CoolBreeze44 wrote:Wig has done a damn good job staying in front of his primary opponent, really good. It's everything else in a defensive scheme he's terrible at. He's the anti Corey Brewer. No awareness, lack of anticipation, and a stunning lack of getting in passing lanes. Take a risk once in a while Andrew! Impose your will on the opponent at the defensive end!
I would argue he hasn't always been great at this either, but yes, his brightest moments defensively are almost always in situations where he's iso-ed on someone one-on-one.
You hit the nail on the head in terms of all the other things.
Again, we can argue that Wig's lack of taking charges is a nit-pick. We can argue that his lack of defensive rebounding is a nit-pick. We can argue that his lack of steals is a nit-pick. We can argue that his lack of getting back and matching up quickly in transition is a nit-pick. But when it's ALL of these things combined that are issues, it's no longer a nit-pick. It's a huge problem.
Q, I tend to really focus on Wig in the defensive zone. What I see is he is very, and I mean very good at manning up and defending "his" guy. The problem starts as soon as somebody lays a pick on him. He has trouble fighting through screens and he is an unwilling help defender. He's also a speed bump in transition, except he rarely slows anyone down. But I'll take him any day one on one no matter who he's guarding in the half court.
Cool I agree with what you say here but I think Wiggins could be even more locked in as a man defender. He doesn't get down in a stance quite a bit of the time. I'm. Or. itpicking more saying it's something he can get better at. If Bazz and Lavine can get down in a stance a lot Wiggins will eventually I would assume.
Q12543 wrote:Dieng is a guy I've been critical of defensively, but his high ranking in DRPM has had me taking a second look at him. I was impressed with the way he defended last night. He is by far the most vocal guy on our team defensively. He's also starting to take some of his team mates to task for not doing their job. We saw that last night when KAT didn't "help the helper", as Dieng was containing the guard while Rubio recovered from a screen, but KAT never collapsed to take away the easy basket for the roller. Dieng immediately looked at KAT and put his arms out, as if saying "WTF!?".
Q I have been watching Dieng the last couple games to see how he has done physically against bigger players as a true C. Obviously the GS game wasn't a good test but Detroit was. I thought he held his own against Drummond as a post defender. If a guy makes a hook shot that's outside the paint there isn't much you can do. Most of his damage was offensive rebounding or when Dieng helped and got no help. I'm starting to think Dieng is more of an option as an answer at C for this team more than people are giving him credit for just look at the guy 20+ games in he still looks much bigger than he ever has before. Offensively I think he needs to let those jumpers fly when he is open. I thought he did a pretty good job of that in the GS game. I'm not suggesting Dieng has been fantastic this year defensively but there are some good signs from him after a shaky start.
Meh. Again, Gorgui's solid, as in he's OKAY, but that's about it. He doesn't really move the needle either way, in my opinion. Not good enough offensively to be a difference-maker. Still has defensive weaknesses that prevent him from being anything close to a difference-maker on defense. I think he's a temporary placeholder in the starting lineup until management aggressively pursues someone better, which I'm hoping will be this off-season or sooner. And yes, there are options that are available or will be available very soon.
Yeah I don't think anyone will dispute the majority of the points made in the article. But it also reinforces my notion that you would be crazy to bail on the guy right now. It makes much more sense to try and fix what's wrong, than bury him at the age of 21.
Yeah I don't think anyone will dispute the majority of the points made in the article. But it also reinforces my notion that you would be crazy to bail on the guy right now. It makes much more sense to try and fix what's wrong, than bury him at the age of 21.
I think there are other options than burying him.
Perhaps another team sees him as the very best player in the NBA in 3 years... and the Wolves only see him as a borderline Top 10 guy.
And they could get a ton back in return for him as a result...
CoolBreeze44 wrote:Wig has done a damn good job staying in front of his primary opponent, really good. It's everything else in a defensive scheme he's terrible at. He's the anti Corey Brewer. No awareness, lack of anticipation, and a stunning lack of getting in passing lanes. Take a risk once in a while Andrew! Impose your will on the opponent at the defensive end!
I would argue he hasn't always been great at this either, but yes, his brightest moments defensively are almost always in situations where he's iso-ed on someone one-on-one.
You hit the nail on the head in terms of all the other things.
Again, we can argue that Wig's lack of taking charges is a nit-pick. We can argue that his lack of defensive rebounding is a nit-pick. We can argue that his lack of steals is a nit-pick. We can argue that his lack of getting back and matching up quickly in transition is a nit-pick. But when it's ALL of these things combined that are issues, it's no longer a nit-pick. It's a huge problem.
Q, I tend to really focus on Wig in the defensive zone. What I see is he is very, and I mean very good at manning up and defending "his" guy. The problem starts as soon as somebody lays a pick on him. He has trouble fighting through screens and he is an unwilling help defender. He's also a speed bump in transition, except he rarely slows anyone down. But I'll take him any day one on one no matter who he's guarding in the half court.
Fair enough. I do agree that when I notice him making a good defensive play, it's always in the context of him and his man, sans pick. It's never in the context of help defense, stepping in for a charge, weak side block, fighting over a screen, etc.
Camden wrote:Meh. Again, Gorgui's solid, as in he's OKAY, but that's about it. He doesn't really move the needle either way, in my opinion. Not good enough offensively to be a difference-maker. Still has defensive weaknesses that prevent him from being anything close to a difference-maker on defense. I think he's a temporary placeholder in the starting lineup until management aggressively pursues someone better, which I'm hoping will be this off-season or sooner. And yes, there are options that are available or will be available very soon.
My eyes tell me the same thing, but this is the second year in a row he's ranked high in DRPM. Again, I don't like to put all my eggs in one basket from a single stat, but this one is directionally correct (for example, Draymond Greene is consistently one of the top PFs in their ranking; same with Chris Paul for PG; Rudy Gobert at C, etc....these all make sense).
The other subtlety here is they rank him as a PF, when in fact he plays C for us. His DRPM would rank him #7 at Center....which is still very high.
Yeah I don't think anyone will dispute the majority of the points made in the article. But it also reinforces my notion that you would be crazy to bail on the guy right now. It makes much more sense to try and fix what's wrong, than bury him at the age of 21.
I think there are other options than burying him.
Perhaps another team sees him as the very best player in the NBA in 3 years... and the Wolves only see him as a borderline Top 10 guy.
And they could get a ton back in return for him as a result...
Right. There is a difference between "dumping" a guy (like we did with Wes Johnson or Derrick Williams) and actually getting value back.
There is still a big part of me that feels like he's on a slow burn path to becoming an all-star, similar to Demar DeRozan. You'd hate to see him dropping 25+ efficient points per night for some other team. And his improved 3-point shot seems to be the real deal.
Yeah I don't think anyone will dispute the majority of the points made in the article. But it also reinforces my notion that you would be crazy to bail on the guy right now. It makes much more sense to try and fix what's wrong, than bury him at the age of 21.
I think there are other options than burying him.
Perhaps another team sees him as the very best player in the NBA in 3 years... and the Wolves only see him as a borderline Top 10 guy.
And they could get a ton back in return for him as a result...
Right. There is a difference between "dumping" a guy (like we did with Wes Johnson or Derrick Williams) and actually getting value back.
There is still a big part of me that feels like he's on a slow burn path to becoming an all-star, similar to Demar DeRozan. You'd hate to see him dropping 25+ efficient points per night for some other team. And his improved 3-point shot seems to be the real deal.
Sure. It's a possibility. And there are reasons for the DeRozan comparisons. That being said... is DeRozan a top 10 player?
Maybe?
And there are still redundancy issues with LaVine. I'm not advocating to trade Wiggins. I'm just pointing out reasons why the Wolves might consider it... eventually.
