Around the NBA (non-Wolves talk)

[kekgeek]

Dunn is becoming a player! The announcers were loving the way Dunn and the rest of the Bulls play.

Ya he is playing good this season. Still would do the trade 100 out of a 100 times. Got a feeling nobody is going to be a loser in this trade when it is all said and done.

[Lipoli390]

Dunn is becoming a player! The announcers were loving the way Dunn and the rest of the Bulls play.

Ya he is playing good this season. Still would do the trade 100 out of a 100 times. Got a feeling nobody is going to be a loser in this trade when it is all said and done.

There are some smart posters on this Board who would have dealt Wiggins instead of Dunn and LaVine. I wasn't one of those at the time, but in retrospect I think that would have been a better deal for the Wolves. The benefits?

1. We'd have Dunn instead of Teague as one of our 2 or 3 PGs. That would have saved us a net $16 million in cap room this past summer, improved our defense this season and given us a much better long-term situation at PG.

2. We wouldn't have Wiggins' max salary hanging over the franchise for the 5 years using up valuable cap space on a grossly underachieving player

3. We'd have LaVine coming back this January, giving us a true 3-point marksman whose speed and athleticism provides lots of potential beyond his already excellent perimeter shooting.

Again, I admit I wasn't advocated for dealing Wiggins at the time, although I hated to see LaVine get traded. But Wiggins' lack of development thus far this season coupled with what we've seen so far from Dunn have me wishing Thibs would have done the Wiggins deal instead.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Really fun to watch the resurgent Bulls...8-2 in their last 10, best in the NBA! And the success of both Butler and Dunn, along with the regression of Andrew Wiggins, makes the Bulls trade an interesting talker.

I agree with the predominant position here...that this was a deal Thibs had to make, and that it is likely to end up a win/win. Butler is the main reason the Wolves are in 4th place this year, and is a joy to watch every game. And Dunn is playing nothing like the player we watched last season...well, at least on offense...and is the main reason for the Bulls' recent success.

Let's wait and see how well Zach plays after his return before we conclude that it would have been better to keep him. Zach was one of my favorite Wolves and a deadeye 3-point shooter, but his basketball IQ and defensive prowess were so low that the team played its best basketball of the season after he got hurt and Rush replaced him in the starting lineup (at least until Belly got hurt and the season tanked). Is there any reason to expect that he will be better after suffering a devastating knee injury? Maybe, if my theories about Thibs not being a good player developer in the modern NBA are true. But I'm going to wait until we see how Zach returns before I conclude on the Wig/Zach debate.

In fact, I think this deal is strong evidence of the narrative here that Thibs is a solid POBO but a poor coach, but this narrative will become even more compelling if Lauri continues to struggle and Patton come in and plays well. Markkanen is shooting exactly the way he did in college...a terrific start followed by months of mediocrity. As I have pointed out before, it's not good when a player whose best skill is shooting has worse shooting numbers than Kris Dunn...even on threes. Thibs already deserves praise for bringing in Butler, and his marks will only go up if Patton turns out to be superior to Markkennen.

In contrast Dunn's enormous jump this season is another nail in the coffin for Coach Thibs. Supporters of Thibs' coaching ability will attribute Dunn's success this year to no longer being a rookie, but I think that is a stretch...coaching plays a major role in the development of a young player. Fred Hoiberg was my choice to coach here, and although many here said he would never leave ISU, I fault Taylor for not going out and getting him. Fred understands the psychology of coaching today's player...heck, he even turned Royce White into a terrific player...and I'm not surprised that he is getting so much more out of Dunn than Thibs could.

Anyway, the ramifications of this trade will be fun to discuss for several years.

[crazy-canuck [enjin:18955461]]

As bad as Wiggins looks right now in this role as off ball guy, defensively we could be a lot worse. I think it's something thibs had in mind going into the off season.

Even with Jimmy and Taj, I think we'd easily be the worst defense in the league starting teague, lavine, and Kat. My eye tells me that our defense is headed in the right direction and having wiggs out there allows us to hide Teague and put Butler on the smaller wing or PG.

[TheFuture]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o924CniLbfg

Dunn highlights for that 20/12/4stl game.

[Monster]

Good for Chicago and Dunn that He is having success there. His assists are up and he seems to be playing better but It's worth mentioning how good Mirotic has been since coming back. It's been HUGE for that team. Also Dunn's 3point percentage has dropped off a cliff after a really hot start. I wonder what kind of numbers Tyus would put up if he was in a similar situation to Dunn in Chicago.

Like Canuck said I like Wiggins long term because of his possible effect on defense. I've been encouraged and intruiged by his ability to guard some young dynamic PFs in Lyles and Kuzma in a couple recent games. If he can actually end up guarding some PFs for a worthwhile chunk of minutes down the line that will add to his value. I like that Wiggins allows Butler to be versatile defensively. If Lavine was heat long term Butler would be playing SF and be the wing defender every game.

[Lipoli390]

Good for Chicago and Dunn that He is having success there. His assists are up and he seems to be playing better but It's worth mentioning how good Mirotic has been since coming back. It's been HUGE for that team. Also Dunn's 3point percentage has dropped off a cliff after a really hot start. I wonder what kind of numbers Tyus would put up if he was in a similar situation to Dunn in Chicago.

Like Canuck said I like Wiggins long term because of his possible effect on defense. I've been encouraged and intruiged by his ability to guard some young dynamic PFs in Lyles and Kuzma in a couple recent games. If he can actually end up guarding some PFs for a worthwhile chunk of minutes down the line that will add to his value. I like that Wiggins allows Butler to be versatile defensively. If Lavine was heat long term Butler would be playing SF and be the wing defender every game.

A couple of thoughts. First, if we had dealt Wiggins for Butler, we'd have Dunn as well as LaVine and presumably we wouldn't have Teague. We'd also have around $16 million in cap space to acquire another wing. Dunn would be a huge upgrade defensively over Teague. And we'd have some other wing starting alongside Butler. Wiggins right now is a very poor defender. So hard to do worse defensively with whoever we would have signed. And who knows, we might have signed Thabo and that would be a huge defensive upgrade over Wiggins.

[AbeVigodaLive]

I still follow the Bucks quite a bit as I've been a fan since 1970. But talk about a team whose whole doesn't equal the sum of the parts. I just don't understand why that team doesn't win more games. They seem to have all the elements of a very good team. I think it hurts a little bit when your superstar isn't an outside threat, particularly at the end of games. And Middleton seems to shrink during the key moments of a game. But that group should be blowing a lot of teams out. Anybody else have any theories why they can't seem to get over the hump?

For those who consider coaching a big part of the game...

Jason Kidd is getting skewered by more and more people for his coaching. He's going against the grain more and more... and there are doubts whether he's just trying to be the smartest guy in the room... or just the dumbest.

[Monster]

Good for Chicago and Dunn that He is having success there. His assists are up and he seems to be playing better but It's worth mentioning how good Mirotic has been since coming back. It's been HUGE for that team. Also Dunn's 3point percentage has dropped off a cliff after a really hot start. I wonder what kind of numbers Tyus would put up if he was in a similar situation to Dunn in Chicago.

Like Canuck said I like Wiggins long term because of his possible effect on defense. I've been encouraged and intruiged by his ability to guard some young dynamic PFs in Lyles and Kuzma in a couple recent games. If he can actually end up guarding some PFs for a worthwhile chunk of minutes down the line that will add to his value. I like that Wiggins allows Butler to be versatile defensively. If Lavine was heat long term Butler would be playing SF and be the wing defender every game.

A couple of thoughts. First, if we had dealt Wiggins for Butler, we'd have Dunn as well as LaVine and presumably we wouldn't have Teague. We'd also have around $16 million in cap space to acquire another wing. Dunn would be a huge upgrade defensively over Teague. And we'd have some other wing starting alongside Butler. Wiggins right now is a very poor defender. So hard to do worse defensively with whoever we would have signed. And who knows, we might have signed Thabo and that would be a huge defensive upgrade over Wiggins.

These hypotheticals get complicated. I've said this before but I highly doubt Thibs goes into next season with 2 young PGs and Dunn he played at SG quite a bit late in the season. It seems they would have looked to sign someone as a vet PG that was something better than Aaron Brooks. Maybe they sign Collison or get in on the deal for Corey Joseph. That would cut into that money spent on Teague to spend on a wing which obviously would have been an even higher priority but also we would have had a short term opportunity that would have been appealing to some guys.

[TheFuture]

Good for Chicago and Dunn that He is having success there. His assists are up and he seems to be playing better but It's worth mentioning how good Mirotic has been since coming back. It's been HUGE for that team. Also Dunn's 3point percentage has dropped off a cliff after a really hot start. I wonder what kind of numbers Tyus would put up if he was in a similar situation to Dunn in Chicago.

Like Canuck said I like Wiggins long term because of his possible effect on defense. I've been encouraged and intruiged by his ability to guard some young dynamic PFs in Lyles and Kuzma in a couple recent games. If he can actually end up guarding some PFs for a worthwhile chunk of minutes down the line that will add to his value. I like that Wiggins allows Butler to be versatile defensively. If Lavine was heat long term Butler would be playing SF and be the wing defender every game.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry68rPKuZX0[/youtube]

Watch that video. It's not just about the improved stats for Dunn - look at his vision, attacking ability, confidence, motor. I fear Thibs gave up on him too soon. Pairing Dunn and Butler together would have really changed the culture around here.

The Bulls definitely became team #2 for me after that trade.