Fiba World championships

[KG4Ever]

NAW with another bad game. He had some good games too, but I saw a lot of inconsistency from him. NAW and Ant performed about as I expected. Rudy and Kyle were a bit worse than expected. Spagnola showed a couple flashes but otherwise he was buried on a bench of borderline and sub NBA talents. I hope TC isn't counting on Spags as Conley's heir apparent. The two pleasant surprises in FIBA play for me were Luka Garza's play and KAT's health. Can't wait for season to start.

[KG4Ever]

I don't like all the hype poured on Ant. Its everywhere I look and its way too excessive. Reading comparisons of him to MJ, seeing him referred to "unstoppable" and the next big thing, make me want to vomit. I remember when Wiggins was the next Jordan too. I remember when KAT was voted the best young player to build a franchise around. And D'Angelo was an All-star, who one former board hypster compared to Curry and Harden. I'm hoping the losses bring some humility to Ant as I like a Humble Ant. He's got to get a lot better and continue to improve for the Wolves to be contenders. His passing, shooting efficiency, free throw shooting and rebounding all need to improve for him to live up to the hype.

[Lipoli390]

Ant has played fine so far but not great and he needed to step up more in a leadership role for USA to win the gold. Ant's shooting efficiency was actually the worst among the entire team except for Cam Johnson and his FG% was 5.6% worse than the team as a whole. Maybe Ant needs to shoot less and look for his teammates more. Mikal Bridges who shot it an insane clip should have gotten more shots. Bridges shooting percentages were 66.7, 57.1 and 87.5% compared with Ant who was 48.0, 31.7 and 72.7%.

I'm not sure if Ant getting a higher usage is a good thing unless its accompanied by better efficiency. For Ant to take the next leap he needs to get his teammates more involved and improve his scoring efficiency.

....but it's normal for the highest usage player to also take the most difficult shots because he's the guy with the ball in his hands when all else fails. You also can't just look at Ant's efficiency in isolation. What if the gravity of his presence on the floor made things easier for someone like Mikal Bridges? Who do you think drew the better defenders - Mikal or Ant?

I think a guy like Russell Westbrook in his prime (not the version we've seen the last few years) is a great example of someone who was never really efficient as a scorer, but drew so much attention that it enabled others on the floor with him to get easier shots. He ended up being a huge net plus to the offense despite not being a great shooter. And we know Ant is a better shooter than Westbrook.

You nailed it, Q. Leave it to Wolves fans to nitpick our own barely 22 year old budding star while the national media, including Brian Windhorst (see article below), have him rated as the top player on the US FIBA team. Fans have already been clamoring to trade KAT. Maybe we should add Ant to the outgoing trade package.

Seriously, by anll accounts, Ant was great on both sides of the ball in FIBA play, so we shouldn’t ignore the defensive prowess he apparently exerted in the tournament. He can certainly improve in a number of areas on the offensive side of the ball, which shouldn’t be surprising since he’s had the same number of post-high school years playing basketball as MJ coming into his rookie season. I agree he’ll never be a lights out 3-point shooter but the same can be said of MJ, Kobe, and Wade. Yet, if Ant increased his proportion of catch-and-shoot threes his percentage would go up significantly and likely surpass those three hall-of-fame megastars. He can and should drive more and draw more fouls. He can and should improve his passing.

We’ll see how much better Ant ultimately becomes over the next few years. But meanwhile, I’m not worried about him. The only glaring thing he’s missing is a Mikal Bridges or Tyrese Haliburton playing alongside him. I’m far more concerned about Tim Connelly than I am about Ant. I’m tired of Wolves front office executives who have a star but fail to build around him - McHale failing to build around KG; multiple executives failing to build around KAT. TC made it far more difficult to build around Ant the moment he made the idiotic Gobert deal. TC’s brought in Kyle Anderson, Mike Conley, NAW, Luka Garza, Shake MIlton, Troy Brown Jr., Wendell Moore, Josh Minott and Leonard Miller. So far Kyle and Mike have looked good, but they’re on the back ends of their respective careers. NAW has shown some promise, but his FIBA play hasn’t shown any progression beyond what we saw at the end of last season. Moore hasn’t shown anything to get excited about. I suspect Shake Milton and Troy Brown will be what they’ve always been. I like Luka. Josh Minott still intrigues me, but his shine is starting to wear off. I’m still high on Leonard Miller, but there’s a reason he dropped into the second round and we saw a bit of why later in the summer league.

Tim Connelly is fortunate that he inherited Ant and Jaden from Rosas as well as KAT from Flip Saunders. But so far his one big move to build around those three has been one of the dumbest trades I’ve ever seen, buying into a twin towers model that didn’t work when Houston paired Hakeem with Ralph Sampson back in an era when bigs were far more important and impactful than they are today. So again, I’m not worried about Ant. I’m just wondering what Tim Connelly will do to earn his unprecedented equity stake the Wolves ownership gave him to lure him away from Denver in a move Denver’s owner referred to as desperate.

Yes, I got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

[KG4Ever]

What is wrong with nitpicking? I love the Wolves roster and don't want to trade Ant, KAT, Jaden, Rudy, SloMo, Conley, Shake, NAW or Leonard at all. I want to keep this roster intact as long as possible. But too much hype can be counterproductive, so I'm fine with injecting some reality or nitpicking (ha) and take flack for that. I think Ant is much more critical of himself than KAT, Wiggins or DLO ever were and that is great and hopefully these losses can keep the young man humble and hungry to improve his game. Stay thirsty, my friend!

[Q-is-here]

I don't like all the hype poured on Ant. Its everywhere I look and its way too excessive. Reading comparisons of him to MJ, seeing him referred to "unstoppable" and the next big thing, make me want to vomit. I remember when Wiggins was the next Jordan too. I remember when KAT was voted the best young player to build a franchise around. And D'Angelo was an All-star, who one former board hypster compared to Curry and Harden. I'm hoping the losses bring some humility to Ant as I like a Humble Ant. He's got to get a lot better and continue to improve for the Wolves to be contenders. His passing, shooting efficiency, free throw shooting and rebounding all need to improve for him to live up to the hype.

The hype really grew during the friendlies, where he had some amazing performances. Well, we saw from the real FIBA games that Ant performed well, but was by no means dominant. He was the #1 guy on a USA team that didn't medal, so hopefully that humbles him and he grows from it.

[KG4Ever]

I don't like all the hype poured on Ant. Its everywhere I look and its way too excessive. Reading comparisons of him to MJ, seeing him referred to "unstoppable" and the next big thing, make me want to vomit. I remember when Wiggins was the next Jordan too. I remember when KAT was voted the best young player to build a franchise around. And D'Angelo was an All-star, who one former board hypster compared to Curry and Harden. I'm hoping the losses bring some humility to Ant as I like a Humble Ant. He's got to get a lot better and continue to improve for the Wolves to be contenders. His passing, shooting efficiency, free throw shooting and rebounding all need to improve for him to live up to the hype.

The hype really grew during the friendlies, where he had some amazing performances. Well, we saw from the real FIBA games that Ant performed well, but was by no means dominant. He was the #1 guy on a USA team that didn't medal, so hopefully that humbles him and he grows from it.

What about Mikal Bridges? I think he was USA's best player. Sure Ant is much younger and I wouldn't trade Ant for Bridges, but right now Mikal is a more complete player.

PS. I hated the Rudy trade, but there are two other trades just as bad (perhaps worse) and one was the trade the Suns made for Durant (Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson and a slew of picks) and the one made by the Clippers for Paul George (SGA and a slew of picks one of which is Jalen Williams).

[Q-is-here]

I don't like all the hype poured on Ant. Its everywhere I look and its way too excessive. Reading comparisons of him to MJ, seeing him referred to "unstoppable" and the next big thing, make me want to vomit. I remember when Wiggins was the next Jordan too. I remember when KAT was voted the best young player to build a franchise around. And D'Angelo was an All-star, who one former board hypster compared to Curry and Harden. I'm hoping the losses bring some humility to Ant as I like a Humble Ant. He's got to get a lot better and continue to improve for the Wolves to be contenders. His passing, shooting efficiency, free throw shooting and rebounding all need to improve for him to live up to the hype.

The hype really grew during the friendlies, where he had some amazing performances. Well, we saw from the real FIBA games that Ant performed well, but was by no means dominant. He was the #1 guy on a USA team that didn't medal, so hopefully that humbles him and he grows from it.

What about Mikal Bridges? I think he was USA's best player. Sure Ant is much younger and I wouldn't trade Ant for Bridges, but right now Mikal is a more complete player.

PS. I hated the Rudy trade, but there are two other trades just as bad (perhaps worse) and one was the trade the Suns made for Durant (Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson and a slew of picks) and the one made by the Clippers for Paul George (SGA and a slew of picks one of which is Jalen Williams).

Mikal may have played the best all around ball, but the reality is that Ant asserted himself as the #1 guy as defined by who gets the most touches and shots. I didn't watch the games, so I don't know if Ant was just being a ball hog that didn't defer enough to others or if part of Mikal's success was because the opposing defense focused so much on slowing down Ant.

Regardless, it was a disappointment to see them get absolutely destroyed on defense by Germany and then Canada. SGA was probably the best player in the tournament.

[KG4Ever]

The hype really grew during the friendlies, where he had some amazing performances. Well, we saw from the real FIBA games that Ant performed well, but was by no means dominant. He was the #1 guy on a USA team that didn't medal, so hopefully that humbles him and he grows from it.

What about Mikal Bridges? I think he was USA's best player. Sure Ant is much younger and I wouldn't trade Ant for Bridges, but right now Mikal is a more complete player.

PS. I hated the Rudy trade, but there are two other trades just as bad (perhaps worse) and one was the trade the Suns made for Durant (Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson and a slew of picks) and the one made by the Clippers for Paul George (SGA and a slew of picks one of which is Jalen Williams).

Mikal may have played the best all around ball, but the reality is that Ant asserted himself as the #1 guy as defined by who gets the most touches and shots. I didn't watch the games, so I don't know if Ant was just being a ball hog that didn't defer enough to others or if part of Mikal's success was because the opposing defense focused so much on slowing down Ant.

Regardless, it was a disappointment to see them get absolutely destroyed on defense by Germany and then Canada. SGA was probably the best player in the tournament.

I understand Ant was the Alpha, but IMO, he wasn't the best player and to me that was clearly Mikal Bridges. I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing that Ant was the team's alpha. I can see the argument that by being the alpha he had more opportunity to grow. I want to see KAT get his share of touches as I think he's the team's most efficient offensive player. I also think Rudy in the paint, and Conley and Jaden are pretty efficient players too, so I hope Ant's usage doesn't dramatically increase as I want everyone to get plenty of touches. I want to see Ant grow as a passer and take better shot selection, and still work hard on the defensive end. I really don't care how many points Ant scores as much as I care about how many assists he gets, how efficient his shooting is and how engaged and effective he is as a defender. Hopefully, Ant stays grounded.

[Coolbreeze44]

I wish I could not watch the games yet offer an opinion on who the best player was. That's a special kind of genius. Bus as far as drawing conclusions go, I watched as much as I could and can offer these thoughts for Wolves fans. KAT is who he always was. Don't expect a sudden maturation from him. He will continue to score and put up numbers. He will have less of an impact on winning than he should. And he will continue to let his emotions bring both himself and the team down, while he remains a constant injury risk. What you've seen is what you'll get. As for Ant, he is an all star caliber player who is being put on a very high pedestal right now. I don't think he's a top 5 player in the league, and I'm not sure if he ever will be. He can talk all he wants about making his teammates better, but he's a chucker first and foremost.

The key to Wolves improvement centers on overall health, and the improvement of Naz Reid and Jaden McDaniels. If NAZ keeps coming he will make KAT a likely trade candidate (finally). And Jaden becoming a legitimate all star is the best thing we can hope for. He more than anybody else will determine how high we can climb.

[Q-is-here]

What about Mikal Bridges? I think he was USA's best player. Sure Ant is much younger and I wouldn't trade Ant for Bridges, but right now Mikal is a more complete player.

PS. I hated the Rudy trade, but there are two other trades just as bad (perhaps worse) and one was the trade the Suns made for Durant (Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson and a slew of picks) and the one made by the Clippers for Paul George (SGA and a slew of picks one of which is Jalen Williams).

Mikal may have played the best all around ball, but the reality is that Ant asserted himself as the #1 guy as defined by who gets the most touches and shots. I didn't watch the games, so I don't know if Ant was just being a ball hog that didn't defer enough to others or if part of Mikal's success was because the opposing defense focused so much on slowing down Ant.

Regardless, it was a disappointment to see them get absolutely destroyed on defense by Germany and then Canada. SGA was probably the best player in the tournament.

I understand Ant was the Alpha, but IMO, he wasn't the best player and to me that was clearly Mikal Bridges. I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing that Ant was the team's alpha. I can see the argument that by being the alpha he had more opportunity to grow. I want to see KAT get his share of touches as I think he's the team's most efficient offensive player. I also think Rudy in the paint, and Conley and Jaden are pretty efficient players too, so I hope Ant's usage doesn't dramatically increase as I want everyone to get plenty of touches. I want to see Ant grow as a passer and take better shot selection, and still work hard on the defensive end. I really don't care how many points Ant scores as much as I care about how many assists he gets, how efficient his shooting is and how engaged and effective he is as a defender. Hopefully, Ant stays grounded.

Ant has always been a volume guy, so I just don't see that changing much. I do think having Conley at PG helps because he won't need as many shots as DLO needed, so he should keep the ball moving and can also get Rudy a few early touches before the offense settles in around Ant and KAT as the fulcrums.