slimcalhoun27 wrote:Really wish we had gotten Nurkic before Portland stole him from Denver. His size, touch around the rim and ability to step back and fascilitate a pass to open players is incredible. What a trade by Portland on him.
What a dumb trade by Denver. They literally dug their own grave on that trade. It's one of the few things I agree with Khansy on. Their GM should have been fired for that deal. And as usual, it's another team in the West that benefits from it......
By most reports, he needed to go. They chose Jokic. Nurkic pouted.
To send him to a WC team that ended up knocking them out of the playoffs though?
Ouch.
That's why my rule of thumb is to never trade a player you value to a team in your conference. And that's why, if I were looking at trading our 1st round pick or one of our core young players, I'd look exclusively at Eastern Conference teams.
While I'd agree if the Wolves were already a playoff team... they have so far to go just to make the playoffs... and even further to go to be a good playoff team... I'd prefer to do whatever it takes to get the Wolves better. Who cares about other teams.
I look at it like a 60-loss team drafting for need in the lottery instead of just choosing the best talent.
Good distinction, Abe. Of course, it would depend on who we're getting in return. But I think we're close enough to being a playoff team with our young talent that we have to factor in the extent to which we might be helping a potential rival in our own conference.
I honestly don't Remeber what thread Q said recently that he does t understand why they don't use Towns at the elbows like Thibs did with Noah. I tended to agree about that and then I started thinking...
Towns is way more talented offensively than Noah. Duh that's obvious but really where isn't Towns effective? You could throw the guy deep in the low post and as long as he progressed more as a passer and there was more shooting the guy would be dominate down there. He already is. Wasn't he the guy that's scored the most points in the paint this year or something? He can hit a jumper from nearly anywhere. You sure would like to run pick and rolls with him too. The problem with Towns is he is so good offensively his talent is so diverse it's hard to decide exactly what to do with him. I do think they should use him in some elbow sets like Q has said and I believe Jim Pete has said it as well.
I think a lot of people keep forgetting how young this team is. With Towns Wiggins Lavine and Rubio you have guys that need the ball in some way to be effective. With Lavine out it gives more freedom for the others for touches but takes away the best shooting element on the team. Lebron Love and Katie or Lebron Wade and Bosh took a couple years to figure it out. Lebron is one of the best all around players ever and is unselfish sometimes to a fault and can do nearly anything. Those guys there legit NBA vets (Kylie was pretty young when Lebron came) but we have kids trying to figure it out after playing with new coaches every year very little vet help and a PG that is good but Unique in Rubio who because of injuries is probably a little younger in his development than you would expect as well. In short it may take time for these guys to figure it out. They don't have a young guy that's been able to just take over yet or a vet player that comes in and gets the job done a couple times a week to keep them on track. I think we will see some legit growth this coming season and part of that will be Rubio actually having a legit role as a solid vet plus there has to be a couple solid vets added to the roster than Thibs employed more than he did last year.
I think you absolutely need two things to build a true contender. On defense you either need to be able to protect your own rim well or be great recovering defensively. On offense you need to have your primary ball handlers be able to score and setup teammates. Good NBA offense is built on penetrating the defense and getting a good look at the rim or using that dribble penetration to setup another good look on the floor after the defense helps. Good defense therefore is built on being able to stop or deter the easy shot that comes off that dribble penetration and also being able go recover to the 3 point line to either stop or make the resulting shot contested.
Some contenders like Lebron's teams traditionally recover masterfully defensively while other contenders like Clippers have been able to rely more on a dominant rim protector. The Warriors can do both at a high level which is why they are so good defensively with Draymond. So if you don't have a good rim protector every player on your team needs to be able to rotate quickly and properly to prevent open looks. Right now we don't have a good rim protector and we rotate poorly hence the poor defense and we have a primary ball handler who can pass and one who can score but neither can do both at a high enough level hence the offensive difficulties when games are on the line and the opposing team tightens the screws defensively.
Every team left in the West is elite at one or both of those things, the Cavs are the only elite East team at one of those things (offense), but their competition is good (overall) at one or the other and we aren't even good at either.
Warriors - both
Spurs - defense
Rockets - offense
Jazz - defense
