All of this makes me wonder why we had the Cavs include Bennett in the deal that brought him here. Was our front office's evaluation of Bennett that off?
Because Cavs needed to include Bennett to make trade salaries work. Without AB's contract Cavs wouldn't be able to absorb Love's contract. It wasn't really about his talents. Get it now?
Lets not act like Flip didn't hype Bennett up big time after that trade
Standard procedure/classic PBO behavior. The answer to any of these questions and riddles lies in another question. Would the exclusion of Bennett's talent been a deal breaker?
I always thought Flip was pretty consistent in his assessment of Bennett all the way down to what he said about him this summer.
"You look at him and he was drafted, had shoulder surgery, did not practice at all during the summertime, missed training camp, came in during the year and was diagnosed with sleep apnea and other things," Saunders said. "He has lost 25 pounds, he's working hard to get in shape. He's an NBA player. He's a guy that's going to be a rotation-type player."
At the end of all that praise he said Bennett was an NBA player a rotation player which isn't exactly huge hype. I never heard Flip refer to him as a star or whatever.
I believe he paraded him out with Wiggins and Thad at the state fair as their kinda "big 3" knockoff thing
All of this makes me wonder why we had the Cavs include Bennett in the deal that brought him here. Was our front office's evaluation of Bennett that off?
Because Cavs needed to include Bennett to make trade salaries work. Without AB's contract Cavs wouldn't be able to absorb Love's contract. It wasn't really about his talents. Get it now?
Lets not act like Flip didn't hype Bennett up big time after that trade
Standard procedure/classic PBO behavior. The answer to any of these questions and riddles lies in another question. Would the exclusion of Bennett's talent been a deal breaker?
I always thought Flip was pretty consistent in his assessment of Bennett all the way down to what he said about him this summer.
"You look at him and he was drafted, had shoulder surgery, did not practice at all during the summertime, missed training camp, came in during the year and was diagnosed with sleep apnea and other things," Saunders said. "He has lost 25 pounds, he's working hard to get in shape. He's an NBA player. He's a guy that's going to be a rotation-type player."
At the end of all that praise he said Bennett was an NBA player a rotation player which isn't exactly huge hype. I never heard Flip refer to him as a star or whatever.
I believe he paraded him out with Wiggins and Thad at the state fair as their kinda "big 3" knockoff thing
Ok this is pretty simple.
Wolves receive 3 young talented players for a star player in Love. Flip presents those players to a gut pinched fan base that had their star player traded away to help both the fans and probably the new players get hyped up.
I don't think that means Bennett was overhyped he was the least hyped player of the 3 there.
All of this makes me wonder why we had the Cavs include Bennett in the deal that brought him here. Was our front office's evaluation of Bennett that off?
Because Cavs needed to include Bennett to make trade salaries work. Without AB's contract Cavs wouldn't be able to absorb Love's contract. It wasn't really about his talents. Get it now?
Ding ding ding. We have a winner!
The Cavs wanted him gone, period. In order to get Wiggins I would bet the house the Cavs required the Wolves take Bennet.
I love how Alex attempts to troll again by suggesting Flip was hyping Bennett, then when someone posts actual quotes from Flip stating Bennett is a rotation player (not a future star), he scrambles and tries to point out the State Fair thing....when everyone in the world knew that trade was about Wiggins. Flip wasn't even hyping up Bennett on draft day two years ago...when he was suggesting Oladipo was the one guy he was truly interested in. And actually, it wasn't just those 3 that were at the State Fair, Lavine was also included. Basically, it was all our new guys. What was Flip going go to do? Invite Wiggins, Lavine, and Thad and tell Bennett to stay home?
For as bad as most of what passes as journalism today that was an excellent article!
Wow, very thorough.
They go into quite a lot of detail about Flip's pet "pick and drift" play for the long 2 - the absolute worst play in his playbook that he ran over and over again for all of our PFs, not just AB. As the article states, unless you are LMA and can hit that shot in your sleep, it's the worst possible shot in basketball to take. Either just make it a 3 or roll to the hoop.
I think AB ultimately sticks in this league. He just needs to take a few lumps and keep maturing.
For as bad as most of what passes as journalism today that was an excellent article!
bleedspeed177 wrote:this is a good read on AB.
Agreed thanks Bleed for posting this. It's a pretty fair article and it puts Bennett in a pretty poor light even though the author seem to want to try although it doesn't exactly make the Wolves look good either. It's a heavy dose it of reality about him as a player going forward.
I'll add to this article that there must have been reasons Flip and the coaching staff didn't give Bennett more of chance than they did. This article lays out some reasons why. I can't remember what MN media person mentioned it (it was only one and they didn't have a direct quote) but they said Flip was unhappy with Bennett taking all those long 2's he wanted him to attack more from that spot which makes a lot of sense based on his theoretical skill set. It reminds me a little of Adelman telling Williams to attack the basket a lot more. He got through to Williams to a certain extent who did more attacking. He should still do more but at least forces the issue when he does resulting in a decent foul rate. Earlier in the season Bennett had some more promising moments being active and being more of a factor defensively at times getting hands on the ball etc. After that he looked more like an undersized PF that couldn't play defense, couldn't score and didn't hustle to make up for it. Basically he was a lesser version of Dante Cunningham despite having theoretically higher skill level.
Playing for team Canada showed what he could if he was a completary player plus he hit some 3's which would make him more of a rotation level player. I didn't see the diverse offensive skill set that he was touted to have when he came into the league. Take that away and there isn't a ton left to get wildly excited about. Basically he played a role not unlike Pek has for the Wolves (without the post up and finishing ability) or Rado for Serbia while also hitting a few 3's. For a 6'8" guy I don't know if that's gonna add up to much at the NBA level. I agree with Q eventually he will probably figure a few things out and be a solid bench guy but I just don't see a lot of upside.
You have to keep the context of that draft in mind but it's hard not to consider Bennett the biggest #1 pick bust of all time. A buyout after playing for 2 different teams where he didn't do much when he played and was injured a decent chunk of games all while playing for 2 bad teams that had every reason to give him minutes? Whew
