Our only saving grave is that Thibs isn't coaching to win

[BloopOracle]

It has been a purely developmental approach with forcing Wiggy and Lavine to initiate the offense


Thats is why Thibs saved the majority of his free agent dollars, he is putting responsibility on the young players to see who can handle the fire

I expect a big free agent acquisition this off season and 50+ wins next year

Leave Tom alone first you got on him because you were scared he would mortgage our future to win now. He didn't and now you're mad at him

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Good post, Bloop. Thibs has been pretty strong in the development route, obvious by his strong usage of Wiggins as a primary ball handler. I think it's clear he's keeping the long-term goal in view, though he's too competitive to put winning aside. I wish our players were performing at a level where we could have our cake and eat it too.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I think you are conflating POBO Thibs and Coach Thibs...and that's one of the problems with having the same guy in the two jobs. I agree that I want my POBO taking a longer view, and I have been complimentary of the restraint the Wolves' brass used last summer...adding a big free agent contract last summer would have meant the end of our Big 3 dream down the road. But for the same reason, I don't see the Wolves signing any big free agents this summer, unless Thibs has given up on one of our three young studs. But if he eventually wants to sign all 3 to the contracts they will probably deserve, it's simply not possible to sign anyone other than another role player this summer without assuring a very punitive lux tax hit in a couple years. I think that has been proven beyond dispute in previous threads.

But I have a big problem of you're saying Coach Thibs isn't coaching to win...it's unacceptable to me that a coach would do that. But if you're correct and Thibs is coaching to lose, I would conclude that he is being wildly successful in achieving his goal.

[Monster]

Great post.

I remember a few months ago JVG was on the Vertical podcast (before the Season was over) and he praised Thibs developmental work when he was an assistant for him.

[Brooklyn_Wolves [enjin:14608167]]

Big FA signing in Minnesnowta? I'll believe it when it actually happens.

[Lipoli390]

We are have one of the two worst record in the League right now and we're likely to finish in the bottom five this season. I'm sorry, that's not a good set up to acquire a big time high quality free agent. I don't know how smart Thibs is, but I'm sure he's smart enough to know that. So I don't think he's contemplating a major FA acquisition. As our head coach, it's his job to get the most out of the players he has on the court -- to win. He can develop them within the context of a "play to win" framework.

I can understand having Zach run the offense, even if he carries some risk, because he has the skill set to do it. But Wiggins does not, so I'm not impressed with "development" as a legitimate reason for the way Thibs is using Wiggins in crunch time. And if Thibs is contemplating eventually trading Wiggins or Ricky, he's devaluing them as trade assets in the process. Let's not forget that Thibs has never been an executive of anything or held any front office position in any basketball league. Now he's the head of the Wolves basketball department. I'm not going to assume he knows what he's doing. I'll just have to hope he does. I actually liked his patience last summer in not overpaying for any FAs and keeping our young core together. But I wasn't surprised either since Thibs said he came here to coach what he called "the best young roster in the NBA." So I don't think he had to summon a lot of self-restraint to pass on any deals that may have been offered.

I don't accept that Thibs knows he's making coaching moves that diminish our chances of winning. That's not in his character, it's not what Glen wants and it's not necessary to develop this young team. Thibs will keep pushing these guys and I hope he gets through to them on the little things that will eventually make them a solid defensive team. They have certainly improved defensively the past couple games.

We just need to see how this thing plays out. If we see an about-face in this team's performance the second half of the season, ending up with a strong finish and a 9th or 10th place finish in the West, then I think most of this horror show we've seen so far will be forgotten and we'll be well-positioned next summer.

[WildWolf2813]

If he's not coaching to win, he shouldn't be here.

If he's trying to make guys like Wiggins and LaVine primary initiators, why draft Dunn?

If you expect 50 wins next year, how do you expect this team to potentially have to DOUBLE their win total in one year because this team looks like they'll win no more than 25 games?

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

I don't know how taking a developmental coaching philosophy is coaching to lose. To me it's coaching to learn how to win the way you are going to win moving forward. This team is going to win primarily because of the big 3 in the future so they need to learn how to do that now. If you just play to each player's strengths they aren't going to get better at their weaknesses and then when one or two pieces around them move and they need to perform a different skill set to win they won't have it and we're right back to square one of learning how to win a new way. We need to be pushing the boundaries of what they can do now so we can know moving forward what we can count on and what we can't to win games. If you start boxing them in now to win games what do you do in 2-3 years when the pieces around them change and they have to start doing stuff they never had to before to win? The players now have a groundwork to learn from and improve upon. They won't just have to start doing things out of thin air they never had to before and hope they improved enough where the lack of reps don't matter. Wiggins will be better at running the offense in the future because of the reps he is getting now. Towns will hopefully eat some humble pie and learn what works and doesn't work because of the reps he's getting now. Zach will continue to get better at playing off them because of the reps now. That's how we want to win moving forward so we have to let them try and fail and learn to do it better moving forward.