khans2k5 wrote:CoolBreeze44 wrote:khans2k5 wrote:CoolBreeze44 wrote:khans2k5 wrote:Lol RoCo alone impacts the game more than Dunn, Lavine and Lauri combined. The Bulls are not good and will likely continue to not be good because those guys are role players and not all-stars.
I'm not going to get roped in to another of your tangents - but when did ROCO and Sarich make the all star game? And how much is RoCo worth when he's sitting out games?
RoCo was a DPOY candidate before he got hurt this year. Rudy Gobert didn't make the all-star game last year when he won it almost like that game is a popularity contest that favors offense over defense and is meaningless when it comes to accounting for all the impact guys on the court in the league.
How many all-star games have Dunn, Zach and Lauri made? The East was wide open this year for representatives. How many games have they even won for that Bulls team? The bottom 3 playoff teams were bad in that conference this year and they couldn't even come close to getting a playoff spot. But sure. Keep arguing we'd be better off sporting the worst defensive team in NBA history with Dunn/Zach/Wiggins/Lauri/Towns since obviously that end of the court doesn't matter any more. Oh wait. It still does and 3 of the 4 teams left are great defensive teams. It makes 0 sense to say adding 3 core players from a terrible team makes us a better team than the 2 guys we got from a second round playoff team.
Just answer my questions. I don't need to read your senseless drivel.
The answers are never and not much. Which happens to be the exact same answers if you ask the same questions of Dunn, Lavine and Lauri. Saric is the only player of the 5 who didn't miss 20 games or more last year and Covington is the only player of the 5 who has an actual NBA accolade of 1st Team All Defense in 2018. But I guess it makes sense to prefer 3 players miss significant time than just 1 and to have no accolades rather than 1st team all defense. That seems like a championship formula right there Mr. title or bust.
First of all Cool if you really long for the days of the ESPN boards with folks that talked basketball and things were better maybe not drop F bombs on people you don't agree with and call their posts "senseless drivel". We can all have more respect for each other here. We are all pretty much die hard Timberwolves fans. There isn't much casual fan stuff happening here and therefore a chance to learn another perspective. It's too easy to try and prove how right we are. I'm guilty as anyone.
Now to your original question about games played. Here are the games played the past couple years for various IMO pertinent players.
Lavine 24 62
Lauri 68 52
Dunn 46 44
Butler 59 65
Patton 1 3
Saric 78 81
Covington 80 22
Towns 82 77
Wiggins 82 73
It's not hard to notice there are a couple guys that tend to not miss games. A bunch of these guys on the list do miss games consistently. Availability matters as you pointed out but the guys that are available are named Towns Wiggins and Saric. People rip the Patton pick but unless someone finds info otherwise he didn't have any real injury history before bad luck happened...twice in true timberwolves form. It's also worth remembering that this was Saric's 3rd season. There is still possible upside there although there are concerns which I acknowledge and I'm a big Saric guy.
I personally would have stayed the course BUT I also could see the value in doing the plan Thibs went with dealing for Butler. Personally I think some of the bigger player personnel moves likely weren't what doomed the plan. It was things more on the margins and Thibs himself in various ways and that was even before the poor handling of the Butler situation.
Ultimately I think even where we are right now a smart basketball executive can make something out of what we have going forward either by getting the most out of guys we have or moving pieces here and there. Covington has a lot of value. Saric has value. I could go on and on on what guys are as players both around the league possible contributions to help this team. If we actually become and organization that can maximize what we have or receive let's say even 70% of the time we can take a step forward even next season when a lot of people are rightly so assuming we don't make the playoffs. If we finally have a legit NBA executive that also puts the right people in place around him we have a legit chance to be a team that we basically don't assume failure even though obviously...we are all hear posting because we still have hope because...we are still somehow some way Timberwolves fans.
