khans2k5 wrote:The biggest mistake was Curry. He's the greatest shooter of all time. He's the face of the 3pt revolution. He's an egoless superstar star. Oh and we could have paired him with Kevin Love creating the best two man game in the league at the time. There is no other move in franchise history comparable to passing that guy up twice.
Yes. If we're playing the hindsight game... This is true.
And sadly, many people realized it at the time, which makes it worse.
Let's all just agree that when the Wolves do finally win that title, we're going to enjoy it immensely.
CoolBreeze44 wrote:If Taylor had given Love the max I suspect you would have had a problem with that too. Especially after his routine trips to the disabled list. Hindsight
Me?
No. When you're as crappy of a franchise as the Wolves were (are)... and a guy who is rapidly improving and productive WANTS to stay... sign him! I don't think that take ever changed.
Ironically, that Kevin Love mistake from Taylor might have actually led to the decision to max out Wiggins. Turns out the guy played it wrong both times trying two very different methods.
They did sign him. And you can certainly argue it turned out to be the right decision. It had nothing to do with maxing out Wiggins.
They didn't give him the 5 year max like Wiggins and Kat have. They gave him a 4 year max with a player option after 3. Reports were that was the main reason he wanted out is because he didn't recieve the full max the 1st time
But didn't we get the best of Kevin Love? And after he left, would you have really considered him a max 5 year guy based on the ensuing production?
If you want to play that game...
The guy was a key guy on 4* NBA Finals teams... and made two ASGs.
The guy the Wolves traded for has yet to post a season better than an average replacement player .
Yeah. I think Love still held pretty damn good value, even as a max player.
I'll play the game. But first i will say i was always a Love supporter, even to this day. On the first finals team he missed basically the entire post season. His numbers in Cleveland were always good, not great. And those numbers went down fairly dramatically in the post season. He has missed a ton of games throughout his career, both here and in Cleveland. And he's never even sniffed the playoffs without having Lebron on his team. So yeah, you can make an argument the 4 year max was appropriate compensation.
That's what the * was for...
And feel free to discredit Love's contributions to a perennial championship team while absolving a guy who has yet to distance himself from Garrett Temple.
Not discrediting Love's contributions at all. Just stating facts. And i have no idea what you're talking about with the Temple reference.
khans2k5 wrote:The biggest mistake was Curry. He's the greatest shooter of all time. He's the face of the 3pt revolution. He's an egoless superstar star. Oh and we could have paired him with Kevin Love creating the best two man game in the league at the time. There is no other move in franchise history comparable to passing that guy up twice.
That's tough to argue with too. I know it was the move that upset me the most at the time.
CoolBreeze44 wrote:If Taylor had given Love the max I suspect you would have had a problem with that too. Especially after his routine trips to the disabled list. Hindsight
Me?
No. When you're as crappy of a franchise as the Wolves were (are)... and a guy who is rapidly improving and productive WANTS to stay... sign him! I don't think that take ever changed.
Ironically, that Kevin Love mistake from Taylor might have actually led to the decision to max out Wiggins. Turns out the guy played it wrong both times trying two very different methods.
They did sign him. And you can certainly argue it turned out to be the right decision. It had nothing to do with maxing out Wiggins.
They didn't give him the 5 year max like Wiggins and Kat have. They gave him a 4 year max with a player option after 3. Reports were that was the main reason he wanted out is because he didn't recieve the full max the 1st time
But didn't we get the best of Kevin Love? And after he left, would you have really considered him a max 5 year guy based on the ensuing production?
If you want to play that game...
The guy was a key guy on 4* NBA Finals teams... and made two ASGs.
The guy the Wolves traded for has yet to post a season better than an average replacement player .
Yeah. I think Love still held pretty damn good value, even as a max player.
I'll play the game. But first i will say i was always a Love supporter, even to this day. On the first finals team he missed basically the entire post season. His numbers in Cleveland were always good, not great. And those numbers went down fairly dramatically in the post season. He has missed a ton of games throughout his career, both here and in Cleveland. And he's never even sniffed the playoffs without having Lebron on his team. So yeah, you can make an argument the 4 year max was appropriate compensation.
That's what the * was for...
And feel free to discredit Love's contributions to a perennial championship team while absolving a guy who has yet to distance himself from Garrett Temple.
Not discrediting Love's contributions at all. Just stating facts. And i have no idea what you're talking about with the Temple reference.
Garrett Temple is a vagabond replacement level player who bounces around the league while mostly sucking balls... but doesn't seem to be any more of a detriment (or help) to his teams than Andre Wiggins is.
CoolBreeze44 wrote:If Taylor had given Love the max I suspect you would have had a problem with that too. Especially after his routine trips to the disabled list. Hindsight
Me?
No. When you're as crappy of a franchise as the Wolves were (are)... and a guy who is rapidly improving and productive WANTS to stay... sign him! I don't think that take ever changed.
Ironically, that Kevin Love mistake from Taylor might have actually led to the decision to max out Wiggins. Turns out the guy played it wrong both times trying two very different methods.
They did sign him. And you can certainly argue it turned out to be the right decision. It had nothing to do with maxing out Wiggins.
They didn't give him the 5 year max like Wiggins and Kat have. They gave him a 4 year max with a player option after 3. Reports were that was the main reason he wanted out is because he didn't recieve the full max the 1st time
But didn't we get the best of Kevin Love? And after he left, would you have really considered him a max 5 year guy based on the ensuing production?
If you want to play that game...
The guy was a key guy on 4* NBA Finals teams... and made two ASGs.
The guy the Wolves traded for has yet to post a season better than an average replacement player .
Yeah. I think Love still held pretty damn good value, even as a max player.
I'll play the game. But first i will say i was always a Love supporter, even to this day. On the first finals team he missed basically the entire post season. His numbers in Cleveland were always good, not great. And those numbers went down fairly dramatically in the post season. He has missed a ton of games throughout his career, both here and in Cleveland. And he's never even sniffed the playoffs without having Lebron on his team. So yeah, you can make an argument the 4 year max was appropriate compensation.
That's what the * was for...
And feel free to discredit Love's contributions to a perennial championship team while absolving a guy who has yet to distance himself from Garrett Temple.
Not discrediting Love's contributions at all. Just stating facts. And i have no idea what you're talking about with the Temple reference.
Garrett Temple is a vagabond replacement level player who bounces around the league while mostly sucking balls... but doesn't seem to be any more of a detriment (or help) to his teams than Andre Wiggins is.
I've been highly critical of Wiggins, how exactly have i absolved him?
CoolBreeze44 wrote:If Taylor had given Love the max I suspect you would have had a problem with that too. Especially after his routine trips to the disabled list. Hindsight
Me?
No. When you're as crappy of a franchise as the Wolves were (are)... and a guy who is rapidly improving and productive WANTS to stay... sign him! I don't think that take ever changed.
Ironically, that Kevin Love mistake from Taylor might have actually led to the decision to max out Wiggins. Turns out the guy played it wrong both times trying two very different methods.
They did sign him. And you can certainly argue it turned out to be the right decision. It had nothing to do with maxing out Wiggins.
They didn't give him the 5 year max like Wiggins and Kat have. They gave him a 4 year max with a player option after 3. Reports were that was the main reason he wanted out is because he didn't recieve the full max the 1st time
But didn't we get the best of Kevin Love? And after he left, would you have really considered him a max 5 year guy based on the ensuing production?
If you want to play that game...
The guy was a key guy on 4* NBA Finals teams... and made two ASGs.
The guy the Wolves traded for has yet to post a season better than an average replacement player .
Yeah. I think Love still held pretty damn good value, even as a max player.
I'll play the game. But first i will say i was always a Love supporter, even to this day. On the first finals team he missed basically the entire post season. His numbers in Cleveland were always good, not great. And those numbers went down fairly dramatically in the post season. He has missed a ton of games throughout his career, both here and in Cleveland. And he's never even sniffed the playoffs without having Lebron on his team. So yeah, you can make an argument the 4 year max was appropriate compensation.
That's what the * was for...
And feel free to discredit Love's contributions to a perennial championship team while absolving a guy who has yet to distance himself from Garrett Temple.
Not discrediting Love's contributions at all. Just stating facts. And i have no idea what you're talking about with the Temple reference.
Garrett Temple is a vagabond replacement level player who bounces around the league while mostly sucking balls... but doesn't seem to be any more of a detriment (or help) to his teams than Andre Wiggins is.
I've been highly critical of Wiggins, how exactly have i absolved him?
I was just pointing out how you used hindsight to say we got rid of Love at the right time...
... without acknowledging the second part of that equation... his direct replacement has been far worse. So in that context, yeah... I think they were better served having him for longer.
Glen Taylor's culpability lies in his terrible decisions hiring front office personnel. After that, it's been way too many bad and far too few good decisions by our various front office executives. Bad draft decisions, bad signing decisions and bad trade decisions. I have to wonder about our scouts as well.
lipoli390 wrote:Glen Taylor's culpability lies in his terrible decisions hiring front office personnel. After that, it's been way too many bad and far too few good decisions by our various front office executives. Bad draft decisions, bad signing decisions and bad trade decisions. I have to wonder about our scouts as well.
Right but will Taylor ever make a good front office decision? Not likely. Even if he hired someone with real talent there would never be a proper infrastructure for success. The guy just doesn't have it in him.
All franchises make decisions that look bad in hindsight, particularly in the draft but also in other decisions. Almost everybody here thought we should give Wiggins the max, for example. I disagreed and people certainly had misgivings, but that was generally close to a consensus at the time, even among guys like Nate Duncan, who had reservations but said we should give him the max. It was a completely understandable call at the time, as were some (but not all) of these others we have mentioned. And while there have been some head scratching picks in the draft by all teams, most of the time, teams kind of go with the general consensus. And yet, life is unpredictable, so the consensus turn out to be wrong sometimes. All organizations have been on the wrong side of that dynamic . . .
BUT. But. This organization really does seem to make a disproportionately large number of mistakes, and that's certainly a major reason why we've been so bad for so long. Of course, as fans who go onto an online platform to discuss our team with a fine-toothed comb, we're primed to see and feel the mistakes better than anyone, so perhaps we exaggerate them. But that still doesn't dismiss the reality that this team just screws up roster decisions at a higher rate than other teams. I'd love to see if anybody has found a way to quantitatively study all team decisions in the NBA over a long period of time and measure which teams make better decisions and which make worse. I would guess we are in the bottom 10 and probably the bottom 5. I'm curious what the rest of you think.
I also think Cool is right when he highlights culture. This team has a losing culture. And that culture is contagious. People expect to lose in this franchise. And we've lost for so long, it not only dissuades free agents, but it also seems to really hurt the chemistry of the team, regardless of the makeup of the roster. And this is where Taylor and everyone who's been in the organization for a long time is culpable. Something needs to happen to change the culture of the organization as a whole so that it can start to positively affect the culture and chemistry of the team itself over time.
And especially this year, having seen the Butler fiasco, watching how the Lakers responded to the trade rumors, seeing how Kyrie's personality seems to be poisoning the Celtics, it seems clear that team chemistry is crucial. It's like any office. If people like working together, the office just works better. When people don't like each other and are just in it for themselves, everybody's less productive and nothing really works as well as a team. And all it takes is a couple shitty personalities or a communication problem between key people. NBA teams are no different.
When was the last time you saw a Wolves team that looked like they truly enjoyed playing with each other?
I honestly can't remember. And I think that's also a key part of the problem.
They've embraced being the worst team the NBA has to offer year in, year out and they don't even realize it. Winning is not the #1 goal for this franchise. Being comfortable is. Hoping people will like Minneapolis is. Thinking that being nice alone will be what turns everything around. Did the Bucks do everything with Antetokounmpo? Not really, but they made enough right moves (Coach Bud being a huge move, selling the team being the biggest one) to propel them to where they are now. The fish rots from the head. Lip can name every missed opportunity on Earth, but the buck stops with Glen Taylor. I am fully convinced that we'll never get to where we wanna be as long as he is the owner.
The Thibs hire sucked but everyone turned out to be wrong about that hire. What can you do? Glen got burned. I also think everyone was wrong about how good a core of LaVine/Wiggins/Towns/Dunn could be. Those two situations have led to what will cripple this team going forward: Wiggins' max deal and Glen's reluctance to go outside of the country club. He's gonna keep Ryan Saunders because he wants a feel good story rather than winning. He's gonna hire Fred Hoiberg as a GM because he knows Fred won't get in the way of his feel good story. Nothing is gonna feel good if this team is losing and Glen can't comprehend this.
This team's been around 30 years.
THREE players have spent 7 years or more with this team. THREE
Kevin Garnett (12)
Sam Mitchell (10)
Doug West (9)
Wally Szczerbiak didn'r finish his 7th season with the team as he got traded midseason to Boston.
We can pretty much bank on Dieng and Wiggins being the next 2, but only because nobody wants them. Let's be honest with ourselves. Deep down we don't think Towns will make it to 7 years here either.
