Game Report - Wolves v. Mavs

[Lipoli390]

Wild --

I don't see the problem as a failure to develop our draft picks. I think the problem is solely the quality of our picks. Williams has had plenty of opportunity in over two seasons and hasn't shown much development. Wes Johnson had a lot of playing time and opportunities while here, but he flamed out and hasn't performed well on either of the other two teams he's played for since leaving the Wolves. Flynn bombed out here after getting lots of playing time early and he hasn't done any better with any other NBA team. He's now out of the League. Ellington got quite a bit of burn while here, but didn't amount to much and he's not having any more success having left the Wolves. Of course, there's the guy we drafted out of Marquette with the 30th pick a few years ago. He didn't do any better with any other teams and I believe he's now out of the League.

Then there is the long list of second round Euro picks who apparently aren't good enough to even get a shot at making our roster. And it's not like any other NBA teams are knocking on our door with offers to trade for them. I was talking last week to someone in the Wolves organization about David Stern. He mentioned Stern's appearance here last year to address the Wolves staff. When someone suggested that even the new collective bargaining agreement didn't give mid-market teams as chance to compete, Stern replied sternly (pun intended) that the CBA gives every team a fair opportunity, but that "you have to draft well." Those were his exact words and told I was told that it was clear from the context and the way Stern uttered those words that he was taking a shot at David Kahn. Apparently, Kahn turned red with a combination of anger and embarrassment.

This organization has made six good draft picks in its nearly 25 year history -- KG, Marbury, Wally Z, Pekovic, Love and Ricky. Two of them actually turned out to be failed picks because of an unexpected mental implosion (Marbury) and knee injuries (Wally). So one could argue we've only had four good picks in 25 years. The good ones have had the chance to develop and, but for injuries or mental implosions, they have excelled.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I think there's some truth in what both Wild and Lip are saying. Wild, I share your frustration with the lack of minutes for Shabazz. I read Lip's comment on his bench body language Friday night, and suspect that he may be in Adelman's doghouse. I respect Rick as a coach and appreciate his efforts to teach Shabazz the NBA way, but I also share your view that Muhammad couldn't be worse than what our second unit has been showing us. I look at Love's greatly improved assist work this year, and think that Muhammad's talent on fast breaks and back cuts would be a great fit with Love. Shabazz is "home" for the next two games (played at UCLA, worked out in SoCal in the offseason, and grew up just 4 1/2 hours away), so hopefully Rick will allow him a coming out party in front of family and friends, especially if Williams is still down with back spasms. (Speaking of back spasms, did anyone else notice that AK is out again with spasms...Flip may have dodged a bullet with AK).

And Lipoli's point about our terrible drafts is right on. I thought he was perhaps employing hyperbole in saying we had only gotten 4 good players out of 25 years of drafting, but then I looked at the list. How depressing! I would add Doug West (38th pick in 1989, and Wolves' all-time leading scorer until KG surpassed him) to the list of good players, but other than him and the five Lip mentioned, it's nothing but junk.

But that doesn't mean that we missed the boat in 2013, and I still think Muhammad and Dieng can be solid NBA players. Rick...give them a chance!

[Lipoli390]

SJM and Long -- You both make a pretty persuasive case for giving Shabazz more PT. Given how terrible our second unit has been, I really don't see much, if any, downside in giving Shabazz a shot. But for now, I'll trust Adelman's judgment that perhaps Shabazz isn't quite ready. The last thing you want to do is put Shabazz in a position to fail and damage his confidence. I'm told he is a really hard worker in practice. My guess is that he still has a bit to learn about the team aspect of basketball. I suspect we'll be seeing Shabazz getting some meaningful PT sometime down the road unless Shved gets his act together.

[WildWolf2813]

Wild --

I don't see the problem as a failure to develop our draft picks. I think the problem is solely the quality of our picks. Williams has had plenty of opportunity in over two seasons and hasn't shown much development. Wes Johnson had a lot of playing time and opportunities while here, but he flamed out and hasn't performed well on either of the other two teams he's played for since leaving the Wolves. Flynn bombed out here after getting lots of playing time early and he hasn't done any better with any other NBA team. He's now out of the League. Ellington got quite a bit of burn while here, but didn't amount to much and he's not having any more success having left the Wolves. Of course, there's the guy we drafted out of Marquette with the 30th pick a few years ago. He didn't do any better with any other teams and I believe he's now out of the League.

Then there is the long list of second round Euro picks who apparently aren't good enough to even get a shot at making our roster. And it's not like any other NBA teams are knocking on our door with offers to trade for them. I was talking last week to someone in the Wolves organization about David Stern. He mentioned Stern's appearance here last year to address the Wolves staff. When someone suggested that even the new collective bargaining agreement didn't give mid-market teams as chance to compete, Stern replied sternly (pun intended) that the CBA gives every team a fair opportunity, but that "you have to draft well." Those were his exact words and told I was told that it was clear from the context and the way Stern uttered those words that he was taking a shot at David Kahn. Apparently, Kahn turned red with a combination of anger and embarrassment.

This organization has made six good draft picks in its nearly 25 year history -- KG, Marbury, Wally Z, Pekovic, Love and Ricky. Two of them actually turned out to be failed picks because of an unexpected mental implosion (Marbury) and knee injuries (Wally). So one could argue we've only had four good picks in 25 years. The good ones have had the chance to develop and, but for injuries or mental implosions, they have excelled.

Lip- I'm gonna rarely defend the failures of the draft picks we've had just this once.

Jonny Flynn gets picked. What do we do? Instead of catering to his strengths, we did everything to expose his weaknesses, treated him like a second class citizen the entire time because of Rubio, and put him in the worst offense possible. Who's to say this doesn't happen to Curry or Lawson or Jennings or whoever else?

Wes Johnson played well as a stretch 4 in college while naturally being a SF. What do we do? Try him at SG. Had we taken a DeMarcus Cousins or a Greg Monroe, how good or happy would they have been getting leftover minutes behind Kevin Love or Al Jefferson had we kept him? Paul George turned out to be great despite being out of position, but he too was all-rookie 2nd team just like Wes. If we were disappointed by Wes, we would have been negative towards George too.

Derrick Williams was a PF through and through in college. What do we do? Pray he winds up a SF so we wouldn't have to pass up the 2nd player in a 2 team draft, and then wonder why Derrick's time here can be summed up as inconsistent. This coulda been Faried, Kanter, Tristan Thompson.

In all three situations, we draft three hardworking players (because work ethic was never their problem prior to being here), and then they get misused to a degree. Combine that with endless losing and of course you'll get disenchantment. For crying out loud, Kevin Love needed to have a 31/31 game just to get out of Rambis' doghouse. We almost cost ourselves HIM. Like you and I have said, this is beyond management at this point, because now Flip's here and we're seeing the same lack of direction with what they're doing with his picks.

4 good picks in 25 years (your words). This isn't a Kahn thing. This is a historical misuse of the one asset we have any control over and by the looks of things it's not changing any time soon. It would be a minor miracle for anyone to justify any remaining faith in this team to get anything out of Dieng or Muhammad at this point, especially since deep down, we know they'd be doing better elsewhere even this early in the season.

[WildWolf2813]

and one more thing:

the 2009 Draft, the 2011 Draft, and the 2013 draft. What do they all have in common? We went into those drafts for all intents and purposes, without a coach. No shock that we always have players that don't fit what the coach wants.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

WildWolf just had an extremely good post that made me take a step back and think.

Flynn: Rambis bringing the triangle offense to Sota is mistake number one. That's no where near how Flynn was supposed to be used. Had Rambis fit his offense around his players strengths instead of trying to be Phil Jackson 2.0, who knows what Flynn could have been. I liked him at 'Cuse. He also had a decent first year despite all the negative talk around him. 13.5 PPG, 4.4 APG, 2.4 RPG, 42% FG, 37% 3-pt and 83% FT. For a rookie PG in a system not made for him, I'll take that all day. Everyone talks about not having a starting PG that could create off tThen unfortunately for Flynn and Sota, he needed surgery the next year on his hip if I recall correctly and never was the same. Another point that can't be said enough, how would you feel if you were Flynn and your organization drafted your future replacement (Rubio) in the same draft they took you? Doesn't exactly scream "100 percent faith" now does it? Yeah, it sucks he didn't work out, but I can't hate the pick. As WW posted already, how do we know that Curry, Jennings, Lawson, etc. would have done any better in an offensive system that wasn't made for them? Lawson especially, considering he plays the same type of basketball as Flynn; he's just better at it.

Can't blame the quality of pick for D-Will either. That draft was a two player draft and everyone knew it. I wanted CLE to take D-Will, and they were rumored to be very close to taking him. Kyrie and Love would have been the best duo in the league. No doubt about it. Instead CLE takes Kyrie and like every GM in the league would have done, we took D-Will. Can you imagine how pissed every Wolves fan would have been had Sota taken Thompson/Kanter? I really liked Kanter a bunch pre-draft, and I also like Thompson a lot right now, but I would have been livid!! I would have been calling for Kahn's head immediately. D-Will was the no brainer, and the only wrongdoing in drafting him was not trading him immediately, which if you remember correctly, Kahn tried to trade the pick weeks and weeks before the draft. In a perfect world where the Timberwolves were the Spurs, we would have traded D-Will to Golden State for Klay Thompson and a future first. Sigh...

Those are the only ones that I can really defend. Wes Johnson was a horrendous pick when it was made and it's a horrendous pick now. One fluke year at Cuse and he never showed ANY signs of promise in Minnesota. I'll always be a Wes Johnson "hater" and I'm still stubborn that pick didn't turn into DeMarcus Cousins. I thought it was a pretty easy call to take Cousins and match him up with Love to dominate. Yeah, he would have had to come off the bench his rookie year because of Al (he was still here if I recall), but we'd be set up for dominance. Complete bonehead move by Kahn.