Wolves vs. Memphis Second String GDT

[Coolbreeze44]

Seeing Andrew in a knee wrap and hobbling around the court is one of the worst visuals I can have. I'm not sure he should have played tonight. Hope it's just a contusion and not something more serious. I'm willing to bet KG's knee was more ready to play ball tonight.

[60WinTim]

While JimPete might be off his rocker on the Towns comment, I must confess I have more faith in LaVine becoming something special than I do Wiggins. Not that Wiggins is chopped liver, but it's getting more and more difficult to believe he will achieve more than LaVine...

brittrobson ?@brittrobson 29s29 seconds ago Minneapolis, MN
Will pretend @JimPeteHoops didn't just venture to say LaVine may turn out to be bigger gem than Towns. Slow down fellah.....

[60WinTim]

Seeing Andrew in a knee wrap and hobbling around the court is one of the worst visuals I can have. I'm not sure he should have played tonight. Hope it's just a contusion and not something more serious. I'm willing to bet KG's knee was more ready to play ball tonight.

Agreed. I was disappointed Sam kept him in the game...

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Seeing Andrew in a knee wrap and hobbling around the court is one of the worst visuals I can have. I'm not sure he should have played tonight. Hope it's just a contusion and not something more serious. I'm willing to bet KG's knee was more ready to play ball tonight.

Agreed. I was disappointed Sam kept him in the game...

How about when Dieng was calling to come out of the game, but Mitchell refused to have the team call a timeout and instead waited for the next break in the action. That was kind of dick-ish.

It will be interesting to see if these two guys are back in the fold anytime soon. In year's past, if someone hobbled around a bit, we wouldn't see them again until Summer League. But with Kander on board, it feels like things have really turned around on the injury front.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

While JimPete might be off his rocker on the Towns comment, I must confess I have more faith in LaVine becoming something special than I do Wiggins. Not that Wiggins is chopped liver, but it's getting more and more difficult to believe he will achieve more than LaVine...

brittrobson ?@brittrobson 29s29 seconds ago Minneapolis, MN
Will pretend @JimPeteHoops didn't just venture to say LaVine may turn out to be bigger gem than Towns. Slow down fellah.....

Towns will eventually be able to impact the game in more ways than LaVine in my opinion. But man, LaVine was just on fire again. That jumper is really becoming deadly. And I love the high volume of 3-point attempts!

[TAFKASP]

While JimPete might be off his rocker on the Towns comment, I must confess I have more faith in LaVine becoming something special than I do Wiggins. Not that Wiggins is chopped liver, but it's getting more and more difficult to believe he will achieve more than LaVine...

brittrobson ?@brittrobson 29s29 seconds ago Minneapolis, MN
Will pretend @JimPeteHoops didn't just venture to say LaVine may turn out to be bigger gem than Towns. Slow down fellah.....

Towns will eventually be able to impact the game in more ways than LaVine in my opinion. But man, LaVine was just on fire again. That jumper is really becoming deadly. And I love the high volume of 3-point attempts!

Lavine is single handedly keeping the Wolves ahead of Curry in their season total 3-point battle!

[Coolbreeze44]

We had two guys hobbled and only played 9 guys tonight, and one of them was Greg Smith

[Mstermisty [enjin:6864008]]

The ironic thing about Lavine's emergence since starting at the 2 guard next to Rubio (who is also benefitting greatly) is about 10 minutes into pre-season Mitchell had a (then) knee-jerk reaction and announced Zach was the starting 2. As it turns out this could have been the most brilliant move Mitchell made all season. Instead we watched Zach flail around at the backup point guard position for about 50 games.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

The ironic thing about Lavine's emergence since starting at the 2 guard next to Rubio (who is also benefitting greatly) is about 10 minutes into pre-season Mitchell had a (then) knee-jerk reaction and announced Zach was the starting 2. As it turns out this could have been the most brilliant move Mitchell made all season. Instead we watched Zach flail around at the backup point guard position for about 50 games.

He messed that entire situation up from the very beginning.

1. He should have said nothing until camp was over and the pre-season games were mostly behind them. That way he had plenty of evidence to make a sound decision from. Instead, he gifted a starting position to a player that would probably have been hungry enough to win the job anyway.

2. Then he rescinded his decision, which made it appear that he was unsure of himself and the decision he had just made. The decision that he took to the media even though he didn't have to do that at all. That's what made that twice as ridiculous.

3. So, instead of having LaVine play SG from the beginning, even if it was off the bench, he instead has LaVine play point guard, which hurt the growth of everyone around him including Jones who didn't get any minutes.

4. It turned out that LaVine was a stud-in-the-making at shooting guard. Who knew? Oh, right, everyone who has seen him play a full game of basketball. Perhaps if LaVine had been playing SG from the very beginning, he'd be even further along in his development right now. Maybe Jones would be as well. Or Miller had more minutes which in turn might mean more wins for this group. It also could have helped Martin's trade value. The reasoning for that is because Martin was playing with LaVine and Muhammad, he looked to create his own offense way too often, which resulted in poor decisions and stagnant bench play. Ultimately, it made Martin unplayable because he wasn't able to make the same shots or get the same calls.

5. Sam then decided post-All Star break to start LaVine at SG despite having other options. LaVine balled out. So what did Sam do the next game? He benched him in favor of Prince and pushed LaVine back to backup PG. Very next game? LaVine started at SG and balled out. After that? LaVine back to the bench. You can't yank players around like that. Not only does it piss off your players, but it's just a poor way to try and get your team to have any sort of rhythm.

The way Sam handled that entire situation is reason enough to fire him, in my opinion. It truly showed how inept he is as a head coach, and that's like 10% of the entire problem with Sam. The list goes on. Get him out of here.

[Mstermisty [enjin:6864008]]

The ironic thing about Lavine's emergence since starting at the 2 guard next to Rubio (who is also benefitting greatly) is about 10 minutes into pre-season Mitchell had a (then) knee-jerk reaction and announced Zach was the starting 2. As it turns out this could have been the most brilliant move Mitchell made all season. Instead we watched Zach flail around at the backup point guard position for about 50 games.

He messed that entire situation up from the very beginning.

1. He should have said nothing until camp was over and the pre-season games were mostly behind them. That way he had plenty of evidence to make a sound decision from. Instead, he gifted a starting position to a player that would probably have been hungry enough to win the job anyway.

2. Then he rescinded his decision, which made it appear that he was unsure of himself and the decision he had just made. The decision that he took to the media even though he didn't have to do that at all. That's what made that twice as ridiculous.

3. So, instead of having LaVine play SG from the beginning, even if it was off the bench, he instead has LaVine play point guard, which hurt the growth of everyone around him including Jones who didn't get any minutes.

4. It turned out that LaVine was a stud-in-the-making at shooting guard. Who knew? Oh, right, everyone who has seen him play a full game of basketball. Perhaps if LaVine had been playing SG from the very beginning, he'd be even further along in his development right now. Maybe Jones would be as well. Or Miller had more minutes which in turn might mean more wins for this group. It also could have helped Martin's trade value. The reasoning for that is because Martin was playing with LaVine and Muhammad, he looked to create his own offense way too often, which resulted in poor decisions and stagnant bench play. Ultimately, it made Martin unplayable because he wasn't able to make the same shots or get the same calls.

5. Sam then decided post-All Star break to start LaVine at SG despite having other options. LaVine balled out. So what did Sam do the next game? He benched him in favor of Prince and pushed LaVine back to backup PG. Very next game? LaVine started at SG and balled out. After that? LaVine back to the bench. You can't yank players around like that. Not only does it piss off your players, but it's just a poor way to try and get your team to have any sort of rhythm.

The way Sam handled that entire situation is reason enough to fire him, in my opinion. It truly showed how inept he is as a head coach, and that's like 10% of the entire problem with Sam. The list goes on. Get him out of here.

Yeah that pretty much sums it up. I admire Mitchell for taking over a terrible situation due to the unexpected death of a close friend, and he deserves credit for stepping in and working hard, but that was that and this is now. To give Mitchell a second year and risk stunting the development of our young players even further is beyond stupid, even for this franchise. Lets face it, as an assistant Mitchell can be valuable to any team, but as head coach making lineup decisions, adjusting to in-game situations, etc., he sucks. And I don't see him coming back next season with a new and improved brain.