Q12543 wrote:
I'm not sure you will see much difference Carlos. KAT's had a gaudy PER all year. The bigger issue is how does the team perform with Dieng and LaVine in vs. KG and Prince? The answer is much better offensively, but unfortunately the dropoff defensively wipes out those gains and then some.
I get what you mean in terms of Wiggins being our second best player, like Pippen was, but let's be very clear. If Wiggins is going to have the impact that Scottie Pippen had, it will be mostly as a scorer. He simply does not have the defensive, rebounding, and play-making chops that Pippen had. But I could easily see KAT and Wiggins averaging 50-55 pts per game as a combination. Then that leaves LaVine, who could also be a dynamic scoring threat. Between the three, it's possible they could all have a season where they each average 20+ PPG.
These guys need defenders, shooters, and rebounders around them.
That's a fair take Q. I was mostly curious about the numbers and how to obtain them. I like what Cam did and I think I know how/where he got them - so I'll do some more digging on my own later.
As far as the bigger issue you outline "Team Performance", we have a few ways to measure/determine that. One simple way might be wins/losses. Using Cam's cutoff date of 1/27/16 (Dieng inserted into the starting line up), they are 8-15 (.348). Prior to that they were 14-32 (.304). Obviously that can change either way in a hurry due to small samples. But it's one way to look at it I guess. I just don't think Dieng is as big of a hindrance as some are making him out to be. But as everyone should know at this point - I'm a big Dieng fan.
Q12543 wrote:
I'm not sure you will see much difference Carlos. KAT's had a gaudy PER all year. The bigger issue is how does the team perform with Dieng and LaVine in vs. KG and Prince? The answer is much better offensively, but unfortunately the dropoff defensively wipes out those gains and then some.
I get what you mean in terms of Wiggins being our second best player, like Pippen was, but let's be very clear. If Wiggins is going to have the impact that Scottie Pippen had, it will be mostly as a scorer. He simply does not have the defensive, rebounding, and play-making chops that Pippen had. But I could easily see KAT and Wiggins averaging 50-55 pts per game as a combination. Then that leaves LaVine, who could also be a dynamic scoring threat. Between the three, it's possible they could all have a season where they each average 20+ PPG.
These guys need defenders, shooters, and rebounders around them.
That's a fair take Q. I was mostly curious about the numbers and how to obtain them. I like what Cam did and I think I know how/where he got them - so I'll do some more digging on my own later.
As far as the bigger issue you outline "Team Performance", we have a few ways to measure/determine that. One simple way might be wins/losses. Using Cam's cutoff date of 1/27/16 (Dieng inserted into the starting line up), they are 8-15 (.348). Prior to that they were 14-32 (.304). Obviously that can change either way in a hurry due to small samples. But it's one way to look at it I guess. I just don't think Dieng is as big of a hindrance as some are making him out to be. But as everyone should know at this point - I'm a big Dieng fan.
Aesthetically, the team is much more fun to watch, that's for sure. With KG and Prince starting, we were waaaaaaaay better defensively. In fact, it's amazing how much better we were - it's as if they rubbed off on everyone else's defense as well. But offensively, it was a lot of isolation ball for KAT and Wiggins and long 2's galore since Prince and KG hardly take any other shots. Ugly stuff for the most part, but those 5 were easily our best unit this season because of the defense they played.
Dieng has shown me a lot this year. His growth offensively has been a pleasure to watch. Defensively, he's improved on pick and roll coverage and gets his fair share of deflections. He hurts more than helps with team rebounding and struggles defending the paint. But I think everyone has put the torches and pitchforks away. In an ideal world, he'd be our first big off the bench.
Q12543 wrote:
Aesthetically, the team is much more fun to watch, that's for sure. With KG and Prince starting, we were waaaaaaaay better defensively. In fact, it's amazing how much better we were - it's as if they rubbed off on everyone else's defense as well. But offensively, it was a lot of isolation ball for KAT and Wiggins and long 2's galore since Prince and KG hardly take any other shots. Ugly stuff for the most part, but those 5 were easily our best unit this season because of the defense they played.
Dieng has shown me a lot this year. His growth offensively has been a pleasure to watch. Defensively, he's improved on pick and roll coverage and gets his fair share of deflections. He hurts more than helps with team rebounding and struggles defending the paint. But I think everyone has put the torches and pitchforks away. In an ideal world, he'd be our first big off the bench.
I think we are still dealing with small samples, so I'm not ready to concede that Dieng hurts more than he helps in regard to Team Rebounding. The team Rebounding Rate was 50.1% prior to Dieng's insertion into the starting line up. And it's 49.3% since then. That's not much of a change IMO. That variance can swing either direction quickly depending on a couple good or bad games/match ups.
The Drating has gotten worse by a large margin. But the offense has exploded. At the end of the day it's the Net Rating and Wins that matters. Both have improved since Dieng was inserted into the starting line up. Not to say he's the only reason for that (LaVine certainly has had a big impact on both sides too). Or that we should all be satisfied with being slightly less shitty than before. But, I just continue to stick up for my guy because I think he gets too much blame and not enough credit. And IMO he's earned a chance to start next to Towns for next year.
Just to be clear, the Net Rating of the Rubio-Wiggins-Prince-KG-Towns unit was +10.7. Replace KG and Prince with Dieng and LaVine and it's +3.2.
Now the good news is that the latter group is positive. In fact, that's very good news considering how damn young that unit is. So I'm not opposed to rolling with that starting 5 heading into next season and expecting further improvement from them.
I'm also not opposed to looking for ways to make it even better.
Q12543 wrote:Just to be clear, the Net Rating of the Rubio-Wiggins-Prince-KG-Towns unit was +10.7. Replace KG and Prince with Dieng and LaVine and it's +3.2.
Now the good news is that the latter group is positive. In fact, that's very good news considering how damn young that unit is. So I'm not opposed to rolling with that starting 5 heading into next season and expecting further improvement from them.
I'm also not opposed to looking for ways to make it even better.
Q - I was actually referring to the team's net rating in my earlier post on this matter. It improved slightly if you compare the period before Dieng was inserted into the starting line up to after. But regarding looking at the five man line ups themselves, you are correct the KG/Prince line up had a higher net. However, the KG/Prince starting five also only had 275 minutes together - so it's a pretty small sample. Would that have held up over a longer period of time? IDK. The Dieng/LaVine line up already has 402 minutes. And, for the record - the new starting five is actually +1.2% in Rebounding percentage compared to the KG/Prince line up which was a negative. That contradicts the comments I often read here that "we can't rebound because of Dieng getting pushed around". Dieng is a nice player. Not perfect. But which player on our roster is perfect?
Note: I also have a player crush on Favors. I just think he's super solid with little to no holes in his game. Another big that can play next to practically anyone. They might be worried about their future cap situation. Going to have to spend big, max contract big, to re-sign Gobert and Hayward (likely declines his 2017-18 option) as soon as the 2017 off-season. They also just committed sizable money to Burks. Simmons would be a great fit in Utah whereas Favors makes a ton of sense in Minnesota. Think it's work discussing even though turning down the chance to add Simmons would sting a little bit.
Camden wrote:Top-two pick for Derrick Favors. Deal or no deal?
Note: I also have a player crush on Favors. I just think he's super solid with little to no holes in his game. Another big that can play next to practically anyone. They might be worried about their future cap situation. Going to have to spend big, max contract big, to re-sign Gobert and Hayward (likely declines his 2017-18 option) as soon as the 2017 off-season. They also just committed sizable money to Burks. Simmons would be a great fit in Utah whereas Favors makes a ton of sense in Minnesota. Think it's work discussing even though turning down the chance to add Simmons would sting a little bit.
Deal. Favors would be pretty much ideal front court pair for Towns. He is stronger and could defend those centers that are too physical for Towns until Towns has gained enough strength. He also has still two more years left in his contract and that contract is quite cheap. Just little over 10 million per year. Even though I feel that Favors has been playing already forever in league, he somehow is just 24 years old. So he might not even have yet reached all of his potential.
I can see why Utah might make the deal for Simmons since even though they have really solid players in Hayward, Gobert and Favors, they don't have anyone who would have real super star potential. Simmons would fit to that mold. Still I'm not sure if they would be ready to do straight Favors for Simmons deal.
Camden wrote:Top-two pick for Derrick Favors. Deal or no deal?
Note: I also have a player crush on Favors. I just think he's super solid with little to no holes in his game. Another big that can play next to practically anyone. They might be worried about their future cap situation. Going to have to spend big, max contract big, to re-sign Gobert and Hayward (likely declines his 2017-18 option) as soon as the 2017 off-season. They also just committed sizable money to Burks. Simmons would be a great fit in Utah whereas Favors makes a ton of sense in Minnesota. Think it's work discussing even though turning down the chance to add Simmons would sting a little bit.
Deal. Favors would be pretty much ideal front court pair for Towns. He is stronger and could defend those centers that are too physical for Towns until Towns has gained enough strength. He also has still two more years left in his contract and that contract is quite cheap. Just little over 10 million per year. Even though I feel that Favors has been playing already forever in league, he somehow is just 24 years old. So he might not even have yet reached all of his potential.
I can see why Utah might make the deal for Simmons since even though they have really solid players in Hayward, Gobert and Favors, they don't have anyone who would have real super star potential. Simmons would fit to that mold. Still I'm not sure if they would be ready to do straight Favors for Simmons deal.
Deal, the question is would Utah (this one I think they might)
Interesting trade scenario from Camden. Utah has to do something... they have too many decent to good players with new contracts on the way. But they're not quite good enough as a collection to pay all of them.
The Favors for top 2 angle is a way for them to retool without rebuilding and being fiscally responsible.
