khans2k5 wrote:I just wish something would change with this team. Bench some people. Trade some people. Try something different. Stop banging your head against a damn wall and change something.
In defense of Thibs, we often complain about coaches that churn things too much, use hockey shift substitution patters, and go 10 or 12 deep. Thibs has had probably the most consistent rotation in the NBA this year. Our starting 5 have played well over 100 minutes more together this season than any other team in the league because they have been so healthy. Other than the brief Jordan Hill and Tyus Jones experiments, he's been amazingly consistent with the bench rotation too. One could argue such continuity would eventually lead to better chemistry, no?
khans2k5 wrote:I just wish something would change with this team. Bench some people. Trade some people. Try something different. Stop banging your head against a damn wall and change something.
Yeah, I agree Khans. Thibs seems to experiment only when he is forced to by injury or other circumstances, and oddly the forced changes often seem to work. Just a couple examples: Muhammad is ill last night, "forcing" Thibs to play Rush...Rush responds with a perfect shooting night. Zach is hurt against the Lakers, and Thibs starts his tall lineup...The Wolves respond with their best defensive effort and biggest rout of the year. Ricky and Dunn get into foul trouble and are ineffective in Phoenix, forcing Thibs to put Tyus at PG...Tyus directs the best comeback 4th quarter win of the year.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing for me about Thibs is he doesn't seem to recognize how shaking things up can be effective. In the first two instances, he went right back to his losing moves and lineups as soon as everyone was available again. I expect Rush will find his way back to the bench as soon as Muhammad is ready, but maybe not this time...Thibs might have more of an emotional investment in Rush since he was one of his off-season moves.
leado01 wrote:I freaking HATE this iso with Wiggins in the last 3 minutes of close
Are we scoring too much?
I'm not complaining about Wiggins. I don't understand why we ask him to do everything in the last 3 minutes of games. You have Rubio on the court to make things easier for the Big 3 . . . why we change our whole offense in the last 3 minutes is a puzzler.
Well, Rubio isn't running much offense in the other parts of the game either these days. I get what you are saying though. Which begs the question.......
If Thibs is going to run a strictly point-Wiggins offense in the closing minutes of a game, why even have a PG out there? Why wouldn't he surround Wiggins with shooters at every position? KAT, Bjelly, Rush, and LaVine? Then off timeouts where we're defense, go ahead and put Rubio or Dunn in there, but why even have either guy in there on offense if they aren't even bringing the ball up?
Q - It's true that Rubio doesn't run the offense all the time prior to the last 3 minutes of games. But honestly, there really is a dramatic difference between how much Ricky runs the offense before the last 3 minutes versus his completely different role in those last three minutes when Wiggins runs the offense from the top of the key at the very beginning of each possession. (Actually, the change often happens the last minute or two of each quarter as well.) So it is indeed a puzzler.
It's a misuse of both Ricky and Wiggins. If Thibs is intent on trying to develop Wiggins into a point forward type player, then you have to wonder why he doesn't experiment with it earlier in games, or as you suggest, replace Ricky on the floor with someone who can shoot when Wiggins is at the point. There are several baffling layers to what Thibs is doing late in games and at the end of quarters. Of course, this entire season so far has been baffling...and frustrating.
Khans-I just wish something would change with this team. Bench some people. Trade some people. Try something different. Stop banging your head against a damn wall and change something.
Talking Wolves at work yesterday, I made the point that Thibs does not seem to be a good fit for this team. A co worker pointed out that that is true, maybe not this iteration. But he is PBO and can make trades. I think he will, around the time frame Lip suggested, the trade deadline.
He is going to change this team to something he likes. For better or worse
It's just unheard of to me to play each of your starting 5 35+ MPG's. The best players in the league play around 36 MPG's and we practically have our starting 5 doing that and last I checked, we don't have a big 5. Having a small rotation is fine, but you just have to trot out your bench more. We need a big who can play both spots and a wing who can play both spots to eat up some big minutes because this is ridiculous. If it's a trust issue with the current bench then make a trade. If it's a monitoring issue then make an assistant track minutes and nobody plays over 36. If it's a Thibs issue then wake the fuck up because right now he is the living embodiment of insanity. Trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
- This is the (xth) time the Wolves have ended a game without enough timeouts to advance the ball. That's a legit concern. I know Thibs likes to use them to stop runs and stuff... but don't they get 7 of them?
- Wiggins looked engaged, attacked and most importantly shot well. 41 points on 16 - 29 fg (or similar) is a nice line. The next step is filling out that line as has been noted hundreds of times... or he won't be elite. Just how today's game works. And yes... that last shot, a contested turnaround deep jumper without anybody else touching the ball, was a bad shot. I'm willing to forgive though. He's young.
- Rubio shot 67% percent. He's not why we lost!
- Rubio only took 3 shots and continues to pass up wide open shots for deeper, more contested shots by teammates several times per game. That has a residual toll on a team.
- Gortat shot 9 - 9 fg. Some were on Towns. Some were on other defenders. Almost all were because of John Wall.
- Speaking of... damn. That's a PG dominant offense, good or bad. But when Wall is on... it's kind of fun to watch, right? He was cool being the distributor, but with his ability to score, the Wolves had to send help which freed up his teammates. He's a threat. Maybe more impressively, he scored 7 straight points after his team went down in the 4th quarter.
- 3rd straight game where one of the "Big 3" had an atrocious shooting night. First was Towns. Then Wiggins. Then LaVine. 3 straight losses to below .500 teams. This team relies on those guys too much for offense.
- Brandon Rush is alive. He's alive!!
- PING PONG! Wolves have the worst record in the West. 4th worst overall. More young talent with immense promise and potential on the way. YEAH!
I hear you papal. But I come back to this. Thibs aggressively pursued the head coach position here. After watching the NBA constantly last season during his year off and watching tons of Wolves games on tape, Thibs concluded that he really wanted to coach this team largely because this team had, in hs words, the "best young roster in the NBA." It troubles me to believe that now, after a little less than half a season, Thibs would suddenly find that the roster he coveted doesn't fit him. What does that say about his accumen as a PBO? And what does that say about him as a head coach when he can't adapt to a talented young roster but instead needs a roster very precisely calibrated to his coaching style? The truly top notch coaches adapt to different types of rosters with different styles of play as we'e seen from Popovich over the years.
I look at the situation as if I were the team's owner. I'll note that, as I mentioned last summer, I wouldn't have hired Thibs if I owned the team at that time. What would I do if I bought the team today, facing this current frustrating situation? As unhappy and frustrated as I am, I'd exercise restraint, suck it up and retain the status quo for the remainder of this season. We've played well enough for long stretches of individual games to believe the team can turn around dramatically the last half of the season, although candidly I don't actually expect that to happen. But I want to give Thibs an entire season with this roster that HE wanted to coach.
If we continue on our current course, we'll end up with a worse record than last season -- 25 or 26 wins instead of 29. That would be an absolutely unnacceptable disaster. If we end the season with less than 30 wins, I would fire and replace Thibs as head coach. I'd eat his contract which, while pricey, would be small compared to the revenue hit the organization would take by continuing to lose. I don't have a definitive replacement in mind at the moment, but I'd spend the next 4 months identifying possible candidates. Then I'd go from there. The good news is that another 29-win season will likely get us another high lottery pick. I'd consider trading any of our players after hiring a new head coach and PBO, but I'd be very reluctant to trade KAT, Zach or Wiggins.
If we improve substantially the second half of the season and win at least 35 games, I'd be disappointed, but that would be enough for me to retain Thibs. Then I'd see what Thibs the PBO wants to do with the roster. For all we know, he might say he wants to go forward with the guys he has, but add a solid free agent or two. If told me he wanted to trade KAT, LaVine, Wiggins or Gorgui, he'd have to make a very compelling case to me and, of course, it would ultimately depend on who we could get in return. Outside those four players, we'd have decent cap space to pursue some free agents, a lottery pick in the 10-14 range and some fairly decent trade assets, namely (1) our lottery pick, (2) Ricky Rubio, (3) Kris Dunn, (4) Cole Aldridge (big man on a cheap contract), and (5) Pek's expiring contract.
If we really want to shake things up next summer with or without Thibs, I think it would be some sort of trade package involving Wiggins and Rubio for a relatively young talented veteran. Not sure who that would be, but I'd be interested in thoughts on that just for fun.
My bottom line is that we should hold our noses for the rest of this season and see where things end up. The worst thing we could do would be to act out of impatience or frustration because that's what typically leads to the biggest blunders.
Thibs isn't going anywhere regardless of how this season plays out, nor should he. Any talk of him being canned is wishful thinking from that particular poster and not a realistic outcome.
Camden wrote:Thibs isn't going anywhere regardless of how this season plays out, nor should he. Any talk of him being canned is wishful thinking from that particular poster and not a realistic outcome.
Not wishful thinking on my part. I was just saying what I would do if in charge and I think it would be the right thing to can Thibs if we finish with another 29-win season or less. But otherwise I agree with you that it's highly unlikely Glen will fire Thibs under any circumstances next summer. Given that Glen is the owner and not me, you're absolutely right that firing Thibs is not a realistic outcome.
AbeVigodaLive wrote:Abe's Late DVR viewing report:
- This is the (xth) time the Wolves have ended a game without enough timeouts to advance the ball. That's a legit concern. I know Thibs likes to use them to stop runs and stuff... but don't they get 7 of them?
- Wiggins looked engaged, attacked and most importantly shot well. 41 points on 16 - 29 fg (or similar) is a nice line. The next step is filling out that line as has been noted hundreds of times... or he won't be elite. Just how today's game works. And yes... that last shot, a contested turnaround deep jumper without anybody else touching the ball, was a bad shot. I'm willing to forgive though. He's young.
- Rubio shot 67% percent. He's not why we lost!
- Rubio only took 3 shots and continues to pass up wide open shots for deeper, more contested shots by teammates several times per game. That has a residual toll on a team.
- Gortat shot 9 - 9 fg. Some were on Towns. Some were on other defenders. Almost all were because of John Wall.
- Speaking of... damn. That's a PG dominant offense, good or bad. But when Wall is on... it's kind of fun to watch, right? He was cool being the distributor, but with his ability to score, the Wolves had to send help which freed up his teammates. He's a threat. Maybe more impressively, he scored 7 straight points after his team went down in the 4th quarter.
- 3rd straight game where one of the "Big 3" had an atrocious shooting night. First was Towns. Then Wiggins. Then LaVine. 3 straight losses to below .500 teams. This team relies on those guys too much for offense.
- Brandon Rush is alive. He's alive!!
- PING PONG! Wolves have the worst record in the West. 4th worst overall. More young talent with immense promise and potential on the way. YEAH!
I'm willing to forgive Wiggins for scoring 41 points. How dare he try to will the team on to victory when his two compadres are sucking hind tit? Oh well, he's young.
