The Pecking Order

[Coolbreeze44]

Here is how I would predict the minutes played in descending order:

Edwards
McDaniels
Randle
Gobert
Conley
NAZ
Divincenzo
NAW
Dillingham
Garza

That's a 10 man rotation and Garza might not play every night. I don't see a lot of room for Ingles or Shannon at this point. This might not happen the first 25 games but I think it's how it will eventually play out barring injuries which we will have. Hopefully we are on the good side of a lot of blowouts so everyone can get on the floor.

[60WinTim]

Here is how I would predict the minutes played in descending order:

Edwards
McDaniels
Randle
Gobert
Conley
NAZ
Divincenzo
NAW
Dillingham
Garza

That's a 10 man rotation and Garza might not play every night. I don't see a lot of room for Ingles or Shannon at this point. This might not happen the first 25 games but I think it's how it will eventually play out barring injuries which we will have. Hopefully we are on the good side of a lot of blowouts so everyone can get on the floor.

I think you're off on a couple of those guys, Cool. Everyone says they don't want to see Conley play the same 28.9 MPG as last year. It sure seems they will target something closer to 24-ish. Naz was already at 24.2 MPG, and I would expect his minutes to increase a bit, putting him ahead of Conley. And then there is DDV. Not only did he average 29.1 MPG with the Knicks, he averaged 37.5 MPG post all-star break. I think DDV will be in the top 5 Wolves for MPG. Naz probably comes in #6, followed by Conley at #7.

So, I agree with who you have in the top 7, but I think the order will be a bit different. NAW and the rest will all depend on how well they play.

[Monster]

[quote=kekgeek post_id=638254 time=1727885559 user_id=638]
[quote=Q-is-here post_id=638251 time=1727874871 user_id=655]
[quote=kekgeek post_id=638239 time=1727830719 user_id=638]


I’m predicting Minott or Garza will be in the rotation over ingles to start the season. I’ll be shocked with Randle coming off the injury we are going to play that small with Rudy our only traditional center
[/quote]

Garza may definitely get some minutes since Finch may believe he has the strength (and fouls to give) to body up some of the bigger Centers when Rudy is on the bench. Although I wonder if Randle can effectively be our backup C (meaning he starts at PF like KAT did but slides down to the C when Rudy hits the bench).

Your take on Ingles is interesting, as I just assumed he'd be our 8th or 9th man backing up McDaniels but that he'd get a lot of nights off as well. We'll see if he ends up just being an insurance policy.
[/quote]

I think Joe was a lock at minutes last week but adding Donte D I think really will affect Joe minutes. Ton of overlap in skill set. The Twolves are really lacking size now. I consider Dilly, Ingles, NAW and DDV all more natural guards (not saying they wont ever play small). I think Minott is going to get a legit shot at the rotation as a backup 3/4. I believe Jace Fredrick mentioned yesterday that Minott looked really good in the first day of camp.

Who knows though
[/quote]

Ingles is a guard on offense but he is at least 6'9" so he is more of a 3/4 like Anderson than a guard in terms of who he will be attempting to defend. I think his shooting and passing and really high IQ play is going to be hard to not have on the floor at some point unless someone takes those minutes. Donte isn't a physically big player but to some extent plays bigger. Both he and Josh Hart are guys that sort of go against all the height wingspan stuff.

[Monster]

Based on what Finch said on media day Conley isn't gonna average around 24mpg. He might end up playing a couple minutes less on average than last year and rest more games but 24mpg I don't see it. He played just under 29mpg last year I don't think it's gonna go down that much. Ideally Finch will be able to pull the plug on more guys later in the game than he did last year so that would lower Conley's minute a bit but honestly like 2 minutes a game over the course of like 70 games... Probably isn't that big of a deal. I'd hope he can just take more games off. Last year that was harder to do especially early when the PG position was a real problem.

[Coolbreeze44]

Monster, Ingles turned 37 years old today. He simply doesn't have much left in the tank. I see him as a spot minute guy who's not going to play every night. Hopefully his role includes leadership and toughness, but not necessarily a big on-court presence.

[Wolvesfan21]

Monster, Ingles turned 37 years old today. He simply doesn't have much left in the tank. I see him as a spot minute guy who's not going to play every night. Hopefully his role includes leadership and toughness, but not necessarily a big on-court presence.

We'll most likely have a guy or two out at times, Conley with nights off and smaller injuries to the other ten. Ingles will play and so will TSJ. I think Ingles will be next man up in more situations. But both will play.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Monster, Ingles turned 37 years old today. He simply doesn't have much left in the tank. I see him as a spot minute guy who's not going to play every night. Hopefully his role includes leadership and toughness, but not necessarily a big on-court presence.

I agree in principle, Cool, but I think it will all depend on our spacing and ball movement from our role players. Ingles'll be a defensive liability for sure. But if we need someone else to stretch the floor or keep the ball moving (both of which could be an issue with KAT and SloMo gone), we might need him out there. He's still a great catch and shoot 3 point shooter, and he's an unselfish and quick passer.

Ideally, we won't need those things from Ingles. If McDaniels and NAW improve in those areas, with DiVincenzo in the fold, maybe we'll be able to get enough of what we need in terms of spacing and ball movement from those auxiliary players so that we won't need Ingles? Those guys bring so much more than him on defense, it's a no-brainer to want them out there when possible over him.

As for the other guys, Minott might end up giving us some spacing, but I don't see him able to pass much. Miller can pass, but his shot is so f'ing ugly I don't trust it at all. Clark? Defense, but I don't see shooting there. Shannon? He's got some size, but he'd have to accept a very different role than he's played in his career so far (BTW, we should talk about that guy!).

I'm not even considering Dillingham and Conley here because of their size and because we assume they can shoot and move the ball, which is their main job. I'm also not considering Naz, because I'm also pencilling in his outside shooting as a necessity at this point, though I'm a little worried about how it will scale up.

BTW, I love Joe Ingles. His interviews are freakin' hilarious. His teammates have always said they love the guy. He's tough as nails too. If all he ends up being is a culture guy on the team, that will still be money well spent. I'm hoping we get the outside shooting and ball movement we need from the younger guys so we won't need him on the floor But I do think there may be times when it will just be necessary to have a guy out there who keeps defenses stretched and who just keeps the ball swinging to the open guy. Those skills just level up the potency of the offense as a whole and prevent the kind of resentment and selfishness that can lead to the ball getting sticky.

[Q-is-here]

Ingles stats last year in Orlando:

- Played 68 games and averaged 17.2 MPG

- Had a net rating of +5.5 while on the Court and a Net On/Off rating of +5.2 (meaning the team did better when he was playing versus sitting).

- Per 36 numbers: 9.1 pts, 4.4 rebs, 6.3 assts, 2.1 TOs, 44 FG%, 44 3pt%, 82 FT%

Looks pretty good, right? Now for the caveat....He played all 7 games in the playoffs but struggled. Then he hardly played at all for his national team this past summer.

We know older players not named LeBron can fall off a cliff suddenly. Is that the case with Jingles or did he just have a rough patch?

[FNG]

As I said earlier in this thread, there's more uncertainty about how our rotations are going to work than any other season I can remember...and that makes this exercise a lot of fun. Ingles is one of the big mysteries. On the positive side, we have the stats Q lays out above...pretty impressive. High BBIQ, toughness, willing and effective passer, and reliable 41% career 3-point shooter. Plus he has several years of familiarity in Utah with two guys who are going to get a lot of minutes this year How does a guy like that not get minutes...at least early in the season when our two rookies are getting their feet wet? But on the other side? He's going to be 37, and wasn't deemed effective enough this summer to get consistent minutes on the Australian team. Hence, the mystery.

Like Drew, I've always been a big fan of Ingles. I like the way he plays the game, and he's a fun teammate. But I just don't know how Finchie is going to work his rotations. If I had to make a prediction, Ingles will get regular minutes off the bench in the season's early weeks, but only spot appearances as the season goes on. I see the top 8 as set: the 5 starters, DDV, Naz, and NAW...probably in that order. After that there are still a lot of options, and time will tell. We appear to be really deep.

[Leado01]

Other than Rudy, Conley, and Dillingham, the other 9-10 potential rotation guys can all play 3 positions on both sides of the ball.

We are Don Nelson's GSW positionless basketball team that he envisioned in the 70's.

ANT/McDaniels/Randle/NAW/NAZ/TSJ/
KBD/DD/Ingles and possibly Minott are all switching players with enough handle and creation to play fully positionless offense and enough size and strength to switch out long enough for a recovery....I have NO clue where the minutes are going to come from