Too many sub-par 3pt shooters

[kms789 [enjin:6694798]]

The game last night was so brutal to watch. We might have the worst floor spacing in the league. The two Kevins are the only threats to shoot the 3 and it's brutal to try and get a decent look. There was a play where Mbah a Moute, Brewer, and Rubio all had wide open looks at the 3, but they kept swinging it around to the next person.

Look at the Lakers. They're down Kobe, Nash, Blake, and Farmar...and they were still able to space the floor with Meeks, Young, Johnson, Shawne Williams, and Henry. It makes the game so much easier.

The fault lies both with Flip and Kahn. Nobody gets more uncontested J's than Dante Cunningham. They're uncontested for a reason. Every team knows there's about a 40% chance it goes in, so why bother guarding him? Same with Rubio. Every team knows even if you leave him open, there's a 35% chance it goes in. It's a low percentage shot, so why not double Love and Pekovic the whole game.We pay too many role players who just can't shoot. There's a reason that the Heat, Spurs, and Blazers are loaded with shooters.

Barea, Shved, Derrick Williams, and Cunningham are Kahn's fault. I mean the Wolves were the worst shooting team of all-time basically last year. But Flip didn't even bother to remedy it. Nope, let's add Brewer, Mbah a Moute, Turiaf, AJ Price, Dieng, and Shabazz to the mix. Problem solved! Flip added Martin and re-signed Budinger, but this team needed about 4 more shooters to be a decent team.

And just to add some insult to this injury, these are the teams below the Wolves in 3pt% this year: Utah, Sacramento, Philly, Detroit, Chicago, Charlotte. It's not rocket science.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Barea (5M), Shved (3M), D-Will (5M), Cunningham (3M). That's roughly 16M of cap space I'm sure Flip would have loved to have been able to use, but couldn't. Really tough to blame Flip for not getting more shooters when his hands were tied behind his back due to the salary cap. Assuming you didn't want a starting SG and would have rather had Nick Young and Xavier Henry? Blegh. No thanks.

I think he's made good moves to this point, but at some point we need to get rid of Barea, DC and Shved.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Barea (5M), Shved (3M), D-Will (5M), Cunningham (3M). That's roughly 16M of cap space I'm sure Flip would have loved to have been able to use, but couldn't. Really tough to blame Flip for not getting more shooters when his hands were tied behind his back due to the salary cap. Assuming you didn't want a starting SG and would have rather had Nick Young and Xavier Henry? Blegh. No thanks.

I think he's made good moves to this point, but at some point we need to get rid of Barea, DC and Shved.

Camden... a couple weeks ago, I ran down the list of other playoff hopefuls in the West and the wings/guards they picked up this offseason... and their salaries.

Nearly every one had a guy playing and producing between $1M and $3M. Very few other teams have opted to go the "mid-level" route with its rotation guys. As a result, it's hard (impossible) to find a single "value" contract on the Wolves right now.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Barea (5M), Shved (3M), D-Will (5M), Cunningham (3M). That's roughly 16M of cap space I'm sure Flip would have loved to have been able to use, but couldn't. Really tough to blame Flip for not getting more shooters when his hands were tied behind his back due to the salary cap. Assuming you didn't want a starting SG and would have rather had Nick Young and Xavier Henry? Blegh. No thanks.

I think he's made good moves to this point, but at some point we need to get rid of Barea, DC and Shved.

Camden... a couple weeks ago, I ran down the list of other playoff hopefuls in the West and the wings/guards they picked up this offseason... and their salaries.

Nearly every one had a guy playing and producing between $1M and $3M. Very few other teams have opted to go the "mid-level" route with its rotation guys. As a result, it's hard (impossible) to find a single "value" contract on the Wolves right now.

I won't disagree with that, but in all honesty that's Kahn's fault. 5M for Barea was way too much and even JJ practically acknowledged that when he signed here. Shved's dead money at this point that Flip can't even deal. D-Will was all Khan's fault. Shabazz COULD turn out to be a value guy, but we don't know at this point. This team was poorly run under Khan for many years. Tough to expect Flip to correct everything in just one off-season. Usually a fanbase/organization gives a new GM about a three year window to make their impact. Apparently that's not the case here. We're playoff hungry, and rightfully so, but we can't lose sight of what Khan did to this team. Have to give Flip a couple years to build something and make changes.

[AbeVigodaLive]

One other note about the Wolves 3 point shooting. I'd like to see a chart of where they're shooting from.

We keep hearing that the corner 3 is the most valuable (best) shot in basketball. Love takes most of his from above the elbow. We know Brewer should NEVER shoot above the elbow. It also seems like Barea shoots more from above the elbow. The almost 2 feet extra distance makes a difference... as any percentage chart can tell us.

But this is from the eye test. I'd like to see a chart for the Wolves if anybody knows of one.

[mjs34]

Some on here act as if Flip came into a bad situation. He took over a .500 ball club (if healthy) and hasn't improved it from what I see. Most new GM's understand that they have to clear some cap to provide the ability to make other moves. Most GM's don't have a player of Love's caliber when they walk in the door, or a C like Pek. From what I have observed, Flip overpaid for Pek, Bud, and Brewer, and was bidding against himself.

I would like to know if the wolves gave Bud a physical before giving him his new deal. I never heard mention of it, but Bud wasn't lighting the world on fire when he came back from injury last season. I suspect he was never healthy, and still managed to get a three year deal.

The problem as I see it, is we have a jump shooting offense without jump shooters. We have too many one dimensional players on this team, and some aren't even good at that one thing.

[kms789 [enjin:6694798]]

Barea (5M), Shved (3M), D-Will (5M), Cunningham (3M). That's roughly 16M of cap space I'm sure Flip would have loved to have been able to use, but couldn't. Really tough to blame Flip for not getting more shooters when his hands were tied behind his back due to the salary cap. Assuming you didn't want a starting SG and would have rather had Nick Young and Xavier Henry? Blegh. No thanks.

I think he's made good moves to this point, but at some point we need to get rid of Barea, DC and Shved.

I'm not sure of your point since I listed those players as Kahn's fault. Flip still chose to swap D-Will for a non-shooter and add several other players (Brewer, Muhammad, Dieng, Turiaf, and Price) who can't shoot a lick.

[kms789 [enjin:6694798]]

SJM also makes a great point, since we overpaid to keep Budinger when his knee obviously wasn't right. He's a career 9pts/game role player coming off a major knee injury and we gave him $5mil/year while great shooters like Dunleavy, Dorell Wright, and Belinelli got $3mil/year

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Barea (5M), Shved (3M), D-Will (5M), Cunningham (3M). That's roughly 16M of cap space I'm sure Flip would have loved to have been able to use, but couldn't. Really tough to blame Flip for not getting more shooters when his hands were tied behind his back due to the salary cap. Assuming you didn't want a starting SG and would have rather had Nick Young and Xavier Henry? Blegh. No thanks.

I think he's made good moves to this point, but at some point we need to get rid of Barea, DC and Shved.

I'm not sure of your point since I listed those players as Kahn's fault. Flip still chose to swap D-Will for a non-shooter and add several other players (Brewer, Muhammad, Dieng, Turiaf, and Price) who can't shoot a lick.

Yes, you listed them as Kahn's fault, but it also restricts what Flip could do given that their salary was already on the books.

And trading D-Will for MaM still is a good trade for us I believe. We still need another shooter, but I wasn't even expecting to be able get him for D-Will to be honest.

Brewer's a non-shooter, but can produce in other ways. Shabazz hasn't earned an opportunity yet, so we can't technically rule him out yet. Dieng and Turiaf are defensive bigs, which we have a huge need for. Price is the 15th man on the roster. Lol I'm sorry we didn't get a better 15th man for you.

[kms789 [enjin:6694798]]

If all these guys were such quality additions, this talented team wouldn't have a losing record. Brewer and Mbah a Moute are good players on the right team, but on a team that already has major spacing issues, they allow the defense to sink even further.

Look at it a different way. The league average for 3pt% is 36%. Look at how many players different teams have above that 36%. HEAT- 7, Spurs- 7, Blazers- 6, Wolves- 1. It destroys their spacing and I don't see the point in getting defensive about a flaw that obviously wasn't addressed enough.