Playoff Push Begins Tonight - Kings at Wolves GDT

[kekgeek]

I know context is optional in some arguments so here is my no context argument.

Last year after all star break under Sam Mitchell the starters averaged 171.1 minutes per game combined. This year after the all star break under Thibs the starters are averaging 168.8 minutes per game.

So in the greatest 20 game stretch in wolves history sam Mitchell played his starters more than Thibs. (Once again no context to my argument).

The wolves have had 4 coaches in the last 4 years (Aldeman, flip, Mitchell, Thibs). Those coaches have combined for 3691 wins a 62.4% win percentage. 2 coach of the year awards, 8 conference finals appearances, 2 nba finals appearances.

At what point is it on the players? 4 straight losing seasons (13 all together) with those coaching pedigrees.

Keep putting all the blame on the coach (probably deserves some) and non on the player. While missing 2 of our top 7 rotation players.

I would say we lost more than we gained last year (what you can blame thibs/layedon) KG > Aldrich, prince > rush, kmart=hill (I guess). Miller and Dunn I guess is a toss up.

So when does the blame go on the players?

[Lipoli390]

Geek -- I think there's plent of blame to go around. The players definitely deserve a significant share of the blame. For exmple, no excuse for KAT's lack of defensive effort last night or in other games and still no excuse for Wiggins' all too frequent lack of hustle or his failure to develop his game in any statistical areas other than scoring (although I really like the way Andrew's been playing lately). But there has to be plenty of blame assessed to the head coach who failed to take this team beyond where it left off last season. Thibs also deserves blame for his failure as our top executive to improve the team and, in my opinion, for his decision to draft Dunn over Murray or Buddy.

I still cut some slack to our core young players because of their youth. Yes, I know that's getting old (pun intended), but they are still only 21 years old. And I'm still open to cutting Thibs some slack to the extent he made decisions knowing that they were bad in the short term but in the best long-term developmental interest of the team. I still haven't sorted that out in my own mind. I'd love the chance to ask him if I ever get the chance. I really wish we had better local sports journalists who would think to ask him that question. Finally, I'm not down on Thibs in his role as PBO -- at least not yet. Importantly, I don't think he's made any bad player personnel decisions. He's shown patience and hasn't paniced. That's huge.

Looking ahead, this upcoming off-season will tell us a lot more about Thibs/Layden as our front office heads. In my view, they should continue to remain patient and keep this core together. They shouldn't look to improve this team significantly by trading any of our current players. It's hard to get significant net improvement when giving up significant player assets. Trading insignificant players generally brings insignificant players in return. Instead, the Thibs/Layden duo should forcus on improving the roster through free agency. We won't be in a position to sign a star, but we'll have the cap room to sign a very good proven young veteran player who can help us. And we'll have a top 8 pick to keep or deal.

Next time season will tell the tale when it comes to evaluating Thibs as a head coach. I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt this season albeit reluctantly. But while we need to hold the players accountable for their play, it's up to the coaching staff to get the most out of the players they have and I don't think this coaching staff has done that this season. Yet, as I mentioned above, that may be because of an intentional decision to forgoe short-term success in favor or long-term development. I'm O.K, with that for now, but not next season.

[Monster]

Geek -- I think there's plent of blame to go around. The players definitely deserve a significant share of the blame. For exmple, no exclude for KAT's lack of defensive effort last night or in other games and still no excuse for Wiggins' all too frequent lack of hustle or his failure to develop his game in any statistical areas other than scoring (although I really like the way Andrew's been playing lately). But there has to be plenty of blame assessed to the head coach who failed to take this team beyond where it left off last season. Thibs also deserves blame for his failure as our top executive to improve the team and, in my opinion, for his decision to draft Dunn over Murray or Buddy.

I still cut some slack to our core young players because of their youth. Yes, I know that's getting old (pun intended), but they are still only 21 years old. And I'm still open to cutting Thibs some slack to the extent he made decisions knowing that they were bad in the short term but in the best long-term developmental interest of the team. I still haven't sorted that out in my own mind. I'd love the chance to ask him if I ever get the chance. I really wish we had better local sports journalists who would think to ask him that question. Finally, I'm not down on Thibs in his role as PBO -- at least not yet. Importantly, I don't think he's made any bad player personnel decisions. He's shown patience and hasn't paniced. That's huge.

Looking ahead, this upcoming off-season will tell us a lot more about Thibs/Layden as our front office heads. In my view, they should continue to remain patient and keep this core together. They shouldn't look to improve this team significantly by trading any of our current players. It's hard to get significant net improvement when giving up significant player assets. Trading insignificant players generally brings insignificant players in return. Instead, the Thibs/Layden duo should forcus on improving the roster through free agency. We won't be in a position to sign a star, but we'll have the cap room to sign a very good proven young veteran player who can help us. And we'll have a top 8 pick to keep or deal.

Next time season will tell the tale when it comes to evaluating Thibs as a head coach. I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt this season albeit reluctantly. But while we need to hold the players accountable for their play, it's up to the coaching staff to get the most out of the players they have and I don't think this coaching staff has done that this season. Yet, as I mentioned above, that may be because of an intentional decision to forgoe short-term success in favor or long-term development. I'm O.K, with that for now, but not next season.

Good post Lip.

I think one of the things that has kept the win total from being higher is Thibs hasn't strayed too much from his rotations. He has made adjustments especially in the 2nd half of a game going with some matchups but it feels like if he was really trying to win he would throw a guy or 2 out there at times to see if they could get a spark. You can't tell me that there wasn't some point in the season Jordon Hill could have helped. I'm not suggesting That playing Jordon Hill or Aldrich or Tyus or whoever more minutes was the answer but I think there were times Thibs could have sent a message to guys by inserting another player. He didn't do that much. At times I think he didn't do that because he didn't have the player healthy he would liked to have used. Early I think he would have played Rush more but he was hurt and then struggled at first. Lance couldn't stay healthy. Aldrich many nights isn't a great guy to add because Dieng and Towns are already center types and that sorta applies to Jordon Hill too although he at least has a jumper. With Belly out he doesn't have that option and Casspi is a Olof player there are times he just isn't big enough to play that role and he is trying to work his way back himself from injury on a new team.

The Wolves didn't add enough in the offseason to this bench and it hurt them and unfortunately adding 2 solid players in Aldrich and Hill ended up not being worth too much because of the way Towns and dieng play. Remember though all of us were saying this team needed to add some big players to help out. That was true but I think adding a rangy PF would have helped more most nights. Like you said it will be an interesting offseason and so tend to agree with you they should be patient but I also think they need to find at least one more vet that is more assertive when they are on the floor even if the best they can do is a guy in the realm of Anthony Tolliver.

[kekgeek]

Geek -- I think there's plent of blame to go around. The players definitely deserve a significant share of the blame. For exmple, no exclude for KAT's lack of defensive effort last night or in other games and still no excuse for Wiggins' all too frequent lack of hustle or his failure to develop his game in any statistical areas other than scoring (although I really like the way Andrew's been playing lately). But there has to be plenty of blame assessed to the head coach who failed to take this team beyond where it left off last season. Thibs also deserves blame for his failure as our top executive to improve the team and, in my opinion, for his decision to draft Dunn over Murray or Buddy.

I still cut some slack to our core young players because of their youth. Yes, I know that's getting old (pun intended), but they are still only 21 years old. And I'm still open to cutting Thibs some slack to the extent he made decisions knowing that they were bad in the short term but in the best long-term developmental interest of the team. I still haven't sorted that out in my own mind. I'd love the chance to ask him if I ever get the chance. I really wish we had better local sports journalists who would think to ask him that question. Finally, I'm not down on Thibs in his role as PBO -- at least not yet. Importantly, I don't think he's made any bad player personnel decisions. He's shown patience and hasn't paniced. That's huge.

Looking ahead, this upcoming off-season will tell us a lot more about Thibs/Layden as our front office heads. In my view, they should continue to remain patient and keep this core together. They shouldn't look to improve this team significantly by trading any of our current players. It's hard to get significant net improvement when giving up significant player assets. Trading insignificant players generally brings insignificant players in return. Instead, the Thibs/Layden duo should forcus on improving the roster through free agency. We won't be in a position to sign a star, but we'll have the cap room to sign a very good proven young veteran player who can help us. And we'll have a top 8 pick to keep or deal.

Next time season will tell the tale when it comes to evaluating Thibs as a head coach. I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt this season albeit reluctantly. But while we need to hold the players accountable for their play, it's up to the coaching staff to get the most out of the players they have and I don't think this coaching staff has done that this season. Yet, as I mentioned above, that may be because of an intentional decision to forgoe short-term success in favor or long-term development. I'm O.K, with that for now, but not next season.

I agree with pretty much everything that was said. I was just getting annoyed after every loss, it is thibs fault. At some point it is on the players and maybe we don't have enough good players.

I know it is old but your young point is still valid. Of the teams currently in the playoffs, there is 0 players who are a top 3 player on their team who has played 3 years or less. They need to learn to win, but they better do it fast or the culture of losing will take over

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Kekgeek, It's not that simple. The players and Coach/GM are very intertwined at this point. Sure, we can blame the players, but Thibs is the one that kept them on the roster (or signed them) and he is the one preparing them to play night in and night out. His fingerprints are all over this thing.

I have always believed that coaches can impact defense more than offense. On that front, he deserves a D or C at best. This team hardly changed from the sieves they've been the two prior seasons. He's going to need to bring in some guys that buy what he's selling, because the current crew bought it for about 3 weeks and then moved on.

[Monster]

I'm not giving Thibs or the players a pass but I do think it's worth mentioning again the offensive increase this year over last year. The game clearly has evolved even more than it had last year. Just a couple examples of the crazy difference this year before. Marc Gasol took 252 3's this year. Brook Lopez took 362 3's. Neither of those big centers had taken more than 17 3's in any season. Even if Thibs is a defensive genius (I think he probably is) could it be possible that making adjustments to a changing game as well as teaching a bunch of kids was a tougher job than we would have expected? All I am saying is it's worth pondering. I'm on board with you Q when you say this team needs forwards. I see the game continue to be evolve towards the 3 point line.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

I'm not giving Thibs or the players a pass but I do think it's worth mentioning again the offensive increase this year over last year. The game clearly has evolved even more than it had last year. Just a couple examples of the crazy difference this year before. Marc Gasol took 252 3's this year. Brook Lopez took 362 3's. Neither of those big centers had taken more than 17 3's in any season. Even if Thibs is a defensive genius (I think he probably is) could it be possible that making adjustments to a changing game as well as teaching a bunch of kids was a tougher job than we would have expected? All I am saying is it's worth pondering. I'm on board with you Q when you say this team needs forwards. I see the game continue to be evolve towards the 3 point line.

It's all relative. Other coaches and players have to deal with the same changing dynamics. If anything, Thibs had the advantage of being on sabbatical last year and getting a bigger-picture view of how the league was changing. He probably saw all of this coming before most people did.

[Monster]

I'm not giving Thibs or the players a pass but I do think it's worth mentioning again the offensive increase this year over last year. The game clearly has evolved even more than it had last year. Just a couple examples of the crazy difference this year before. Marc Gasol took 252 3's this year. Brook Lopez took 362 3's. Neither of those big centers had taken more than 17 3's in any season. Even if Thibs is a defensive genius (I think he probably is) could it be possible that making adjustments to a changing game as well as teaching a bunch of kids was a tougher job than we would have expected? All I am saying is it's worth pondering. I'm on board with you Q when you say this team needs forwards. I see the game continue to be evolve towards the 3 point line.

It's all relative. Other coaches and players have to deal with the same changing dynamics. If anything, Thibs had the advantage of being on sabbatical last year and getting a bigger-picture view of how the league was changing. He probably saw all of this coming before most people did.

Sure but the point this keeps coming back to is what vets did he lean on defensively like other teams were able to do? Brandon Rush? Rubio? Aldrich didn't play much and he isn't a bigtime season vet anyway. The Spurs defensive rating last year was 96.4. This year 100.2. That's a pretty large difference. You don't think Thibs had to change some of what he was looking to do defensively as time went on all while working with a completely new roster to him with few impact players on that end? Again I'm not giving a free pass here just bringing up something to consider and I'm not sure Thibs saw this coming to the extent he should have or he would have signed a different type of player than getting Aldrich and Hill.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

Kekgeek, It's not that simple. The players and Coach/GM are very intertwined at this point. Sure, we can blame the players, but Thibs is the one that kept them on the roster (or signed them) and he is the one preparing them to play night in and night out. His fingerprints are all over this thing.

I have always believed that coaches can impact defense more than offense. On that front, he deserves a D or C at best. This team hardly changed from the sieves they've been the two prior seasons. He's going to need to bring in some guys that buy what he's selling, because the current crew bought it for about 3 weeks and then moved on.

Thibs fingerprints are barely on this team. Dunn and Rush now that Lavine is hurt are the only players playing significant minutes that Thibs brought in. Everyone else that's playing was inherited. This team still isn't playing the defense a Thibs coached team should play. This isn't his team yet. How's he supposed to cut guys before they play a game for him to see if they fit? That makes no sense that this team instantly has his fingerprints on it because he chose to keep guys around he never brought in. His fingerprints won't fully be on this team for probably another year or two.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Kekgeek, It's not that simple. The players and Coach/GM are very intertwined at this point. Sure, we can blame the players, but Thibs is the one that kept them on the roster (or signed them) and he is the one preparing them to play night in and night out. His fingerprints are all over this thing.

I have always believed that coaches can impact defense more than offense. On that front, he deserves a D or C at best. This team hardly changed from the sieves they've been the two prior seasons. He's going to need to bring in some guys that buy what he's selling, because the current crew bought it for about 3 weeks and then moved on.

Thibs fingerprints are barely on this team. Dunn and Rush now that Lavine is hurt are the only players playing significant minutes that Thibs brought in. Everyone else that's playing was inherited. This team still isn't playing the defense a Thibs coached team should play. This isn't his team yet. How's he supposed to cut guys before they play a game for him to see if they fit? That makes no sense that this team instantly has his fingerprints on it because he chose to keep guys around he never brought in. His fingerprints won't fully be on this team for probably another year or two.

Remember, he's the coach too! He's had this crew since before training camp, going all the way back to summer league. So are you saying only the POBO can impact a team's performance and the coach has nothing to do with it?

Again, I give him a C at best in his full capacity of POBO/Head coach. This team woefully under-performed the expectations of everyone on this board (including you) AND the sober-minded quants in Vegas.