Q-is-here wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2024 7:40 am
I think it's absolutely nuts that one of the most dangerous downhill players in the NBA has suddenly also become the most dangerous 3-point shooter in the NBA. He's leading the NBA in made 3-pointers on high volume. He's making them at a 45% clip so far!
Folks can question whether he should drive the ball more, but as long as he is making 3s at that level of efficiency I'm OK with it. Plus we've seen how it does set him up for the dribble drive later in games when the floor is spread out more.
Its crazy. I never would have expected this change. But if he likes to shoot I guess its better that its the 3.
I agree. But maybe some balance is in order. The Charlotte announcer last night (who was incredibly annoying) was stunned to report that Ant has only 2 dunks through the first 7 games of this season. That's inexcusable for a guy with his athletic ability, unless he is injured (and I don't believe he is).
And to address the title of this thread, I don't doubt that Ant one day could be the greatest Timberwolf, but he is far behind KG in that area so far. One way to establish yourself as greater than KG would be to consistently, year in and year out, be the most valuable 2-way player on your roster...like KG was. I would argue that Rudy was our MVP last year, and that NAW is through 7 games this year. I would also argue that Ant has by far the highest ceiling of anyone on our roster, and is our most important player. But he has a ways to go to reach KG status as the consistent MVP.
NAW has been playing great for sure. But he's not carrying even half the weight as Ant on the court, not just in minutes but simply scoring and assisting. Ants defense hasn't been 100, but we've seen him do that during the regular season also. I don't think any player can go 100 on both ends either all the time, not at the highest level. For a bench player sure. 15-25 minutes, OK. 40? Nope. Not every night.
Scoring near 30 a night is a lot of energy. So I sort of have to give him a small pass on his less than stellar D. Ant is also being doubled on offense at times never mind the fact he has the oppositions best defender on him.
The comparison is just a non starter for me. Switch out the two roles and NAW fails horribly IMO. He can't carry the load that Ant does at a elite level. It's not an attack on NAW for not being at Ants level, not many are. Obviously for me Ant is the MVP of our team thus far. Even if he's not been as good as he could be.
Ant may indeed someday be the greatest Timberwolf...his shooting and athleticism are elite, and could raise him to the top. But right now the only "est" we can assign to him is "dumbest" Timberwolf. His postgame comments last night were disturbing, but one in particular drew my attention.
Anthony Edwards: "Every team we play did a great job of sitting in the gaps. When I get to the rim, putting four people at the rim. I’m sorry, people, there’s nothing I can do with going to the hole right now."
Nothing he can do. That's something we've heard great players like Jokic and SGA say...never. Truly great basketball players love it when they have 4 guys on them, because that means at least 3 guys are open! If Ant has 4 guys on him at the rim, maybe Rudy is open in the dunker spot while 2 other guys have nobody near them beyond the arc. Or maybe 3 guys are open beyond the arc. Get them the ball! If you truly have 4 guys around you, you have no excuse for not being in double digits in assists every night. Learn the game!
FNG wrote: ↑Fri Dec 20, 2024 8:09 am
Ant may indeed someday be the greatest Timberwolf...his shooting and athleticism are elite, and could raise him to the top. But right now the only "est" we can assign to him is "dumbest" Timberwolf. His postgame comments last night were disturbing, but one in particular drew my attention.
Anthony Edwards: "Every team we play did a great job of sitting in the gaps. When I get to the rim, putting four people at the rim. I’m sorry, people, there’s nothing I can do with going to the hole right now."
Nothing he can do. That's something we've heard great players like Jokic and SGA say...never. Truly great basketball players love it when they have 4 guys on them, because that means at least 3 guys are open! If Ant has 4 guys on him at the rim, maybe Rudy is open in the dunker spot while 2 other guys have nobody near them beyond the arc. Or maybe 3 guys are open beyond the arc. Get them the ball! If you truly have 4 guys around you, you have no excuse for not being in double digits in assists every night. Learn the game!
Anthony Edwards- Dumbest Timberwolf
Rudy can't catch and as we've seen too many times, this team is very likely to clank from outside. Ant doesn't trust his teammates to make shots that normally KAT would make, but also, Ant has never been the best decision maker. Therefore, TC's general disinterest in having a more traditional floor general outside of 37 year old Conley is puzzling.
FNG wrote: ↑Fri Dec 20, 2024 8:09 am
Ant may indeed someday be the greatest Timberwolf...his shooting and athleticism are elite, and could raise him to the top. But right now the only "est" we can assign to him is "dumbest" Timberwolf. His postgame comments last night were disturbing, but one in particular drew my attention.
Anthony Edwards: "Every team we play did a great job of sitting in the gaps. When I get to the rim, putting four people at the rim. I’m sorry, people, there’s nothing I can do with going to the hole right now."
Nothing he can do. That's something we've heard great players like Jokic and SGA say...never. Truly great basketball players love it when they have 4 guys on them, because that means at least 3 guys are open! If Ant has 4 guys on him at the rim, maybe Rudy is open in the dunker spot while 2 other guys have nobody near them beyond the arc. Or maybe 3 guys are open beyond the arc. Get them the ball! If you truly have 4 guys around you, you have no excuse for not being in double digits in assists every night. Learn the game!
Anthony Edwards- Dumbest Timberwolf
Rudy can't catch and as we've seen too many times, this team is very likely to clank from outside. Ant doesn't trust his teammates to make shots that normally KAT would make, but also, Ant has never been the best decision maker. Therefore, TC's general disinterest in having a more traditional floor general outside of 37 year old Conley is puzzling.
Agree WW- Rudy's bad hands can be maddening. But I find Ant's postgame comments more maddening. Even if he is worried about dropping a pass to Rudy in the dunker's spot, there are at least 2 more guys open if he really has 4 guys focusing on him. I just found it a remarkably dumb comment from a player who is so remarkably talented. Ant playing smarter would really help our offense.
As for Conley, he had a terrible game last night. But I think a lot of the blame for his bad game has to go to Randle and Ant. Conley needs to have the ball in his hands in order for our offense to run smoothly, and last night I saw the ball more often in our ball stoppers' hands. We all saw how bad our offense was in the four losses when Conley was out...we're just as bad when our ball hoggers essentially negate Mike's positive impact. I agree that TC deserves some blame for not getting us a backup PG. But I blame Finchie more for not yanking guilty parties off the floor when they don't let our PG run the show.
The biggest thing I notice with Ant's passing is that he is often a little late in making his reads. So he often makes the right pass to an open guy, but the open guy was just a little bit more open a split second earlier and the shot contest by the defender ends up being a little better than it would be if the pass were thrown on time.
That being said, I'll defend Ant. Rudy is a Jekyll and Hyde big for Ant. On the one hand, his screens are super important to springing Ant free, yet on the other hand is inability to shoot outside of dunks or catch anything other than the perfectly thrown pass makes him a liability. Then you add on top of that Randle's space-eating presence and Jaden's sometimes iffy shooting and it's just a terrible combination of offensive personnel for Ant.
And we haven't even gotten to Mike Conley! As critical as he is to the team, it's only because no one else is capable of running a halfcourt offense without chaos ensuing. Yet he is quickly becoming strictly a game manager that is rarely a threat to score. Isn't that Monte Morris and Jordan McLaughlin!? Those are usually backups!
The bottom line is that we just don't have the right mix of players in the top 8 of the rotation to lift ourselves out of the bottom third of NBA offenses. And that's a pity considering Ant is entering his prime.
And we haven't even gotten to Mike Conley! As critical as he is to the team, it's only because no one else is capable of running a halfcourt offense without chaos ensuing. Yet he is quickly becoming strictly a game manager that is rarely a threat to score. Isn't that Monte Morris and Jordan McLaughlin!? Those are usually backups!
Jordan McLaughlin is only shooting 36.8%. He sucks!
And we haven't even gotten to Mike Conley! As critical as he is to the team, it's only because no one else is capable of running a halfcourt offense without chaos ensuing. Yet he is quickly becoming strictly a game manager that is rarely a threat to score. Isn't that Monte Morris and Jordan McLaughlin!? Those are usually backups!
Jordan McLaughlin is only shooting 36.8%. He sucks!
Whoa.
Mike Conley is only shooting 34.3% fg.
woe.
I guess the silver lining is that whenever we've had game manager PGs on the floor these last couple of years, we kind of crush it, no matter how impotent that PG might be as a scorer. And believe it or not, Jordan McLaughlin has a positive net rating and on/off rating yet again! But go look at his two seasons prior with the Wolves. It's remarkable really.
So rather than trading Randle for another lumbering big to backup Rudy at the deadline, is there not some other version - perhaps even a better one - of Conley/McLaughlin/Morris out there!?
"They not going to like what I say, so I'm just going to keep it to myself."
"We don’t have no identity. We know I’mma shoot a bunch of shots. We know Ju gonna shoot a bunch of shots. That’s all we know. We don’t really know anything else. It’s not on the coaches at all. It’s on us."
BloopOracle wrote: ↑Fri Dec 20, 2024 11:22 am
Some wild quotes from Ant
"They not going to like what I say, so I'm just going to keep it to myself."
"We don’t have no identity. We know I’mma shoot a bunch of shots. We know Ju gonna shoot a bunch of shots. That’s all we know. We don’t really know anything else. It’s not on the coaches at all. It’s on us."
Plus the moronic quote I mentioned above that there's nothing he can do if he draws 4 defenders to him. Really, Ant...nothing? Maybe I should cut him some slack because nobody is feeling very good after last night's disaster, and maybe he'll clarify some of his comments today. But it sure makes him sound like the dumbest guy in the NBA...and that's a very high bar! It's interesting to me that he defines the offense as Julius and he taking a bunch of shots. It's like he doesn't understand that taking shots is only part of an offense. I won't have much confidence in Ant until his postgame comments embrace other parts of offense...screening, moving without the ball, offensive rebounding, passing, etc. Such an enormous talent, but the dumbshit demonstrates over and over that he just doesn't understand the game.
