10 games in.

[worldK]

Sjm I dont know what your talking about. Im thinking along the lines that we need a much better wing than hummel,dw or shabazz off the bench and another big to spell pek. I could see giving dieng some burn but we dont have a better option than hummel and dw hasnt earned trust to play dante minutes.

[mjs34]

Sjm I dont know what your talking about. Im thinking along the lines that we need a much better wing than hummel,dw or shabazz off the bench and another big to spell pek. I could see giving dieng some burn but we dont have a better option than hummel and dw hasnt earned trust to play dante minutes.

I don't care who it is, but if DW hasn't earned the trust, what is DC doing on the court. He has sucked this season every bit as much as DW has. Maybe try both of them and roll with whoever is playing well that night.

[Lipoli390]

I don't always agree with Adelman's decisions, but his track record as a head coach speaks for itself. So I give him the benefit of the doubt for now, understanding that he knows a lot more about what he can get from his players than we do given that he sees them up close every day in practice.

If it had been up to me, I would have had DW in the game tonight. I would have given him most of Dante's minutes and a good chunk of Brewer's minutes. By the way, Brewer's defense was horrible tonight. He failed to provide weak side help multiple times and help Denver get easy looks with high risk failed attempts to force a turnover. Our starters were well-rested, yet they were out-hustled by the Nuggets and completed disinterested in playing any defense. That has nothing to do with D-Will's lack of minutes or Adelman. That's a black mark on the character of our starters. Yes, even Love should be held accountable for giving up several offensive rebounds to Faried based solely on Faried outhustling him. Those several offensive rebounds were easily the difference in the game.

We don't have the talent we need off the bench. And our starters tend to get way too full of themselves and think they can coast to wins over inferior teams as if the Wolves are on the same level as the Miami Heat.

[worldK]

Sjm, were back to this dante vs dw argument again. This will never end as long as you want adelman to be replaced. Simply put, adelman prefers dante over dw. Some of us here can see why ( you know dante will give the same effort and play within the offense vs a big ? on what dw will actually be doing in there).

My opinion is dante is good as love's backup but not going to be good when he has to backup both love and pek. Dw on the other hand doesnt have a true position in the league and dont enjoy the confidence of the coaches and flip who sees him everyday.

[mjs34]

Lip the thing with Faried is that he goes gangbusters for several minutes and then disappears for several. Love doesn't have that option. I thought Love played pretty well, but clearly wasn't feeling his shot in the third. I think we should realize that we likely won't have a consistent wing player coming off the bench this season. We will have to roll with what we have, and it is up to Adelman to make that work.

I agree that Brewer was terrible on defensive, and I thought offensively as well. If Brewer is going to be allowed to leak out on every shot, we should expect a much higher FG% from him. He wasn't finishing tonight, and caused Rubio to have double the TO's he should have recorded because he couldn't seem to catch a ball.

[worldK]

Lip, i agree that we cant coast to victories. Were not that good. Adelman knows it, thats why he is tightening up the rotation and coaching to win every game. Things would actually be better if bud or turiaf were healthy, you at least know that thats 9 guys adelman wil play every game instead of the 7 right now. If dw has step up this season then it would be even better, but im losing hope on that.

[mjs34]

Sjm, were back to this dante vs dw argument again. This will never end as long as you want adelman to be replaced. Simply put, adelman prefers dante over dw. Some of us here can see why ( you know dante will give the same effort and play within the offense vs a big ? on what dw will actually be doing in there).

My opinion is dante is good as love's backup but not going to be good when he has to backup both love and pek. Dw on the other hand doesnt have a true position in the league and dont enjoy the confidence of the coaches and flip who sees him everyday.

This isn't even a DW or dante thing for me. This is about wins, and making moves to make the team successful. Dante doesn't have a choice but to play within the offense because he can't create any of his own. Dante does very little, and he is the player that doesn't have a true position. He can't guard PF's because they are too strong for him, and he doesn't have the lateral footwork to guard SF's. He has no offensive game other than spotting up for 15 footers. Why isn't Dante cutting to the basket? Why isn't he posting up? Running around the court doesn't translate to wins. Dante sure didn't look like he gave much effort on D tonight. He wasn't boxing out, and he wasn't providing help.

Can we move past the BS that somehow Dante does anything well. I am happy to admit that DW doesn't do anything at a high level. The problem I have is that either does his competition for minutes. All I am asking is that our coach doesn't sit on his hands when these guys are having bad nights, and gives another guy that has just as much game (if not more) a chance to turn things around.

[thedoper]

One big thing so far is we are a much better team when Ricky can score too. Ricky had been pretty smart with his shooting the last few games. 0-5 tonight is sad.

As for DW v Dante for playing time, I will forever be puzzled with this one. I think DW is actually a better defender than what Dante has been giving us the year. Dante gets pushed around a lot. I am with sjm just in the point that Adelman should be as quick to yank his bench guys for bad play as he does with Dwill. Who really knows though. Maybe DW really is a dbag in practice.

[Lipoli390]

Lip the thing with Faried is that he goes gangbusters for several minutes and then disappears for several. Love doesn't have that option. I thought Love played pretty well, but clearly wasn't feeling his shot in the third. I think we should realize that we likely won't have a consistent wing player coming off the bench this season. We will have to roll with what we have, and it is up to Adelman to make that work.

I agree that Brewer was terrible on defensive, and I thought offensively as well. If Brewer is going to be allowed to leak out on every shot, we should expect a much higher FG% from him. He wasn't finishing tonight, and caused Rubio to have double the TO's he should have recorded because he couldn't seem to catch a ball.

SJM -- Good point about Faried and how his style contrasts with Love's. But Love got caught flat-footed a couple times in the first quarter and that shouldn't happen. Otherwise, I agree that Love had a good game tonight and I don't hold him principally accountable for tonight's loss. I also agree, and meant to point out, that Brewer's offense was bad as well. We saw more of the old Brewer tonight and it wasn't pretty. Not only did he miss layups, but he tried putting the ball on the floor and taking it to the hole a couple of times - something he should never do. He still deserves the "drunken dribbler" label he earned in college. I like the way Brewer has played, but as the season progresses we will come to see increasingly why he shouldn't be a starting SF on a contending team.

Unfortunately, I think you're right that we'll probably have to roll with what we have. But if that's the case, then our starters have to play with intensity all the time and our two injured guys will have to come back fully healthy by the new year. I don't know what more Adelman can do that he's not already doing. The players respect him. As Dieng said to a group of us a couple weeks ago, whether an NBA player plays hard shouldn't depend on the coach.

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

Lip, at some point this season you need to stop complaining about Brewer. It should be pretty obvious to you that you don't have much objectivity on him. Among SFs that get significant playing time he is;

9th in ppg
5th in fg%
5th in steals
tied for 14th in 3PM

By any scoring efficiency standards that you want to use, he is in the top 10 in SFs.

He has held some of the best SFs in the league to very below average games. He is a very good defender

There are not many players in the league that run the break better than him. In tonight's game he got abused on a number of those breaks.

Brewer is doing amazingly well. You probably should pick another villain.