but my right big toe has been an issue for almost 3 years and just doesn't want to heal. Just doing push ups is agony due to the pressure on the toe. I think it is unfair to any athlete to think you understand what they are going through.
Where there's smoke, there's fire.
Multiple Wolves players sat out for longer periods than most other teams. The team was actively trying to lose games. For example, I believe Wiggins was out for an entire week to attend his grandmother's funeral.
It's helpful to hear about injury experience even from us regular folks. I think the main clarification that Abe is kinda getting at is Cams comment was directed at the Wolves not at Layman. I'd guess the toe injury was still bad but I'm also sure they had him take his time getting back which...idk to some extent I don't even have a big problem with.
My issue - and what Abe is getting at I suspect - is that it reinforces the losing culture this franchise so desperately needs to rid itself of. It helped get us the #1 pick in a draft where literally no one could agree on who the best player was among three fairly flawed prospects, with many predicting that the long-term best player will likely emerge from the larger pool of guys picked afterwards.
If Edwards fizzles, as many of us expect could happen, it would be reason #1,286 as to why it doesn't pay to on purposely lose.
Talent and good coaching lead to wins and wins lead to a winning culture. The fundamental problem with the Wolves organization is and always has been it's failure to make good player-personnel decisions, especially in the draft. It's not unreasonable to given developmental players more playing time or be extra careful with injuries late in a season when the team isn't in position to realistically make the playoffs, even it results in more loses. Lots of teams, even really good teams, do it. As we know, most of the best teams sit their best players during the season simply to help ensure they're fully healthy for the playoffs, even if sitting them results in more regular season losses. These sorts of decisions are side-shows.
The problem with the Wolves isn't the absence of a "winning culture" whatever that is; it's the absence of winning, which results primarily from a lack of talent. As we all know, the Wolves' lack of talent over the years has resulted directly a long list of terrible draft decisions and other poor player-personnel maneuvers. I won't bother listing any or all of the Wolves' many missteps since we all know what they are. Unfortunately, in my view, history repeated itself in this year's draft. I like the Rubio acquisition, but it's only marginally helpful. Otherwise, it's unfathomable to me that the Wolves, in possession of the 1st, 17th and 33rd picks in the draft, came away with nothing more than three notoriously poor perimeter shooters, two of them with serious questions about their competitiveness and basketball IQs. Note that one of those will remain in Europe for at least a year and may never come here.
The one saving grace might be the phenomenal physical talent of Anthony Edwards, but the questions surrounding his competitiveness, love for the game and basketball IQs are the issues that would cause the best NBA organizations to pass on him as the top pick in the draft. He may pan out and I sure hope he does. But history teaches us that it's highly unlikely. Then, after swinging for the fences with Edwards in spite of the warning signs, Rosas took another home run swing on an even more dubious character in McDaniels. After switching for the fences with the high-risk/high reward Edwards, you'd think the Wolves would have focused more on connecting with a solid single or double to get some runners on base. I'm not sure how I'd extend the baseball metaphors to the Gersson's decision to trade up for Bolmaro.
So let's hope Edwards reaches something close to his full potential on both sides of the ball. If he does and this team keeps the KAT/Russell duo, then this team will win a lot of games. And from that will come a winning culture.
