Current Roster surrounding Ant

[Phenom]

Marc Stein lists the Wolves as a potential landing spot for Lonnie Walker.

[Lipoli390]

Again, I attribute our poor offense to a bad mix of players, not any particular player. Here are the problems with our current mix:

1. There’s room for a great offense to have one ball stopper in its starting lineup if that ball stopper is a great player. We have Ant. Unfortunately, we also have another ball-stopper named Julius Randle. That’s one to many.

2. It’s OK to have one guy in the starting lineup who’s not a consistent offensive threat. We have Rudy and we live with his uniquely limited scoring ability because of his defense (and to some degree, his screen setting). Unfortunately, we have Conley and McDaniels. That’s three non-threats in our starting lineup, which is totally unacceptable. Even if Jaden suddenly becomes the consistent offensive threat I’ve always thought he could, we’d still have an untenable situation with Rudy and the Mike Conley of today who has clearly fallen victim to Father Time.

3. It’s OK to have one lane-clogging presence in the starting lineup, but unfortunately, the Wolves have two in Rudy and Randle. Last season we had only Rudy to clog the lane. It’s no wonder that Ant’s free throw attempts have fallen from 6.4 last season to 3.9 this season. He didn’t suddenly forget how to draw fouls. He just has no room to operate inside where he can use his athleticism and speed to draw fouls in dribble penetration.

If we don’t trade Randle, Rudy or Conley, then I think the alternative is to start DDV and Naz with Randle coming off the bench and Dilly getting more playing time.

[Shumway]

Again, I attribute our poor offense to a bad mix of players, not any particular player. Here are the problems with our current mix:

1. There’s room for a great offense to have one ball stopper in its starting lineup if that ball stopper is a great player. We have Ant. Unfortunately, we also have another ball-stopper named Julius Randle. That’s one to many.

2. It’s OK to have one guy in the starting lineup who’s not a consistent offensive threat. We have Rudy and we live with his uniquely limited scoring ability because of his defense (and to some degree, his screen setting). Unfortunately, we have Conley and McDaniels. That’s three non-threats in our starting lineup, which is totally unacceptable. Even if Jaden suddenly becomes the consistent offensive threat I’ve always thought he could, we’d still have an untenable situation with Rudy and the Mike Conley of today who has clearly fallen victim to Father Time.

3. It’s OK to have one lane-clogging presence in the starting lineup, but unfortunately, the Wolves have two in Rudy and Randle. Last season we had only Rudy to clog the lane. It’s no wonder that Ant’s free throw attempts have fallen from 6.4 last season to 3.9 this season. He didn’t suddenly forget how to draw fouls. He just has no room to operate inside where he can use his athleticism and speed to draw fouls in dribble penetration.

If we don’t trade Randle, Rudy or Conley, then I think the alternative is to start DDV and Naz with Randle coming off the bench and Dilly getting more playing time.

This seems to be something really simple that potentially pays big dividends. It seems clear that this would be worth trying. Are we just too much of an echo chamber in here and reinforcing eachother's ideas? Or is it a big flaw that Finch appears unable to be flexible enough to try it?

[FNG]

I've been joining the crowd calling for Naz to replace Randle in the starting lineup (I'm not on board with the Mike/DiVo swap though). But Finchie likely knows more about this team than we do. He might be aware that we are a very good 17-10 with the usual starting lineup, and 0-4 with a different one...that's quite telling, and 31 games is not an insignificant sample size. I think we can all agree that who finishes the game is more important than who starts it, and Finchie has been pushing all the right buttons there during this win streak.

Maybe it's the euphoria of 3 consecutive wins against Texas playoff teams, but I'm not on board with either moving or demoting Randle. Just continue giving DiVo significant minutes and give a few more to Minott, and I'm ready to see what these guys can do.

[Lipoli390]

This from Dane Moore:

The Wolves have tweaked their rotation to lean into playing Julius Randle with The Bench 3 of late -- with Minott or Edwards as the 5th.

That Randle + Reid + Alexander-Walker + DiVincenzo foursome has now outscored opponents by 15 points per 100 possessions this season.… x.com/i/web/status/1…

Interesting stat from Dane. We’ve won three close wins in a row. That’s good, but we still don’t look like a championship caliber team or nearly as good as we were last season. We’ve seen some good signs, but if the answer to becoming a championship contender this season exists in how our current roster players are deployed, that answer hasn’t revealed itself.

[Q-is-here]

This from Dane Moore:

The Wolves have tweaked their rotation to lean into playing Julius Randle with The Bench 3 of late -- with Minott or Edwards as the 5th.

That Randle + Reid + Alexander-Walker + DiVincenzo foursome has now outscored opponents by 15 points per 100 possessions this season.… x.com/i/web/status/1…

Interesting stat from Dane. We’ve won three close wins in a row. That’s good, but we still don’t look like a championship caliber team or nearly as good as we were last season. We’ve seen some good signs, but if the answer to becoming a championship contender this season exists in how our current roster players are deployed, that answer hasn’t revealed itself.

I keep going back to a starting frontcourt that is offensively untenable unless McDaniels or Rudy suddenly learns how to shoot. It's just such a terrible waste of Ant's talent to basically have a wall of bodies in the paint with that group out there.

Having said that, I don't know if any change or combination of existing players is going to be good enough to get past OKC if it comes down to that in the West. They are just heads and shoulders the best team in the West. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try though!

[Sundog]

As kek pointed out in another thread “the Wolves have won 9 of their last 13... and every team they beat is .500 or better”

This team has enough talent to be a top 4-6 team in the West, DDV is finding his groove, the players are starting to figure out how to play with one another and the coaches are getting a handle on rotations.

[Phenom]

If Randle goes to the bench, for example, does that mean he won't still play minutes with Ant or Rudy? Or does it just come down to smoothing out rotations to maximize efficiency?

[Q-is-here]

If Randle goes to the bench, for example, does that mean he won't still play minutes with Ant or Rudy? Or does it just come down to smoothing out rotations to maximize efficiency?

Yes, with only 8 main rotation guys (and a dollop of Minott thrown in), everyone overlaps with each other to some degree.