alexftbl8181 wrote:Here's the thing, everything that people say that KG will bring can easily be had without giving him a roster spot and a player's salary. Nobody is saying how great he'll be for those 20 minutes 3 games a week, nobody. It's
Mentoring
Showing the kids how to play the right way
guiding them in practice
being a leader
You can give him a coaching spot, or hell, just make up a title for him, "timberwolves ambassador" or something, and he can still do all those things, and for a hell of a lot less then 16 million dollars and a roster spot.
Big men go get post up advice for Hakeem, is that not that same? I think Kareem does the same thing. Is that costing teams 16 million and a roster spot?
What if Bejelca turns out to have a season like Mirotic did and is awesome and should play 30 minutes a game? Does KG still get his minutes? If so then do you just scrape giving Payne/Bennett any minutes?
So besides KG and Towns, you have Bejelca,Dieng,Bennett, Pek, Payne all in those 4 and 5 slots. The odds say at least 1 one of those guys is going to show he deserves big minutes. So what if two of those guys show that the deserve minutes? Hell what if 3 of them do? Does KG still get his?
There's just no sense in giving the guy a roster spot if his main contribution is off the court
Your argument might make sense if KG's contributions were more off court than on court, but I see it as exactly the opposite. The Wolves were a good team last year when KG was actually playing, and we stunk after he got "hurt". I don't know if you went to any of the games KG played in last year, or even watched them closely on TV, but we looked nothing like the team I watched most of the season. He is a coach on the court, constantly pointing and shouting to teammates on defense to get them in the right position. And we were even a better team offensively when he was on the court...better spacing and faster ball movement. That's what I mean when I talk about the positive impact KG has on the team, and he has to be playing to be effective. I find the off-court mentoring narrative to be a crock.
Though I think KG is an embarrassment to the NBA, I agree with LST that his contributions on the court are much greater than those off. The key of course is how much time he can spend on the court. It's not just his playing ability, it's his infectious passion and competitive fire that will benefit us. Off the court, I think his contribution is vastly overplayed. I'm sure he is someone you can go and get advice from if you wish, but he's not a coach and it's pretty clear he is being paid to play. I don't have a problem paying him the money if he can play in 70 games and give us 25 minutes. If he can't, I have to question the dollars and SENSE of it all.
CoolBreeze44 wrote:Though I think KG is an embarrassment to the NBA, I agree with LST that his contributions on the court are much greater than those off. The key of course is how much time he can spend on the court. It's not just his playing ability, it's his infectious passion and competitive fire that will benefit us. Off the court, I think his contribution is vastly overplayed. I'm sure he is someone you can go and get advice from if you wish, but he's not a coach and it's pretty clear he is being paid to play. I don't have a problem paying him the money if he can play in 70 games and give us 25 minutes. If he can't, I have to question the dollars and SENSE of it all.
Well, be prepared to be disappointed Cool. He's capped himself at 20MPG for the last two seasons and it's been four seasons since he's played 70+ games. Ain't happening.
We're paying a guy $8M that will barely crack 1,000 minutes given the fact he's a year older. Things go downhill fast at this stage.
Until we see more of Towns shouldn't we consider KG the best defensive player the Wolves have? That alone should justify his contract ..
We have all bitched for years that this team has had no defensive identity and overall was just a poor defensive unit. He's a top 10 defensive player of all time in my book which should translate into some positives for the younger guys .
PorkChop wrote:Until we see more of Towns shouldn't we consider KG the best defensive player the Wolves have? That alone should justify his contract ..
We have all bitched for years that this team has had no defensive identity and overall was just a poor defensive unit. He's a top 10 defensive player of all time in my book which should translate into some positives for the younger guys .
Bingo. He is one of the best PnR defenders of all time and that is definitely something we want rubbing off on Towns and the other bigs. Hopefully Dubljevic can come over next year (I think his contract is up) so he can have some time around KG as well.
alexftbl8181 wrote:Here's the thing, everything that people say that KG will bring can easily be had without giving him a roster spot and a player's salary. Nobody is saying how great he'll be for those 20 minutes 3 games a week, nobody. It's
Mentoring
Showing the kids how to play the right way
guiding them in practice
being a leader
You can give him a coaching spot, or hell, just make up a title for him, "timberwolves ambassador" or something, and he can still do all those things, and for a hell of a lot less then 16 million dollars and a roster spot.
Big men go get post up advice for Hakeem, is that not that same? I think Kareem does the same thing. Is that costing teams 16 million and a roster spot?
What if Bejelca turns out to have a season like Mirotic did and is awesome and should play 30 minutes a game? Does KG still get his minutes? If so then do you just scrape giving Payne/Bennett any minutes?
So besides KG and Towns, you have Bejelca,Dieng,Bennett, Pek, Payne all in those 4 and 5 slots. The odds say at least 1 one of those guys is going to show he deserves big minutes. So what if two of those guys show that the deserve minutes? Hell what if 3 of them do? Does KG still get his?
There's just no sense in giving the guy a roster spot if his main contribution is off the court
Your argument might make sense if KG's contributions were more off court than on court, but I see it as exactly the opposite. The Wolves were a good team last year when KG was actually playing, and we stunk after he got "hurt". I don't know if you went to any of the games KG played in last year, or even watched them closely on TV, but we looked nothing like the team I watched most of the season. He is a coach on the court, constantly pointing and shouting to teammates on defense to get them in the right
position. And we were even a better team offensively when he was on the court...better spacing and faster ball movement. That's what I mean when I talk about the positive impact KG has on the team, and he has to be playing to be effective. I find the off-court mentoring narrative to be a crock.
Funny Long, I thought the first 5 games of the season is where you drew the conclusion that the Wolves were a playoff team? Were those the best the Wolves played or was it the 5 games KG played? Pretty sure Thad played like a million bucks those first 5 games
PorkChop wrote:Until we see more of Towns shouldn't we consider KG the best defensive player the Wolves have? That alone should justify his contract ..
We have all bitched for years that this team has had no defensive identity and overall was just a poor defensive unit. He's a top 10 defensive player of all time in my book which should translate into some positives for the younger guys .
you can't be considered the best anything when you only play 15 minutes a night
