Dallas. And Phoenix.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Wolfson's entertaining tweets about Lowry. Says the Wolves like Lowry, but that's obvious. Everybody likes Lowry pretty much. We just don't have the assetts to get him. Even if we tried Barea, Shabazz and 2016 first rounder, it'd be a long shot and not the smartest deal from us anyway. Just speaking from the Wolves angle.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

The wolves have won 16 games with an average margin of 16pts in those wins. Love has averaged 35 min in those games. I am not asking Adelman to sit all of his starters, but if you watch SA, OKC or Miami they will sub out starters one or two at time during that period. I don't have a problem with Adelman putting the guys back in when the bench is faltering, but maybe sub some guys out sooner. Against NO we still had 4 starters on the floor with under 3 min's remaining and a 20 pt lead. I have to believe with our stout defenders off the bench that the lead should be safe.

You bring up the Milwaukee game, but when interviewed about it Adelman blew off the question of maybe using a rookie or two. When your bench guys give up a 15-2 run it might be time to consider other options. Rick's only option is to throw the starters back on the floor. Does he not understand (and apparently several posters on here) that these guys have good and bad nights. It is OK to throw out a lower guy and see what he has. Look at JJ and how different he is from one night to another. That is why you have those other guys sitting over there.

Another thing to consider is when you build up a big lead early or midway through the 3rd quarter that usually comes at a cost of energy to your players. Maybe it might be nice to give them a breather a little sooner. I've watched our starters at the end of their minutes start to give back the lead before the bench guys hit the floor.

SJM, If our bench was as good as OKC, Miami, or SA, I'm sure Adelman wouldn't hesitate to go to them earlier. Unfortunately, we don't have Manu Ginobilli or Ray Allen. Or Jeremy Lamb for that matter. Every time Adelman goes to his bench, he's taking a risk. The second he sits Pekovic (who typically is the first starter to sit) and brings Cunningham in, we start getting worse. We are literally taking a step back at every position off the bench, except for may be SF, where Luc is neutral at best compared to Corey.

As for your suggestion of playing the rookies, what about Robbie Hummel? Adelman has given him ample opportunity based on how he played in practice and so far the results have been mixed at best. He did the same thing with Alexsey Shved last year and Rubio and Williams the year before. All those guys had plenty of minutes as rookies.

The issue isn't that Adelman doesn't like to play rookies; the issue is that he doesn't play certain rookies that some fans would prefer him to play and then they slap the "he doesn't play rookies" label on him. I'd personally love to see him play more Dieng, but obviously he doesn't think he's ready yet. I trust his judgment better than mine.

[mjs34]

Q, I realize who we have coming off the bench, but this is our team for better or worse. None of this changes that the margin of victory isn't a very compelling stat for the wolves. When it comes time to play these tougher teams. we will be forced to use our bench, and when that time comes the weaknesses will be shown. The fact that we can beat up on lesser teams with our starters doesn't make us a better team.

Hollinger has us ranked like 7 or 8, it is due to the margin of victory. The truth is this team is barely in the top 15 right now imo.

As for the bench, even if guys seem a little raw like Dieng, there is no harm in throwing them out there for a couple of minutes and see how they do. Matchups can cause a different result each and every night. It's not like they can throw up a 14 point play against the guy.

As for Hummel, I can only say that it makes me question Flip and Adelman even more. Is he really the best this team can come up with to fill our roster. Rookies like Ricky and Shved shouldn't be included in the Adelman/rookie discussion. Both had multiple years of pro experience overseas. I will never understand what happened with Williams and Adelman's thought process with him. Williams got significant minutes as a rookie and seemed to be doing OK. He improved throughout the season last year and got most of the starts over DC, then somehow to start the season, he has suddenly slipped.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Q, I realize who we have coming off the bench, but this is our team for better or worse. None of this changes that the margin of victory isn't a very compelling stat for the wolves. When it comes time to play these tougher teams. we will be forced to use our bench, and when that time comes the weaknesses will be shown. The fact that we can beat up on lesser teams with our starters doesn't make us a better team.

Hollinger has us ranked like 7 or 8, it is due to the margin of victory. The truth is this team is barely in the top 15 right now imo.

As for the bench, even if guys seem a little raw like Dieng, there is no harm in throwing them out there for a couple of minutes and see how they do. Matchups can cause a different result each and every night. It's not like they can throw up a 14 point play against the guy.

As for Hummel, I can only say that it makes me question Flip and Adelman even more. Is he really the best this team can come up with to fill our roster. Rookies like Ricky and Shved shouldn't be included in the Adelman/rookie discussion. Both had multiple years of pro experience overseas. I will never understand what happened with Williams and Adelman's thought process with him. Williams got significant minutes as a rookie and seemed to be doing OK. He improved throughout the season last year and got most of the starts over DC, then somehow to start the season, he has suddenly slipped.

Barely in the top-15? I get that you don't think we're top-10, which is fine for right now, but barely in the top-15? We're 9th in the West. Only two teams in the East that are worth a shit in Miami and Indy. That would make us 11th at worst in a power rankings list. Barely top-15? Laughable statement.

[mjs34]

Cam, what makes you think we are any better than teams like Denver, Memphis, Atlanta, Toronto, etc..

[thedoper]

Cam, what makes you think we are any better than teams like Denver, Memphis, Atlanta, Toronto, etc..

This is a great question. We can't beat Denver. I do think we are a better team than Memphis just because Gasol is out, but not by a huge margin. We will find out about Toronto very soon. I am liking that Casey is having success. He was really dealt a tough hand when he was coaching here. We have had 6 tries to get above 500 in a row and have failed. We will see Sat, but it could be a while (like the Utah games) before we can get above 500. I think the 10-15 range is a fair assessment of our current state just because of how bad our D has been since we dipped below 500. I do think we have the potential to be better than that.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Q, I realize who we have coming off the bench, but this is our team for better or worse. None of this changes that the margin of victory isn't a very compelling stat for the wolves. When it comes time to play these tougher teams. we will be forced to use our bench, and when that time comes the weaknesses will be shown. The fact that we can beat up on lesser teams with our starters doesn't make us a better team.

Hollinger has us ranked like 7 or 8, it is due to the margin of victory. The truth is this team is barely in the top 15 right now imo.

As for the bench, even if guys seem a little raw like Dieng, there is no harm in throwing them out there for a couple of minutes and see how they do. Matchups can cause a different result each and every night. It's not like they can throw up a 14 point play against the guy.

As for Hummel, I can only say that it makes me question Flip and Adelman even more. Is he really the best this team can come up with to fill our roster. Rookies like Ricky and Shved shouldn't be included in the Adelman/rookie discussion. Both had multiple years of pro experience overseas. I will never understand what happened with Williams and Adelman's thought process with him. Williams got significant minutes as a rookie and seemed to be doing OK. He improved throughout the season last year and got most of the starts over DC, then somehow to start the season, he has suddenly slipped.

Our starters don't just beat up on lesser teams. They also happen to do quite well against good teams' starting units. Our starting unit consistently matches or outplays good teams' starting units over the course of a game.

While I wouldn't take Hollinger's rankings for us as an absolute truth, I believe strongly that we are a top 15 team and probably somewhere in the 12-14 range to be more precise. That's not elite, but it's a hell of a lot better than anything else we've seen around here for the past decade.

I think you and I are on the same page as it relates to Flip. While I don't think he's totally incompetent, I don't see any fresh thinking or progressive approaches to how he goes about his job. It's just another old school basketball guy relying on methods from the last century. But as for Adelman, while I don't think he's perfect by any means, I think he's as good of a coach as we've had in franchise history.

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

Cam, what makes you think we are any better than teams like Denver, Memphis, Atlanta, Toronto, etc..

Excellent question. I have literally spent much of the past 1/2 day thinking about why I (and possibly others) think that the Wolves will end up with a better record than teams with similar records right now.

I've boiled it down to this 2 primary points (and a less important tertiary point)

1) It looks to me as though the Wolves know how to put themselves in a situation where they have the opportunity to end games with a win.

11 of the games that we have lost, the wolves have been within 6 points in the last 5 minutes. When that occurs, the game is winnable. By using that definition (that i just made up) the wolves have been in 27 winnable games this year. This seems like a very high rate of winnable games. Only 5 of the games that we have played were not winnable in the last 5 minutes. That is pretty amazing IMHO. Our starting 5 is not good a closing out close game.....which leads to the next point.....

2) The Wolves are not familiar with playing with each other, but seem to be getting better at playing together.

If we were a team that was very familiar with each other, I would be VERY disappointed with this team. The Wolves are not very familiar with each other. Our top 2 scorers played a combined 618 minutes last year for the Wolves. The majority (well over 1/2 of the minutes) of the minutes played this year are played by people that either didn't play for the Wolves or played very little.

The combination of factors that this team has put itself into position to win over 2/3rds of it's losses AND that these guys know very little about playing with each other leads me to conclude that as these guys get more comfortable playing together they will start to win a percentage of those winnable games that they currently lose.


And a far more minor point......the Wolves faced a relatively challenging SOS and played more road games than most teams at this point in the season.

That is why I think that we will end up with a better record than other teams with close to similar records as ours.

[mjs34]

Cam, what makes you think we are any better than teams like Denver, Memphis, Atlanta, Toronto, etc..

Excellent question. I have literally spent much of the past 1/2 day thinking about why I (and possibly others) think that the Wolves will end up with a better record than teams with similar records right now.

I've boiled it down to this 2 primary points (and a less important tertiary point)

1) It looks to me as though the Wolves know how to put themselves in a situation where they have the opportunity to end games with a win.

11 of the games that we have lost, the wolves have been within 6 points in the last 5 minutes. When that occurs, the game is winnable. By using that definition (that i just made up) the wolves have been in 27 winnable games this year. This seems like a very high rate of winnable games. Only 5 of the games that we have played were not winnable in the last 5 minutes. That is pretty amazing IMHO. Our starting 5 is not good a closing out close game.....which leads to the next point.....

2) The Wolves are not familiar with playing with each other, but seem to be getting better at playing together.

If we were a team that was very familiar with each other, I would be VERY disappointed with this team. The Wolves are not very familiar with each other. Our top 2 scorers played a combined 618 minutes last year for the Wolves. The majority (well over 1/2 of the minutes) of the minutes played this year are played by people that either didn't play for the Wolves or played very little.

The combination of factors that this team has put itself into position to win over 2/3rds of it's losses AND that these guys know very little about playing with each other leads me to conclude that as these guys get more comfortable playing together they will start to win a percentage of those winnable games that they currently lose.


And a far more minor point......the Wolves faced a relatively challenging SOS and played more road games than most teams at this point in the season.

That is why I think that we will end up with a better record than other teams with close to similar records as ours.

The post Cam took exception with (homerism getting the best of him) and overreacted to was "The truth is this team is barely in the top 15 right now imo." I was speaking about the current state of the wolves, not where I think they will necessarily finish. That being said I don't think they will finish significantly better than where they are now.

Most seem to be placing their hopes on Bud and Rony as some type of saviors. I am guessing they don't remember when Bud returned last spring and played poor defense, and mediocre offense. Rony signed on and was available for a reason. He is an end of bench guy on good teams. Can he give us more than DC provides against the bigs, I sure hope so, but even that isn't a very high standard imo.

I just don't see any significant improvement for this team in the future, but I hope I am wrong.

[60WinTim]

The Wolves seem to be catching a few breaks. No Westbrook tonight. No Bledsoe when Phoenix visits next week. Chris Paul goes down, with the Clippers and Dallas both having tough schedules this month.

Why lament the 8th seed when shooting for the 6th seed by the end of January is on the table?!?

;)