Ant is going to work, what should he improve on?

[Wolvesfan21]

For me it's easy. I think it is for him also.

Lock down floater and short mid game (I know he worked on middies in the past but it didn't stick).

I think those shots were readily open many times or there to be open, rather then continuing to drive into 3 players (passes were on lock though after drawing a crowd so A+ for the growth there), simply pull up 15 footer or short floater over the last big could really unlock his game to un-guardable status. SGA has it, more so the short mid.

Now I wouldn't ignore the not so great of finishing around the rim and continued superb 3P shot growth either. You need both to still be there if not get better too!

He could also develop the touch to throw lobs excellent as well, just move the ball couple feet over. A floater and lob are essentially the same.

Your thoughts?

[AbeVigodaLive]

1. Sell foul calls. Play the officials. Flop.

Everything else is around the margins. This one thing (that I'm been championing/whining about for over a year) will give him +4 points every game. It'll benefit the team even more. Nothing else comes close to that level of impact.

He'd be a 1st team All NBA player averaging 31+ ppg.

[rapsuperstar31]

Mid range, floater, drawing fouls, free throw form, keep working on beating doubles and blitzing/playmaking off of it. Keep working on threes, you don't want to lose that part of his game. Eventually working on that Jordan/Kobe post up fade away move, but that can come later in his career.

[Wolvesfan21]

1. Sell foul calls. Play the officials. Flop.

Everything else is around the margins. This one thing (that I'm been championing/whining about for over a year) will give him +4 points every game. It'll benefit the team even more. Nothing else comes close to that level of impact.

He'd be a 1st team All NBA player averaging 31+ ppg.

I don't want him to become a foul merchant to just sell calls, but drawing contact BUMPING the defender off to create space to shoot is pretty much a necessity. I think it's more of a non call most of the time, though SGA gets the whistle.

SGA and Brunson are great at it. Don't rely on the ref to bail you out though. Make the shot. I think this does play into my point. The mid / floater / finishing around the rim is where he lacks the skill of other top NBA players.

The thing too is, he has the elite strength and speed to do it, so if done right he becomes a monster.

[AbeVigodaLive]

1. Sell foul calls. Play the officials. Flop.

Everything else is around the margins. This one thing (that I'm been championing/whining about for over a year) will give him +4 points every game. It'll benefit the team even more. Nothing else comes close to that level of impact.

He'd be a 1st team All NBA player averaging 31+ ppg.

I don't want him to become a foul merchant to just sell calls, but drawing contact BUMPING the defender off to create space to shoot is pretty much a necessity. I think it's more of a non call most of the time, though SGA gets the whistle.

SGA and Brunson are great at it. Don't rely on the ref to bail you out though. Make the shot. I think this does play into my point. The mid / floater / finishing around the rim is where he lacks the skill of other top NBA players.

The thing too is, he has the elite strength and speed to do it, so if done right he becomes a monster.

To be fair... it's been 126 seasons without a championship round appearance for Minnesota sports fans. I don't care how it happens... but it's more likely to happen by using the current system to your advantage. It's been that way for the better part of 20 years.

Anthony Edwards is significantly worse at drawing questionable foul calls than most of the big-name players in the league. I think Steph Curry gets one of the worst whistles in the league but he even lures defenders into his trap more than Edwards.

[FNG]

I want Ant to move Chris Hines into a luxury apartment and meet with him every day, and hire a chef and dietician to plan and cook meals for him and his family. And he needs to work on the following.

1) Diet: Ant looks very fit, but a lot of 23 year old athletes with bad habits do. I think his tendency to take plays off on defense and to stand around when he doesn't have the ball (i.e. moving without the ball) are because he is tired and not as fit as he could be. He needs to take better care of his body.

2) Flopping and drawing fouls. Chris and Ant need to watch video every day of some of the best at this: SGA, Brunson, Harden, etc. I'm convinced Ant can add 4 or 5 PPG to his stats if he emulates these guys, and that might be the single most effective thing the Wolves can do this summer to narrow the gap between them and OkC.

3) Daily film sessions with Chris breaking down situations where he was blitzed and analyzing what he could have done in the situations where he wasn't successful. Follow up with scrimmages with whomever they can find in town to work on this. Run two athletic guys at him over and over again.

4) Continue working on his 3-point shot. He made great strides on his shooting last summer...can he get even better?

5) Daily sessions with Chris talking about how to seduce referees into giving you calls.

That's a lot, but Ant has said nobody is going to work harder than him this summer.

[Q-is-here]

Mostly agree with you guys:

#1 - The thing he can copy from SGA more than the foul grifting is the mid-range pull up jumper. He has all the tools in the world to get this shot off cleanly on most defenders and he's proven that he can really improve his shooting from various distances when he puts the work in.

(As an aside, I don't really see Ant needing to develop a floater. When he gets to the area where most players use a floater is when he needs to attack the rim aggressively and try to draw fouls and/or convert the bucket. The floater is mostly a shot for smaller guards or those lacking Ant's athleticism and strength).

#2 - Drawing fouls, although I don't think he has to use the same theatrics SGA uses, with the constant falling to the floor after contact or exaggerated head-snaps. In fact, the guy he could learn from is TJ Shannon. He just invites the contact and has the strength to still get his shot off whether a foul is called or not. Ant is so damn good with either hand and his footwork around the basket that he often avoids contact that lesser players simply can't navigate around.

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If this were three months ago, I would have said reducing his turnovers was the #1 thing, but he really cleaned that up as the season went on. From the all star break all the way through the playoffs he was just above a 2:1 assist to turnover ratio. That is by no means elite for a high usage player with the ball in his hands a lot, but it's no longer below average either, as he's in the same ballpark as Jayson Tatum.

[Wolvesfan21]

I want Ant to move Chris Hines into a luxury apartment and meet with him every day, and hire a chef and dietician to plan and cook meals for him and his family. And he needs to work on the following.

1) Diet: Ant looks very fit, but a lot of 23 year old athletes with bad habits do. I think his tendency to take plays off on defense and to stand around when he doesn't have the ball (i.e. moving without the ball) are because he is tired and not as fit as he could be. He needs to take better care of his body.

2) Flopping and drawing fouls. Chris and Ant need to watch video every day of some of the best at this: SGA, Brunson, Harden, etc. I'm convinced Ant can add 4 or 5 PPG to his stats if he emulates these guys, and that might be the single most effective thing the Wolves can do this summer to narrow the gap between them and OkC.

3) Daily film sessions with Chris breaking down situations where he was blitzed and analyzing what he could have done in the situations where he wasn't successful. Follow up with scrimmages with whomever they can find in town to work on this. Run two athletic guys at him over and over again.

4) Continue working on his 3-point shot. He made great strides on his shooting last summer...can he get even better?

5) Daily sessions with Chris talking about how to seduce referees into giving you calls.

That's a lot, but Ant has said nobody is going to work harder than him this summer.

1) Ant has a chef (at least part time it looked like) seen in some Netflix thing he does not eat 100% super well. Seeing him eating chips and pizza. You can kind of get away with that when you're young and working out a lot. But obviously far less then ideal.

As I've said before I don't like foul merchants. But a little buttering the refs up pre / during game a bit (a simple call him by his name), these guys are human after all, simply being friendly and not constantly complaining is probably smarter then what hasn't worked. Leading the league in techs should signal that the issue is him and how he deals with them.

[Wolvesfan21]

Mostly agree with you guys:

#1 - The thing he can copy from SGA more than the foul grifting is the mid-range pull up jumper. He has all the tools in the world to get this shot off cleanly on most defenders and he's proven that he can really improve his shooting from various distances when he puts the work in.

(As an aside, I don't really see Ant needing to develop a floater. When he gets to the area where most players use a floater is when he needs to attack the rim aggressively and try to draw fouls and/or convert the bucket. The floater is mostly a shot for smaller guards or those lacking Ant's athleticism and strength).

#2 - Drawing fouls, although I don't think he has to use the same theatrics SGA uses, with the constant falling to the floor after contact or exaggerated head-snaps. In fact, the guy he could learn from is TJ Shannon. He just invites the contact and has the strength to still get his shot off whether a foul is called or not. Ant is so damn good with either hand and his footwork around the basket that he often avoids contact that lesser players simply can't navigate around.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If this were three months ago, I would have said reducing his turnovers was the #1 thing, but he really cleaned that up as the season went on. From the all star break all the way through the playoffs he was just above a 2:1 assist to turnover ratio. That is by no means elite for a high usage player with the ball in his hands a lot, but it's no longer below average either, as he's in the same ballpark as Jayson Tatum.

I think the floater skill opens up the lob dunk skill, that is my only reason to have that in his arsenal. Assuming Rudy is here, probably a 95% chance, then his assists to Rudy could simply open up finishing options for him also. See if the big has to guard the lob, then he can't even contest a driving dunk or layup very easily. It just opens everything up when you have all the weapons.

Like how Luka picks people apart in the lane. It'd be nice to have, with the ability to rock the rim too. Become a monster.

[60WinTim]

I thought the mid-range game was much more part of ANT's shot selection in the '23-24 season, but he swapped out most of those mid-range shots for 3-pointers this past year. And it was really glaring how SGA used all 3 levels of scoring compared to ANT. Having that mid-range shot in your arsenal makes it easier to find a "good" shot when you are looking to score. In retrospect, I think ANT will learn he needs to have all those shots in his repertoire so that it is easier for him to find a "good" shot. I thought his mid-range game was pretty decent a couple years ago. Well, except for all those "off-glass" shots that didn't go in...