Wolves Need Another Deal

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

The Williams deal upgrades our defense and, in that sense, it's a positive. But he's another one-way player -- in this case a defender who can't shoot. We still lack, depth and scoring punch off the bench, and we still have a huge scoring void at the SF position with Luc and Corey.

I am disappointed with the necessity of being redundant here.

Brewer is one of the best scoring SFs in the league right now. Easily in the top 10 (Brewer is top 10 in scoring and efficiency, i think only 4 others in the league are top 10 in both).

Lip, to call that a weakness to this point this year is just blatantly absurd.

You might be right, Lip. But I am pretty confident you won't see the Wolves in any sort of hurry to make a move until they see how the team operates with Bud back in the rotation.

Did you listen to the "Emergency Funkadelic" today? It's pretty good. While Flip is not counting on an early return for Bud, it sounds like people are telling him that Bud is progressing really well!

Well said Tim. I'm amazed that Flip was able to get such value for D-Will. It looks like we will hold tight on trades at this point, plus, we don't really have anything that we would like to offer that has any value.

[KiwiMatt]

Good thread guys and a great read!

At this stage IMO we only have two tradeable assets: JJ Barea and Dante Cunningham.

Barea is the only guy on this roster that can create his own shot, but lets face it he's not the guy you want to watch create his own shot, especially on his form this season and especially from the PG position. He's shooting 40% from the field but a terrible 26% from 3pt land which pretty much sums up the production of our 2nd unit. The acquisition of LRMAM makes Cunningham expendable.

[KiwiMatt]

We need a 6th man. At the moment Barea is trying to play that role, and is failing miserably.

I would like to see us make a simple trade for guy like CJ Miles, Jordon Crawford or Jodie Meeks, someone with a cheap and short contract who can give us instant offense off the bench and shoot a respectable clip.

We also need to develop Dieng and Muhammad. Both could provide what we are lacking: shot blocking and bench scoring. Adelman needs to get out of win now mode and focus on getting this team at its peak in 2 - 3 years.

This team reminds me of Portland last season, great starters who can match it with anyone but a bench that should be playing in the D League.

[m4gor [enjin:6667447]]

Good thread guys and a great read!

At this stage IMO we only have two tradeable assets: JJ Barea and Dante Cunningham.

Barea is the only guy on this roster that can create his own shot, but lets face it he's not the guy you want to watch create his own shot, especially on his form this season and especially from the PG position. He's shooting 40% from the field but a terrible 26% from 3pt land which pretty much sums up the production of our 2nd unit. The acquisition of LRMAM makes Cunningham expendable.

actually no, it does not make him expendable, LRMAM will be played as a wing defender not a PF as he is wrongly listed by ESPN, now we have Martin/Brewer/LRMAM to take care about all minutes at SG/SF till Bud comes back, we will play

Ricky, JJ - PG
Martin, Brewer, LRMAM - SG/SF
PEK, Love, Cunningham - PF/C

with few minutes to some other guys if the game will go well for us

[KiwiMatt]

Good thread guys and a great read!

At this stage IMO we only have two tradeable assets: JJ Barea and Dante Cunningham.

Barea is the only guy on this roster that can create his own shot, but lets face it he's not the guy you want to watch create his own shot, especially on his form this season and especially from the PG position. He's shooting 40% from the field but a terrible 26% from 3pt land which pretty much sums up the production of our 2nd unit. The acquisition of LRMAM makes Cunningham expendable.

actually no, it does not make him expendable, LRMAM will be played as a wing defender not a PF as he is wrongly listed by ESPN, now we have Martin/Brewer/LRMAM to take care about all minutes at SG/SF till Bud comes back, we will play

Ricky, JJ - PG
Martin, Brewer, LRMAM - SG/SF
PEK, Love, Cunningham - PF/C

with few minutes to some other guys if the game will go well for us

LRMAM has the versatility to guard both the 3 and the 4 positions. Cunningham doesn't, well at least not at an NBA level. Both are non threats on offense, so we can't afford to have them playing together. LRMAM gives us everything Cunningham does except at a higher level. Cunningham is a good guy to have come in if you need energy and hussle, but lets face it he doesn't have the skill set to be a 20mpg player in the NBA.

Also with the amount of small ball lineups most NBA teams play LRMAM is guaranteed to get burn at the 4.

[m4gor [enjin:6667447]]

Good thread guys and a great read!

At this stage IMO we only have two tradeable assets: JJ Barea and Dante Cunningham.

Barea is the only guy on this roster that can create his own shot, but lets face it he's not the guy you want to watch create his own shot, especially on his form this season and especially from the PG position. He's shooting 40% from the field but a terrible 26% from 3pt land which pretty much sums up the production of our 2nd unit. The acquisition of LRMAM makes Cunningham expendable.

actually no, it does not make him expendable, LRMAM will be played as a wing defender not a PF as he is wrongly listed by ESPN, now we have Martin/Brewer/LRMAM to take care about all minutes at SG/SF till Bud comes back, we will play

Ricky, JJ - PG
Martin, Brewer, LRMAM - SG/SF
PEK, Love, Cunningham - PF/C

with few minutes to some other guys if the game will go well for us

LRMAM has the versatility to guard both the 3 and the 4 positions. Cunningham doesn't, well at least not at an NBA level. Both are non threats on offense, so we can't afford to have them playing together. LRMAM gives us everything Cunningham does except at a higher level. Cunningham is a good guy to have come in if you need energy and hussle, but lets face it he doesn't have the skill set to be a 20mpg player in the NBA.

We haven't traded for LRMAM to play him at 4 and put Cunningham into dog house, that is for sure as it would not help to spread minutes to more guys and to help with guarding dangerous wings who are too big for Brewer, if it is good or bad idea to play them together, well we will see

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Good thread guys and a great read!

At this stage IMO we only have two tradeable assets: JJ Barea and Dante Cunningham.

Barea is the only guy on this roster that can create his own shot, but lets face it he's not the guy you want to watch create his own shot, especially on his form this season and especially from the PG position. He's shooting 40% from the field but a terrible 26% from 3pt land which pretty much sums up the production of our 2nd unit. The acquisition of LRMAM makes Cunningham expendable.

actually no, it does not make him expendable, LRMAM will be played as a wing defender not a PF as he is wrongly listed by ESPN, now we have Martin/Brewer/LRMAM to take care about all minutes at SG/SF till Bud comes back, we will play

Ricky, JJ - PG
Martin, Brewer, LRMAM - SG/SF
PEK, Love, Cunningham - PF/C

with few minutes to some other guys if the game will go well for us

LRMAM has the versatility to guard both the 3 and the 4 positions. Cunningham doesn't, well at least not at an NBA level. Both are non threats on offense, so we can't afford to have them playing together. LRMAM gives us everything Cunningham does except at a higher level. Cunningham is a good guy to have come in if you need energy and hussle, but lets face it he doesn't have the skill set to be a 20mpg player in the NBA.

Also with the amount of small ball lineups most NBA teams play LRMAM is guaranteed to get burn at the 4.

Agreed, Kiwi.

MaM >>>>>>>>>> DC

DC definitely is a trade piece right now and one that other teams may find valuable whereas he can get the boot here for the right deal. Mbah a Moute's wing AND post defense is better than DC. DC's energy and hustle will always be reasons why I like him as well as his durability, but if we could get a PG that knows how to set up other teammates on the second unit, I'd use DC and/or Barea to get him.

With how many teams use big SFs at PF (LeBron, Melo, Durant, Tobias Harris, Leonard, etc), Mbah a Moute is sure to play some 4 here and there. He's comfortable there on defense just like he is on the wing. Very valuable guy to a team's defense as he can guard four different positions.

[m4gor [enjin:6667447]]

well if you just give DCs minutes to LRMAM and burn starting 5 the same way Adelman is doing that right now, i claim that fail .. what we need is depth to not play starters too much, i would trade Cunningham only with Bud back, but i am not sure what we could expect as return for guy like DC, maybe to pack together DC+Shved+2nd round pick to get at least something back

edit: well, i guess i am stupid as if we would trade DC for some SG we could then use LRMAM more as PF, so i guess DC is really expendable by now

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

well if you just give DCs minutes to LRMAM and burn starting 5 the same way Adelman is doing that right now, i claim that fail .. what we need is depth to not play starters too much, i would trade Cunningham only with Bud back, but i am not sure what we could expect as return for guy like DC, maybe to pack together DC+Shved+2nd round pick to get at least something back

I would trade Cunningham/Barea/Shved/2016First tomorrow if it meant we got help at backup PG, SG or C. Also, Mbah a Moute's versatility is going to allow Adelman to use different lineups, therefore helping starters get more of a breather. As we have it now, usually one of our starters has to play with the second unit or else the offense is completely stagnant.

I feel like it won't be long before Mbah a Moute is a starter and Brewer becomes the sixth man. That allows the starters to rest more in my opinion since Martin/Rubio/Pek/Love won't have to be carrying the second unit as well as contribute on the first team. Our starters are having to do too much. They'll burn out at this rate. If you add Mbah a Moute to the first team to play top notch defense and get trash buckets, our offense is still going to be good whereas our defense and rebounding will be better. Then our bench should be better as well with Brewer getting minutes with that unit since he poses a bigger offensive threat than Mbah a Moute. Getting Bud/Turiaf back would make our bench (with Brewer) pretty good I think.

Still need a facilitator on the bench, however. If we could get a Steve Blake, Ramon Sessions, Chauncey Billups (healthy) to run that group, it'd be really beneficial to the Wolves.

[KiwiMatt]

Yes we certainly do need a facilitator on our 2nd unit. I think we already have that guy (Shved), but unfortunately he's playing out of position. The problem here is Barea. Him and Shved simply aren't a good backcourt pairing. Both need the ball in their hands to be effective and at the moment Barea isn't playing the facilitating role and setting up team mates. Shved's development has been significantly halted because of this.