Around the NBA (non-Wolves talk)

[crazy-canuck [enjin:18955461]]

This conversation about Minnesota vs. Philadelphia isn't even close if Andrew Wiggins was anywhere near the player he's supposed to be. That's the harsh truth in this. Instead, he's undoubtedly regressed this season and that has prompted the ideas that he should be traded for a more proven player or even an attempt at another draft pick. That's not supposed to happen with a 23-year old cornerstone, but it goes to show that star players aren't guaranteed in the NBA.

Not to make this another thread about Wiggins specifically because there are other areas where this team has come up short, but the ceiling of this team rests on his shoulders, in my opinion. Whether it's him improving considerably or trading him in a package for a game-changer -- Kawhi Leonard or Kemba Walker -- our future trajectory is in some way centered around the 6'8 forward from Kansas.

Agree with this. Wighs needs to step, but i don't think we are actually putting him in situations to succeed this year. He needs to attack and get out instead of being that spot up guy in the corner. Thibs needs to adapt a more modern offense and thibs needs to fix his handles this off season.

There must be some plan.

Maybe thibs is trying to make wiggs prioritize defense knowing that the offense is there, albeit not very efficiently.

And maybe the plan is to turn him into a legit 2 way guy, not this year, but maybe in a couple of years when jimmy starts his decline. Its just an odd way. Max him out and then ignore him on offense. Wiggs may not be the most efficient guy, but he's been pretty clutch player. It just seems weird to ignore him completely down the stretch of games.

And whatever trade we do pull off, we will lose in any wiggins trade unless you believe he peaked last year.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

This conversation about Minnesota vs. Philadelphia isn't even close if Andrew Wiggins was anywhere near the player he's supposed to be. That's the harsh truth in this. Instead, he's undoubtedly regressed this season and that has prompted the ideas that he should be traded for a more proven player or even an attempt at another draft pick. That's not supposed to happen with a 23-year old cornerstone, but it goes to show that star players aren't guaranteed in the NBA.

Not to make this another thread about Wiggins specifically because there are other areas where this team has come up short, but the ceiling of this team rests on his shoulders, in my opinion. Whether it's him improving considerably or trading him in a package for a game-changer -- Kawhi Leonard or Kemba Walker -- our future trajectory is in some way centered around the 6'8 forward from Kansas.

Agree with this. Wighs needs to step, but i don't think we are actually putting him in situations to succeed this year. He needs to attack and get out instead of being that spot up guy in the corner. Thibs needs to adapt a more modern offense and thibs needs to fix his handles this off season.

There must be some plan.

Maybe thibs is trying to make wiggs prioritize defense knowing that the offense is there, albeit not very efficiently.

And maybe the plan is to turn him into a legit 2 way guy, not this year, but maybe in a couple of years when jimmy starts his decline. Its just an odd way. Max him out and then ignore him on offense. Wiggs may not be the most efficient guy, but he's been pretty clutch player. It just seems weird to ignore him completely down the stretch of games.

And whatever trade we do pull off, we will lose in any wiggins trade unless you believe he peaked last year.

Wiggins averaged the most shot attempts on the team and over 17 points per game! The idea that somehow he is frozen out or that Thibs needs to get him more touches is crazy. He's a terrible ball handler, mediocre play maker, and inconsistent shooter and free thrower. He shouldn't even be getting as many shots as he does now!

Andrew can jump high, is good going right, and has a nice spin move and euro step. Now that teams know his tendencies, they can generally bait him into taking really bad shots. His role needs to be a secondary one in our offense and he should focus on doing all the other stuff well. That's how it should have been at the beginning of his career, but Flip tried to make him into a go-to guy.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Sixers just showed me that you can play good defense without a defensive savant in the middle. They just shut down Miami in the 3rd quarter with only one all-NBA caliber defender in Covington and then a bunch of guys I always thought of as mediocre at best individually. It's amazing how a coach can get guys to play up on that side of the floor!

On the Lowe Post, they had Covington and Simmons as top 10 defenders in the entire league. In fact Covington was 2nd in the league in defensive win shares for guys who played at least 50 games. Simmons was 5, Embiid 6, Reddick 17 and Saric 23. Boston was the only other team stacked to that level with Smart 4, Brown 7, Tatum 8, Horford 9 and Kyrie 25. Philly is a dominant defensive team and it's not all Embiid. He's a DPOY candidate, but they have two guys in Covington and Simmons who are top 10 defenders in the entire league as well.

But are Saric and Simmons innately great defenders or did Brown coach them up? I remember Simmons was damn near indifferent as a defender in college. And Saric hardly strikes the fear of God into opposing offenses.

The bottom line is Brown gets his guys to play hard and has made defense something they all value. Embiid and Covington are the only two inherently great defenders on that team in my opinion. The others have been coached up.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Brown was laying the foundation for this culture during the bad years. One thing they always did was play hard, cut hard, and defend. The year they won 10 games they were STILL better than us defensively. The year they won 18 games they were something like 17th defensively. Now that they have some legit talent, they are legit on both ends and only getting better with each passing game!

That's right, Q. Brown's teams with absolutely no talent on them always overachieved relative to their talent. In contrast, in his first season with the Wolves, Thibs certainly didn't get the Wolves to overachieve. The Wolves in Thibs' first season as head coach ended up with essentially the same record as the even younger less experienced team coached by Sam Mitchell the year before. I see no sign that Thibs got the Wolves to overachieve this season either as we ended up finishing behind obviously less talented teams like the Utah Jazz and again ended up one of the worst defensive teams in the League.

Not to take anything away from Brown because I thought he has done a good job this whole time with the Sixers but it's different coaching a bunch of guys that are basically just trying to stay in the league and nobody that's a star type. It's been 5 years now he has been able to do what he does. Meanwhile the Wolves have had 4 different coaches over that time. Year 3 (or even some encouraging signs in this year's playoffs) with Thibs we need to see some more results.

Thibs has had two full offseasons and regular season and enough time to bring some of "his guys" into the fold. We still suck defensively. While Thibs the GM deserves some blame for bringing a guy like Crawford in, I think Thibs the coach has failed to get the most out of everyone not named Jimmy, Taj, and Tyus.

[Monster]

Brown was laying the foundation for this culture during the bad years. One thing they always did was play hard, cut hard, and defend. The year they won 10 games they were STILL better than us defensively. The year they won 18 games they were something like 17th defensively. Now that they have some legit talent, they are legit on both ends and only getting better with each passing game!

That's right, Q. Brown's teams with absolutely no talent on them always overachieved relative to their talent. In contrast, in his first season with the Wolves, Thibs certainly didn't get the Wolves to overachieve. The Wolves in Thibs' first season as head coach ended up with essentially the same record as the even younger less experienced team coached by Sam Mitchell the year before. I see no sign that Thibs got the Wolves to overachieve this season either as we ended up finishing behind obviously less talented teams like the Utah Jazz and again ended up one of the worst defensive teams in the League.

Not to take anything away from Brown because I thought he has done a good job this whole time with the Sixers but it's different coaching a bunch of guys that are basically just trying to stay in the league and nobody that's a star type. It's been 5 years now he has been able to do what he does. Meanwhile the Wolves have had 4 different coaches over that time. Year 3 (or even some encouraging signs in this year's playoffs) with Thibs we need to see some more results.

Thibs has had two full offseasons and regular season and enough time to bring some of "his guys" into the fold. We still suck defensively. While Thibs the GM deserves some blame for bringing a guy like Crawford in, I think Thibs the coach has failed to get the most out of everyone not named Jimmy, Taj, and Tyus.

I agree he hasn't gotten the most out of various guys but sometimes it takes time. Some of these players haven't done what we want them to under 3 different coaches. At what point is it more on them? Rubio had his best year of his career under him. As I have said a few times in the last few hours year 3 we need to see some more signs of Thibs is moving this team in a positive direction by improved defense, development of young players, some improvement of more established guys. Right now the Positives for Thibs is this team has won a nice chunk of games this season and had a highly rated offense plus Taj and Jimmy have been fantastic additions. Let's see more and everyone here is asking for it. I tend to have some hope there is a legit chance for progression in a positive direction. We will see. Again I don't see a no-brainer option (maybe Budenholzer if Atlanta would give him up for nothing) even if we dumped Thibs and got someone else which won't happen.

[mjs34]

pretty informative article on the spurs here - https://theundefeated.com/features/san-antonio-spurs-playoff-opener-against-golden-state-warriors-where-is-kawhi-leonard/

I'm guessing Leonard is gone for good at this point, and I would guess LA is a likely landing point.

Really surprised to hear of Avery Johnson's falling out. Never knew what had actually caused that, although I am sure things like this happen all the time in behind closed doors.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

Sixers just showed me that you can play good defense without a defensive savant in the middle. They just shut down Miami in the 3rd quarter with only one all-NBA caliber defender in Covington and then a bunch of guys I always thought of as mediocre at best individually. It's amazing how a coach can get guys to play up on that side of the floor!

On the Lowe Post, they had Covington and Simmons as top 10 defenders in the entire league. In fact Covington was 2nd in the league in defensive win shares for guys who played at least 50 games. Simmons was 5, Embiid 6, Reddick 17 and Saric 23. Boston was the only other team stacked to that level with Smart 4, Brown 7, Tatum 8, Horford 9 and Kyrie 25. Philly is a dominant defensive team and it's not all Embiid. He's a DPOY candidate, but they have two guys in Covington and Simmons who are top 10 defenders in the entire league as well.

But are Saric and Simmons innately great defenders or did Brown coach them up? I remember Simmons was damn near indifferent as a defender in college. And Saric hardly strikes the fear of God into opposing offenses.

The bottom line is Brown gets his guys to play hard and has made defense something they all value. Embiid and Covington are the only two inherently great defenders on that team in my opinion. The others have been coached up.

You can't teach 6'10 and athletic enough to switch on anyone. That's Saric and Simmons. I give credit to Brown for everyone buying in, but he has some great athletes to work with. We always say when Wiggins puts on more muscle watch out. Well Simmons and Saric are filled out and we see the result. They can guard multiple positions with ease.

[Coolbreeze44]

Why don't the Wolves run like these Bucks do?

[Lipoli390]

We've talked about the Sixers as a really impressive team and organization.

Another impressive team with a great organization is playing now -- the Celtics. Here they are with the second best record in the East after losing their prize FA acquisition, Hayward, to a freak injury in the first game of the season and later losing their best player/starting PG, Kyrie Irving, who ended up playing only 60 games. In addition, key rotation players have missed a lot of games with injuries. Marcus Smart, for example, only played in 54 games this season. In the meantime, the Celtics have been starting a rookie, Tatum, and a 2nd year player, Brown, all season. They traded down from #1 to #3 to draft Tatum and ended up getting a future first rounder in return. They have a rotation player, Terry Rozier, who was drafted #16. Then you look at their salary cap situation. They have 12 players with guaranteed contracts totalling $107.4 million next season. That gives them $18 million to re-sign Marcus Smart and use salary cap exceptions to fill out only 2 or 3 remaining roster spots.

I actually think Milwaukee will win the first round series against the Celtics. Just like the Spurs, I think the Celtics have gone as far as they can go with all the key injuries they have. But winning 55 games and finishing 2nd in the East are great accomplishments and a tribute to a great organization in Boston. And the future looks bright for the Celtics. Tatum and Brown are just scratching the surface of their abilities. Kyrie is only 25 years old and will likely come back healthy. If Hayward comes back strong, that's just icing.

[kekgeek]

Why don't the Wolves run like these Bucks do?

The Bucks are 20th in pace and the Wolves are 22nd in pace. The Bucks get .4 more possessions per game. No difference