What we've learned this season

[Q-is-here]

1. Playing big has worked...for now (playoffs are TBD).
Net Rating for Player Pairings from NBA.com:
Rudy-Kat - +9.1
Rudy-Naz - +13.0
Kat-Naz - +8.6

2. Ant isn't a superstar yet, but he has made year-over-year improvement for the third year in a row. So he has made steady improvement as an all-around player every year since he was a rookie. He is absolutely on the right trajectory. Whether he can ever reach the heights of a Jokic, Curry, or LeBron is doubtful to me because I don't think he has the innate b-ball IQ those guys have, but can he be as good or slightly better than someone like SGA or Jayson Tatum? Absolutely.

3. Rudy is the MVP of the team this year. I'm not sure that's even debatable.

4. Speaking of Rudy, the team has no one under contract at C or PF next year and beyond that is a plus defensive player other than Rudy. I'll call KAT a neutral defender at this stage of his career, but we know he can't anchor a defense on a full-time basis. Naz, Minott, and Miller are all offensively oriented players.

5. PF is the only position Naz can play for extended minutes. If we trade KAT, Naz cannot just slide into the same role. Yes, he can start at PF next to Rudy and probably be OK, but he absolutely can't slide down to the Center position when Rudy sits. KAT is able to do that. We would need a legit backup defensive C if KAT were to be traded.

6. Jaden McDaniels has stagnated. The contract he signed anticipated further development from him, which hasn't happened. Now it looks like an overpay. Let's hope it's just a bump in the road.

7. NAW has become an invaluable role player and an absolute bargain.

[FNG]

Very good analysis, Q. A couple comments.

Yeah, size matters in basketball...who knew? We were frustrated watching our guys get bullied last night by AD, but guess what? That's the same frustration our opponents have felt all season trying to move Rudy away from the basket! TC had a successful vision when he built the Nuggets, and it looks like he may have done the same thing here.

Might NAW be the most improved Wolf this season? I think so. We loved him last season, but this season he has taken his game to a new level. He has replaced Jaden as the best on-ball defender on the team (although Ant is a contender too, when he cares), and has significantly improved his ability to drive to the basket. And his demeanor on the court cannot be questioned...no whining, he just plays the game.

But I have character concerns about Ant. Yes, he has the talent to be a Jokic/Curry/LeBron, but he doesn't have their character. His on-court antics have grown tiresome, and it's clear that is the reason he can't get a call from the refs...they don't like him. And he has had one embarrassing off-court incident in each of the past two seasons (homogate and abortiongate). When you evaluate young players in the NBA with enormous talent, I see a character continuum with Ja at the low end and SGA at the top. Ant needs to decide which side of the continuum he wants to be on (and right now it could go either way...he's still young), but right now I see him much closer to Ja than SGA.

[Q-is-here]

Very good analysis, Q. A couple comments.

Yeah, size matters in basketball...who knew? We were frustrated watching our guys get bullied last night by AD, but guess what? That's the same frustration our opponents have felt all season trying to move Rudy away from the basket! TC had a successful vision when he built the Nuggets, and it looks like he may have done the same thing here.

Might NAW be the most improved Wolf this season? I think so. We loved him last season, but this season he has taken his game to a new level. He has replaced Jaden as the best on-ball defender on the team (although Ant is a contender too, when he cares), and has significantly improved his ability to drive to the basket. And his demeanor on the court cannot be questioned...no whining, he just plays the game.

But I have character concerns about Ant. Yes, he has the talent to be a Jokic/Curry/LeBron, but he doesn't have their character. His on-court antics have grown tiresome, and it's clear that is the reason he can't get a call from the refs...they don't like him. And he has had one embarrassing off-court incident in each of the past two seasons (homogate and abortiongate). When you evaluate young players in the NBA with enormous talent, I see a character continuum with Ja at the low end and SGA at the top. Ant needs to decide which side of the continuum he wants to be on (and right now it could go either way...he's still young), but right now I see him much closer to Ja than SGA.

I actually don't think he has the talent to be Jokic/Curry/LeBron. He certainly has the athletic talent and mental confidence, but he doesn't have the Bball IQ, which is different from "character". I don't really see his off court behavior as holding him back, as crass and distasteful as it might be. And there is no indication yet that he has gone down the Morant path of trying to live the thug life. I mean, we don't know the half of what some of the past greats did off the court, before the days of social media. I'm sure a lot of us would be disgusted.

[Carlos Danger]

1. Playing big has worked...for now (playoffs are TBD).
Net Rating for Player Pairings from NBA.com:
Rudy-Kat - +9.1
Rudy-Naz - +13.0
Kat-Naz - +8.6

2. Ant isn't a superstar yet, but he has made year-over-year improvement for the third year in a row. So he has made steady improvement as an all-around player every year since he was a rookie. He is absolutely on the right trajectory. Whether he can ever reach the heights of a Jokic, Curry, or LeBron is doubtful to me because I don't think he has the innate b-ball IQ those guys have, but can he be as good or slightly better than someone like SGA or Jayson Tatum? Absolutely.

3. Rudy is the MVP of the team this year. I'm not sure that's even debatable.

4. Speaking of Rudy, the team has no one under contract at C or PF next year and beyond that is a plus defensive player other than Rudy. I'll call KAT a neutral defender at this stage of his career, but we know he can't anchor a defense on a full-time basis. Naz, Minott, and Miller are all offensively oriented players.

5. PF is the only position Naz can play for extended minutes. If we trade KAT, Naz cannot just slide into the same role. Yes, he can start at PF next to Rudy and probably be OK, but he absolutely can't slide down to the Center position when Rudy sits. KAT is able to do that. We would need a legit backup defensive C if KAT were to be traded.

6. Jaden McDaniels has stagnated. The contract he signed anticipated further development from him, which hasn't happened. Now it looks like an overpay. Let's hope it's just a bump in the road.

7. NAW has become an invaluable role player and an absolute bargain.

I agree with most all your points, but will battle on a couple items:
Your point #5 - that Naz could never slide in for KAT. This seems to be the board narrative now and I see it pounded into most threads. But I keep finding conflicting data on that. Using your own data from point #1...isn't that saying Rudy/Naz is better than Rudy/Kat?

On points #6 and #7...I personally find this year's version of those two guys to be interchangeable. In other words...if McDaniels doesn't step it up on the offensive side of things, I'd consider trading him for picks and slide NAW into his spot. There wouldn't be much of a drop off based on their current productions. But there would be a HUGE cost savings. Now - that stated - I do still root for McDaniels to get back on track. He was trending towards being a secondary star to Edwards as of last season. Like you - I'm hoping this is just an off year for whatever reason. Still - I'm listening to offers as maybe this is McDaniels peak value? IDK.

[Q-is-here]

1. Playing big has worked...for now (playoffs are TBD).
Net Rating for Player Pairings from NBA.com:
Rudy-Kat - +9.1
Rudy-Naz - +13.0
Kat-Naz - +8.6

2. Ant isn't a superstar yet, but he has made year-over-year improvement for the third year in a row. So he has made steady improvement as an all-around player every year since he was a rookie. He is absolutely on the right trajectory. Whether he can ever reach the heights of a Jokic, Curry, or LeBron is doubtful to me because I don't think he has the innate b-ball IQ those guys have, but can he be as good or slightly better than someone like SGA or Jayson Tatum? Absolutely.

3. Rudy is the MVP of the team this year. I'm not sure that's even debatable.

4. Speaking of Rudy, the team has no one under contract at C or PF next year and beyond that is a plus defensive player other than Rudy. I'll call KAT a neutral defender at this stage of his career, but we know he can't anchor a defense on a full-time basis. Naz, Minott, and Miller are all offensively oriented players.

5. PF is the only position Naz can play for extended minutes. If we trade KAT, Naz cannot just slide into the same role. Yes, he can start at PF next to Rudy and probably be OK, but he absolutely can't slide down to the Center position when Rudy sits. KAT is able to do that. We would need a legit backup defensive C if KAT were to be traded.

6. Jaden McDaniels has stagnated. The contract he signed anticipated further development from him, which hasn't happened. Now it looks like an overpay. Let's hope it's just a bump in the road.

7. NAW has become an invaluable role player and an absolute bargain.

I agree with most all your points, but will battle on a couple items:
Your point #5 - that Naz could never slide in for KAT. This seems to be the board narrative now and I see it pounded into most threads. But I keep finding conflicting data on that. Using your own data from point #1...isn't that saying Rudy/Naz is better than Rudy/Kat?

On points #6 and #7...I personally find this year's version of those two guys to be interchangeable. In other words...if McDaniels doesn't step it up on the offensive side of things, I'd consider trading him for picks and slide NAW into his spot. There wouldn't be much of a drop off based on their current productions. But there would be a HUGE cost savings. Now - that stated - I do still root for McDaniels to get back on track. He was trending towards being a secondary star to Edwards as of last season. Like you - I'm hoping this is just an off year for whatever reason. Still - I'm listening to offers as maybe this is McDaniels peak value? IDK.

On point #5, the problem is Rudy doesn't play 48 minutes per night. One of the reasons we are able to maintain the #1 defense is because when he sits, KAT slides over to the C and holds his own. So it's when Rudy sits that Naz would flounder in the KAT role because he gets destroyed when he has to play Center. Also keep in mind that when Naz and Rudy are paired, they are likely going up against an opposing lineup that doesn't have all its starters in.

[kekgeek]

1. Playing big has worked...for now (playoffs are TBD).
Net Rating for Player Pairings from NBA.com:
Rudy-Kat - +9.1
Rudy-Naz - +13.0
Kat-Naz - +8.6

2. Ant isn't a superstar yet, but he has made year-over-year improvement for the third year in a row. So he has made steady improvement as an all-around player every year since he was a rookie. He is absolutely on the right trajectory. Whether he can ever reach the heights of a Jokic, Curry, or LeBron is doubtful to me because I don't think he has the innate b-ball IQ those guys have, but can he be as good or slightly better than someone like SGA or Jayson Tatum? Absolutely.

3. Rudy is the MVP of the team this year. I'm not sure that's even debatable.

4. Speaking of Rudy, the team has no one under contract at C or PF next year and beyond that is a plus defensive player other than Rudy. I'll call KAT a neutral defender at this stage of his career, but we know he can't anchor a defense on a full-time basis. Naz, Minott, and Miller are all offensively oriented players.

5. PF is the only position Naz can play for extended minutes. If we trade KAT, Naz cannot just slide into the same role. Yes, he can start at PF next to Rudy and probably be OK, but he absolutely can't slide down to the Center position when Rudy sits. KAT is able to do that. We would need a legit backup defensive C if KAT were to be traded.

6. Jaden McDaniels has stagnated. The contract he signed anticipated further development from him, which hasn't happened. Now it looks like an overpay. Let's hope it's just a bump in the road.

7. NAW has become an invaluable role player and an absolute bargain.

I agree with most all your points, but will battle on a couple items:
Your point #5 - that Naz could never slide in for KAT. This seems to be the board narrative now and I see it pounded into most threads. But I keep finding conflicting data on that. Using your own data from point #1...isn't that saying Rudy/Naz is better than Rudy/Kat?

On points #6 and #7...I personally find this year's version of those two guys to be interchangeable. In other words...if McDaniels doesn't step it up on the offensive side of things, I'd consider trading him for picks and slide NAW into his spot. There wouldn't be much of a drop off based on their current productions. But there would be a HUGE cost savings. Now - that stated - I do still root for McDaniels to get back on track. He was trending towards being a secondary star to Edwards as of last season. Like you - I'm hoping this is just an off year for whatever reason. Still - I'm listening to offers as maybe this is McDaniels peak value? IDK.

Once again we are getting destroyed when Naz has to play center. He is now a wing in todays NBA and what Q is saying is if we decide to trade Kat, we need to add a big center to play next to Naz or we are just going to lose those minutes because defensively we are terrible. (Offensively it has been bad this year also.)

Like look at the Naz center numbers this year.
24 season: Net -12.4 (8th percentile), Off rating 107.7 (9th percentile), Defensive rating 120.1 (20th percentile)


I think Naz is a fantastic 4. Honestly I think he could start on the majority of teams in the league at the 4. However I think he is sort of just a 4 at the moment. And if we do trade Kat this offseason I think we need to add another big somewhere to keep Naz at his optimal position and that is the 4.

[Carlos Danger]

On point #5, the problem is Rudy doesn't play 48 minutes per night. One of the reasons we are able to maintain the #1 defense is because when he sits, KAT slides over to the C and holds his own. So it's when Rudy sits that Naz would flounder in the KAT role because he gets destroyed when he has to play Center. Also keep in mind that when Naz and Rudy are paired, they are likely going up against an opposing lineup that doesn't have all its starters in.

Yep. I think we've batted this around a little bit already. But what specific data are you (and others) using to declare KAT is a better defensive Center than Naz? On the surface, it would seem like it would be a reasonable statement. But we should be able to have metrics on it. Defensive data is hard to mine (at least for me). So what are you guys relying on?

Here's an example of what I can find from nba.com. It's defensive data section, filtered by Wolves centers. It shows FG% vs. Defended FG% for each guy as:

-9.8 Rudy (which I assume to mean players shoot almost 10% lower when guarded by Rudy)
-4.2 Naz (Worse than Rudy...but better than Kat)
-2.7 Kat
+2.1 Garza

Source: https://www.nba.com/stats/players/defen ... =PLUSMINUS

[Carlos Danger]

Once again we are getting destroyed when Naz has to play center. He is now a wing in todays NBA and what Q is saying is if we decide to trade Kat, we need to add a big center to play next to Naz or we are just going to lose those minutes because defensively we are terrible. (Offensively it has been bad this year also.)

Like look at the Naz center numbers this year.
24 season: Net -12.4 (8th percentile), Off rating 107.7 (9th percentile), Defensive rating 120.1 (20th percentile)


I think Naz is a fantastic 4. Honestly I think he could start on the majority of teams in the league at the 4. However I think he is sort of just a 4 at the moment. And if we do trade Kat this offseason I think we need to add another big somewhere to keep Naz at his optimal position and that is the 4.

Help me understand what these numbers though. First, what is your source? And second, since we are saying Naz is way worse than Kat, can you show the same number for Kat so I can have perspective of the spread between the two?

[Q-is-here]

I'll let Kek roll out more numbers Carlos, but just use the eye test. I know last night was just one game, but did you see it? The issue wasn't just how many points AD scored, but how often he extended Laker possessions with his offensive rebounding. He had 10 offensive rebounds! That's the most O-boards he's had all year. That doesn't happen if KAT is at Center.

Naz just gets overwhelmed in the paint, even though he really isn't at that much of a disadvantage physically, which is why I'm frustrated - it's not like we're taking a guy like McDaniels and saying "go play Center". Naz is a big, strong dude with good enough size to play Center in the modern NBA. For whatever reason, he just can't handle other players physically without getting bullied or fouling.

[kekgeek]

On point #5, the problem is Rudy doesn't play 48 minutes per night. One of the reasons we are able to maintain the #1 defense is because when he sits, KAT slides over to the C and holds his own. So it's when Rudy sits that Naz would flounder in the KAT role because he gets destroyed when he has to play Center. Also keep in mind that when Naz and Rudy are paired, they are likely going up against an opposing lineup that doesn't have all its starters in.

Yep. I think we've batted this around a little bit already. But what specific data are you (and others) using to declare KAT is a better defensive Center than Naz? On the surface, it would seem like it would be a reasonable statement. But we should be able to have metrics on it. Defensive data is hard to mine (at least for me). So what are you guys relying on?

Here's an example of what I can find from nba.com. It's defensive data section, filtered by Wolves centers. It shows FG% vs. Defended FG% for each guy as:

-9.8 Rudy (which I assume to mean players shoot almost 10% lower when guarded by Rudy)
-4.2 Naz (Worse than Rudy...but better than Kat)
-2.7 Kat
+2.1 Garza

Source: https://www.nba.com/stats/players/defen ... =PLUSMINUS

So I use cleaningtheglass.com (this website eliminates garbage time) and I go to Naz Reid and filter out all lineups that do not have another center with him. So I have eliminated lineups with Rudy, Kat and Garza that have Naz Reid in them.

So Net rating is much we are getting out scored with Naz at center per 100 possessions. What is in the 8th percentile, so meaning the Wolves when Naz is at center is in the bottom 8 percent of all lineups in the NBA in terms of net rating. Offense and Defense of rating is our points per 100 possessions and offensively we are in the bottom 10 % of all lineups when Naz is at Center and the bottom 20% of all lineups in the NBA with Naz at center defensively.

Other defensive stats when Naz is at center. The Wolves give up an offensive rebound on 35.6% of possessions with Naz at Center, dead last in the NBA. They foul 25.8% of possesions what is in the bottom 5% of the NBA. Efg% defense is 55.8% what is in the bottom 38% of defensive lineups in the NBA. So pretty much when Naz plays center we are a bottom 3rd lineup in the NBA in eFG% but we are not ending possessions with a rebound or we are fouling what make our defensive numbers terrible with Naz at Center. Teams are also shooting 74.4% at the rim against Naz at center lineups what is in the bottom 2% of all lineups in the NBA. However we do defend the perimeter well with Naz at Center because all mid range percentages are in the 97 percentile or above and defending the 3 we are slightly below average. We are also in the 100th percentile on forcing turnovers. So when Naz plays center it is either a shot at the rim where the other team scores, we foul the opponent, or the opponent misses and we don't get the offensive rebound.

Compare this to Kat numbers at center. (Took out lineups without Naz and Gobert *Hes played 0 possessions with Garza)
Net Rating: 7.2 (86th percentile), Offensive Rating 110.7 (22nd percentile) and Defensive Rating 103.5 (99th percentile). The Wolves have been elite still when Kat is on the floor at Center unlike with Naz. Opponents eFG% is 49.7% (99th percentile), Offensive Rebound Rate 22.9 (96th percentile), Foul Rate 28.4 (2nd percentile). Teams are shooting 61.5% at the rim against the Wolves with Kat at center (88th percentile) and we defend the 3 at a crazy rate teams are shooting 30.8% from 3 when Kat is alone at center what is in the 98th percentile.

When Kat is alone at center, the Wolves still foul a lot but we defend the rim at an elite rate, we defend the 3 point line at an elite rate and we rebound the ball at an elite rate, they do not turn teams over though. The only weakness this season when Kat is at Center is they foul a lot.

When Naz is at center, teams score at the rim with easy, if they don't score we foul, they defend the 3 at a league average clip but then we give up an offensive rebound. However we turn teams over a lot when Naz is at center. Pretty much if we don't get a turnover the other team scores when Naz is at Center. It's an all or nothing defense that has been more nothing this year. However Naz numbers are good defensively when he plays next to Rudy or Kat. I am just saying he is only effective when Naz gets to play the 4 where he is really really effective. I don't want these posts coming off that I think he is a bad player because I don't. I just think there is only a specific role Naz is good at and can thrive at and he has been amazing in that role!