Camden wrote:Kris Dunn over Jamal Murray is really my biggest gripe with the Wolves FO when it comes to the draft. Say what you will, but that one never made sense to me and the early results are overwhelming. Personally, I'm not going to penalize them for not plucking Donovan Mitchell, Kyle Kuzma, or Jordan Bell out of thin air because overall team fit and opportunity played a lot into those guys getting to where they're at. Not to mention, Mitchell did not look like he'd be anything near the player he was for Utah last season when he played at Louisville. Skill-wise, I thought he improved more in the summer before his rookie campaign than he did in two years in the NCAA. Couldn't have seen that coming.
Prematurely giving Gorgui Dieng his lucrative extension and giving Andrew Wiggins the mini-max contract, and signing journeyman Cole Aldrich were all mistakes that were vocalized at the time by myself and some others. None of those are my biggest issue with how this FO managed the cap situation. The summer of 2016 was the time to strike in free agency due to our core players being on rookie contracts and this franchise was timid and scared. It was our only real opportunity to make a splash via free agency and it was squandered away. The Wolves went thrift shopping and came away with Cole Aldrich, Jordan Hill, and Brandon Rush. That was disappointing. No real efforts were made to get a legitimate game-changer for fear of future luxury tax implications.
Imagine having gone all in on Al Horford and convincing him that Minnesota was the up-and-coming situation to be a part of (not THAT hard of a sell at the time, honestly), and then making the Jimmy Butler trade while retaining Jamal Murray. That's a potential championship recipe.
Cam - I agree with you on Dunn v Murray. I remember you were a big advocate for taking Murray and there's not doubt you've been proven right. I too would have preferred Murray. I'm not sure we could have made the Butler trade while retaining Murray unless we included Wiggins in the deal. Would I rather have Murray instead of Wiggins right now? Absolutely!
Mitchell and Kuzma would have fit just fine here. Butler missed nearly 25 games, Teague missed a stretch of games, our bench was terrible, Gorgui wasn't good and Wiggins got more minutes than he deserved. Then Rose came in and got a lot of minutes. So the opportunity for Mitchell and Kuzma to play and shine with the Wolves was there. No telling whether Thibodeau the head coach would have given them that playing time, but if he didn't that would be part of a missed opportunity. It's up the the PBO to identify and acquire the best talent. Then it's up to the head coach to play and develop that talent. Failing to draft guys like those two was clearly a missed opportunity by Thibs the PBO. That's the case regardless of whether Thibs the PBO didn't recognize their potential or just didn't see himself giving them playing time in his role as head coach.
I agree with you that the Gorgui contract was a mistake, but I just didn't see that failing into the "missed opportunity" bucket. But what bugs me the most is the fact that one year later Thibs the PBO spent big money to sign Taj Gibson and then Thibs the head coach relegated Gorgui to the bench behind Taj even though a few weeks earlier Thibs referred to Gorgui as the team's most improved player. I think the evidence shows Taj was a good get. The point is that Thibs should have traded Gorgui last summer after or before signing Taj. Gorgui actually had positive market value last summer coming off a pretty good season. Putting Gorgui on the bench diminished his play and his market value. I should have put failing to trade Gorgui last summer into the missed opportunity bucket because I suspect there was an opportunity to do that.
