Miami's Pick

[Porckchop]

Did u guys think the wolves were a borderline playoff team to begin the season?

[TRKO [enjin:12664595]]

Did u guys think the wolves were a borderline playoff team to begin the season?

If they played in the east maybe. I think we will win 30-40 games next year.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

Am I the only one who looks at the Miami pick trade as having given it up for Bennett? I guess you could say we gave up the Miami pick for either Young or Bennett since Flip had the choice of sending Philly Bennett or Miami pick for Young. In other words we could have kept the Miami pick and still gotten Thad. Bennett!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do we know that it could have been Bennett or the pick? Hinkie is collecting picks, not players. Did anyone ever confirm that Bennett was an acceptable piece for them or was that just made up by people on the board? I don't think Hinkie wanted to take on 13 million in contracts and only send out Thad's 9.

Once we traded Love we became a rebuilding team. It made sense to take a shot with Bennett as part of the Love deal. It did not sense to give up a first round pick for Thad Young. I would have preferred Waiters or Thompson to Bennett, but the Bennett part of the deal wasn't a bad move at the time.

I'm fine with keeping Bennett over the pick given our situation at the time. I'm just wondering if people are using their own opinion on what Philly would have taken to try to make the move look worse for Flip. People are suggesting we could have had Thad and the pick and given them Bennett instead and I am just wondering if that was ever confirmed by someone as an option or if people just made that up and it caught traction on the board with no backing from any sources actually close to the situation.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Did u guys think the wolves were a borderline playoff team to begin the season?

No. Even if we had stayed reasonably healthy, we probably would have only won 30-35 games tops in my opinion. That's still 10 games short of a WC playoff berth. It's incredible how good you need to be just to snag an 8th seed.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Did u guys think the wolves were a borderline playoff team to begin the season?

No. Even if we had stayed reasonably healthy, we probably would have only won 30-35 games tops in my opinion. That's still 10 games short of a WC playoff berth. It's incredible how good you need to be just to snag an 8th seed.

I have a different take on pork's question. If he is asking "Assuming the Wolves continued their ridiculously bad injury luck of the past few seasons, were they playoff team at the beginning of the season", the answer is no. But I think a healthy Wolves team would have made the playoffs. The only evidence we have of how a healthy Wolves team would have fared this year is the first 4 games of the year, and the Wolves' team I watched in those first four games was easily a borderline playoff team. They beat the Pistons at home and the eventual playoff bound Nets in Brooklyn, and took 2 50+ win teams (Chicago and Memphis) down to the wire before losing. That certainly sounds like a playoff team to me, especially since Wiggins was still playing like a frightened rookie in those first four games. The Wolves with 6-8 guys out hurt every game is far from a playoff contender, but a reasonable healthy Wolves team is.

[WildWolf2813]

it woulda hurt more once we eventually sold this pick

[TheGrey08]

it woulda hurt more once we eventually sold this pick

iCwutUdidTher

[whatdtcom [enjin:6685945]]

Miami pick for the Garnett......I still would do it over and over and over.

It doesn't matter where it lands. First pick (Bennett) or second pick (DWill) and beyond have NOT proven a single thing besides that the draft is the biggest hype around.

We have a VERY solid foundation. To have a super wonder kid like Wiggins around----we need to have a solid vet around to show them the ropes cause kids don't always listen to coaches. But they WILL listen to someone that has gone through what they are RIGHT THIS MOMENT. But it's just not Wiggins----we just have a super young team----which is why I would do this trade like Flip said----in a second.

I would like to suggest that to some extent that Garnett has injected that alpha dog mentality in Wiggins. He was very timid early on in the season---remember that? We could see glimpses of his skills but not the assertiveness like now. Before the trade (through Feb), he was taking like 5 FT per, by the last month (April)----Wiggins was taking about 10 FT per. Rookies don't get calls.

[MikkeMan]

I have a different take on pork's question. If he is asking "Assuming the Wolves continued their ridiculously bad injury luck of the past few seasons, were they playoff team at the beginning of the season", the answer is no. But I think a healthy Wolves team would have made the playoffs. The only evidence we have of how a healthy Wolves team would have fared this year is the first 4 games of the year, and the Wolves' team I watched in those first four games was easily a borderline playoff team. They beat the Pistons at home and the eventual playoff bound Nets in Brooklyn, and took 2 50+ win teams (Chicago and Memphis) down to the wire before losing. That certainly sounds like a playoff team to me, especially since Wiggins was still playing like a frightened rookie in those first four games. The Wolves with 6-8 guys out hurt every game is far from a playoff contender, but a reasonable healthy Wolves team is.

Long, based on Wolves offensive and defensive rating in games that Rubio played, I would say that it would have been unlikely that they would have made playoffs in West even if they would have been relatively healthy this season.

Wolves schedule adjusted Ortg in those games that Rubio played was 106.7 and Drtg was 107.5.
Based on those numbers, Wolves would have been even with full roster (Pek missed only three and Martin missed only one of those 21 games) still worse than all playoff teams in west and also worse than non playoff teams Oklahoma, Utah and Phoenix.

If we calculate Wolves Ortg only from games that Rubio played before all star break (when Thad and Mo were still on team), their schedule adjusted Ortg 108.2 and Drtg 106.9 would rank them quite close to same level than New Orleans and Oklahoma. But that is probably already too small sample size and I'm not sure if you are ready to agree that Wolves would have made playoffs this season if they would have been totally healthy and they would not have traded Thad and Mo. :)

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I hear what you're saying, mikkeman, but I'm throwing out the games Ricky played in after he returned from injury. Let's face it...when Ricky returned, the Wolves were already out of the playoffs and Flip had his mind on the lottery. I still maintain that we only saw the real Wolves in those first four games, when we were healthy and actually playing for something...and any team that plays two nailbiters with Memphis (on their court) and Chicago, while beating Brooklyn on their court and Detroit at home, clearly looked like a borderline playoff team. There's not a sufficient sample size so this is only my opinion, but the fact that our numbers when reasonably healthy were close to OkC and NO (2 borderline playoff teams) supports my assertion that a healthy Wolves team was a borderline playoff team.