I'll Jinx The Whole Damn Thing - Clippers at Wolves GDT

[Wolvesfan21]

You don’t play this poorly at this point in the season and then suddenly turn it on for success in the playoffs. This team is lost and there’s no sign that this current group with this head coach will turn things around. The Wolves started slow last season as they learned to play together. They then hit their stride, playing really well at this time last season and carried their high level play into the playoffs. That’s not what we’re seeing this season. Instead, we’re seeing a team that’s as likely to end up in the lottery as it is the playoffs. This is a team in need of a shake up. We didn’t shake it up with any major personnel moves at the deadline and I think that was the right call. The first step going forward is to shake things up with a head coaching change. If that doesn’t cut it, then this team will have to have its personnel revamped and Ant is the only player who shouldn’t be subject to a trade. I’d still look to build around Ant, Jaden and Naz, but I could see trading Jaden or Naz for the right return.

We should have taken a step back this season for a retool, which is what I’ve been saying for a while. This was the season to start developing Dillingham, Clark, Shannon and Beringer with an eye towards the next two seasons. Ant’s still very young but his contract is our runway and we have to retool while there’s still enough runway left. I think we might have waited too long, which means the Wolves will have to do what McHale did when he acquired Spree and Cassell. It almost worked but was short-lived with KG departing soon thereafter. Usually those desperation moves for older vets fail miserably. TC might have one last shot to avoid that fate.

Two years ago we did it. Got trounced if I remember right to end the season against Phoenix. We were in it for the 1 or 2 seed but laid an egg to finish 3rd. The Suns dominated us in the regular season and no one wanted that matchup, yet we amped it up and crushed them in the playoffs.

That's exactly who this team has been the last two years. Lays far too many eggs in the regular season yet shows up when it counts (minus the WCF's of course!).

Now the argument is that will regular season bad habits can carry over into the playoffs. Do we think we can turn it on again with a switch or are we playing with fire?

I actually think this team is playing way below it's talent/capability. I actually think we turn it around and finish the regular season relatively strong.

I get the history of the last two seasons. But this season feels different. We are absolutely playing way below our talent level in my view. I’ve referred to this team as playing at a level less than the sum of hits parts. I just get the sense this team isn’t going to suddenly turn it on the way we have the past two seasons. Note that two seasons ago, the team got on trade when KAT came back from his season-long injury. Last season, we got on track when Randle returned with a new approach to his game that blended better with his teammates and demonstrated consistent effort. What’s the catalyst this season? Ayo? We’ll find out but I don’t see this team turning things around without replacing Finch with the right head coach who can get through to these guys.

It does feel a bit different. Many games the intensity and effort is very poor (Rudy was spot on of course). I kind of thought we tried decently hard on defense yesterday. The offense was just terrible though, obviously. I think we just played terrible.

Maybe after the All Star break, but I think we go on a nice run and finish the year strong.

I still think this teams mentality is to only start winning when everyone expects the opposite/back against the wall. So maybe I'm too bullish too! They'll never win if I say it, even think it! I bet they lose the rest of their games!!!

[rapsuperstar31]

A combined total of 7 shots today for DDV and Jaden. That's not enough and Finch said as much. Ju and especially Ant have to get these guys involved. The lack of cohesion is screaming through the television.

Cool, I agree...but I will also say Donte and Jaden weren't getting shots for totally different reasons yesterday. Donte was working his butt off and making things happen...he just wasn't given many shot opportunities and missed the ones he got. But there was something off with Jaden. I'm used to see him moving on offense, but yesterday he was listless. He has a tendency to sulk on the court, and I think his inability to stop Kawhi got to him...Finchy saw it and actually turned to Ju for a while to try to stop Kawhi. I don't know if Jaden was hurt or sick, but he was not engaged in the game at all. Case in point: there's no way a guy that tall should only have 2 rebounds in 28 minutes.

Donte was on foul trouble, fouled out in only 24 minutes I believe. It seemed like the plan was to get Jaden the ball early, but i kept resulting in turnovers. Leonard was guarding Jaden in the first quarter, Ant tried to pass him the ball to him early and and it was stolen by Leonard. A few plays later Jaden had the ball and Leonard stole it from him again. Later in the quarter Leonard stole it from him again.

[FNG]

A combined total of 7 shots today for DDV and Jaden. That's not enough and Finch said as much. Ju and especially Ant have to get these guys involved. The lack of cohesion is screaming through the television.

Cool, I agree...but I will also say Donte and Jaden weren't getting shots for totally different reasons yesterday. Donte was working his butt off and making things happen...he just wasn't given many shot opportunities and missed the ones he got. But there was something off with Jaden. I'm used to see him moving on offense, but yesterday he was listless. He has a tendency to sulk on the court, and I think his inability to stop Kawhi got to him...Finchy saw it and actually turned to Ju for a while to try to stop Kawhi. I don't know if Jaden was hurt or sick, but he was not engaged in the game at all. Case in point: there's no way a guy that tall should only have 2 rebounds in 28 minutes.

Donte was on foul trouble, fouled out in only 24 minutes I believe. It seemed like the plan was to get Jaden the ball early, but i kept resulting in turnovers. Leonard was guarding Jaden in the first quarter, Ant tried to pass him the ball to him early and and it was stolen by Leonard. A few plays later Jaden had the ball and Leonard stole it from him again. Later in the quarter Leonard stole it from him again.

Yeah, Jaden was not present either mentally or physically yesterday…getting totally destroyed by Kawhi at both ends of the court seemed to get to him.

[Q-is-here]

Cool, I agree...but I will also say Donte and Jaden weren't getting shots for totally different reasons yesterday. Donte was working his butt off and making things happen...he just wasn't given many shot opportunities and missed the ones he got. But there was something off with Jaden. I'm used to see him moving on offense, but yesterday he was listless. He has a tendency to sulk on the court, and I think his inability to stop Kawhi got to him...Finchy saw it and actually turned to Ju for a while to try to stop Kawhi. I don't know if Jaden was hurt or sick, but he was not engaged in the game at all. Case in point: there's no way a guy that tall should only have 2 rebounds in 28 minutes.

Donte was on foul trouble, fouled out in only 24 minutes I believe. It seemed like the plan was to get Jaden the ball early, but i kept resulting in turnovers. Leonard was guarding Jaden in the first quarter, Ant tried to pass him the ball to him early and and it was stolen by Leonard. A few plays later Jaden had the ball and Leonard stole it from him again. Later in the quarter Leonard stole it from him again.

Yeah, Jaden was not present either mentally or physically yesterday…getting totally destroyed by Kawhi at both ends of the court seemed to get to him.

And this is where Jaden needs further growth to truly become a second option on offense. He's grown immensely as a 3rd option, so long as Ant and Randle are attracting a ton of defensive attention. It means he can usually go one on one against a neutral or sub-par defender. But what happens when either an elite defender like Kawhi or an entire defense focuses more on him, as would be the case far more often if he became a #2 offensive option?

Guys can grow their offensive games well into their late 20s (see Jimmy Butler and Normal Powell), so I'm not ruling him out as being an eventual #2, but he's not there yet.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Donte was on foul trouble, fouled out in only 24 minutes I believe. It seemed like the plan was to get Jaden the ball early, but i kept resulting in turnovers. Leonard was guarding Jaden in the first quarter, Ant tried to pass him the ball to him early and and it was stolen by Leonard. A few plays later Jaden had the ball and Leonard stole it from him again. Later in the quarter Leonard stole it from him again.

Yeah, Jaden was not present either mentally or physically yesterday…getting totally destroyed by Kawhi at both ends of the court seemed to get to him.

And this is where Jaden needs further growth to truly become a second option on offense. He's grown immensely as a 3rd option, so long as Ant and Randle are attracting a ton of defensive attention. It means he can usually go one on one against a neutral or sub-par defender. But what happens when either an elite defender like Kawhi or an entire defense focuses more on him, as would be the case far more often if he became a #2 offensive option?

Guys can grow their offensive games well into their late 20s (see Jimmy Butler and Normal Powell), so I'm not ruling him out as being an eventual #2, but he's not there yet.

We all know the value of Jaden McDaniels. We've seen his growth. We know his strengths and warts and all. He's a good to very good player who has improved and is key to the future of the franchise.

But just days after many Wolves fans were like "Oh not Jaden in any Giannis trade... hell no!" ...

He's posted this combined stat line over the past two games:

3 - 12 fg
8 points
3 reb
2 assists
1 stl
0 block
4 TOs
7 fouls

Those are bad numbers for a G-League, 2-way contract guy filling in as a last resort...

If we give the guy his flowers when he's doing well... we also have to acknowledge that the past two games have been absolutely terrible and unacceptable... and we should be ripping him a lot more than we are while we rip Randle, Edwards, Finch, et al.

Those are embarrassing numbers, which puts McDaniels at the forefront of what was wrong with the Wolves this weekend. A true potential #2 or #3 or even #4 just can't have those types of games where he completely disappears. The best NBA players force you to take notice of them on the court.

If we want to treat McDaniels as an untouchable player... we have to treat him as such when he performs woefully short of that.

[Coolbreeze44]

Yeah, Jaden was not present either mentally or physically yesterday…getting totally destroyed by Kawhi at both ends of the court seemed to get to him.

And this is where Jaden needs further growth to truly become a second option on offense. He's grown immensely as a 3rd option, so long as Ant and Randle are attracting a ton of defensive attention. It means he can usually go one on one against a neutral or sub-par defender. But what happens when either an elite defender like Kawhi or an entire defense focuses more on him, as would be the case far more often if he became a #2 offensive option?

Guys can grow their offensive games well into their late 20s (see Jimmy Butler and Normal Powell), so I'm not ruling him out as being an eventual #2, but he's not there yet.

We all know the value of Jaden McDaniels. We've seen his growth. We know his strengths and warts and all. He's a good to very good player who has improved and is key to the future of the franchise.

But just days after many Wolves fans were like "Oh not Jaden in any Giannis trade... hell no!" ...

He's posted this combined stat line over the past two games:

3 - 12 fg
8 points
3 reb
2 assists
1 stl
0 block
4 TOs
7 fouls

Those are bad numbers for a G-League, 2-way contract guy filling in as a last resort...

If we give the guy his flowers when he's doing well... we also have to acknowledge that the past two games have been absolutely terrible and unacceptable... and we should be ripping him a lot more than we are while we rip Randle, Edwards, Finch, et al.

Those are embarrassing numbers, which puts McDaniels at the forefront of what was wrong with the Wolves this weekend. A true potential #2 or #3 or even #4 just can't have those types of games where he completely disappears. The best NBA players force you to take notice of them on the court.

If we want to treat McDaniels as an untouchable player... we have to treat him as such when he performs woefully short of that.

I won't disagree with anything you say here, and I agree he was listless yesterday. But this is a very efficient player who too often gets ignored on the offensive end. A two game stretch of bad basketball is notable, but not representative of the type of player he is. If you watched the 2nd half I saw a guy who was pissed off about what was going on. I watched possession after possession of him running down to his corner on offense, watching Ant or Julius try to play iso ball, and then run back to play defense, where he continued to work hard. I could read his mind, "if you want me to just play defense that's what I will do". Jaden doesn't talk about it or show much emotion outwardly, but he has an ego just like everyone else. He's also very confident in his own ability. But he's willing to play the game the right way. He keeps the ball moving and will defer to the teammate with the higher percentage shot. Not all his teammates do that. So I'm not going to condemn him for back to back poor outings, and he has every right to be pissed about his role in the offense.

[60WinTim]

And this is where Jaden needs further growth to truly become a second option on offense. He's grown immensely as a 3rd option, so long as Ant and Randle are attracting a ton of defensive attention. It means he can usually go one on one against a neutral or sub-par defender. But what happens when either an elite defender like Kawhi or an entire defense focuses more on him, as would be the case far more often if he became a #2 offensive option?

Guys can grow their offensive games well into their late 20s (see Jimmy Butler and Normal Powell), so I'm not ruling him out as being an eventual #2, but he's not there yet.

We all know the value of Jaden McDaniels. We've seen his growth. We know his strengths and warts and all. He's a good to very good player who has improved and is key to the future of the franchise.

But just days after many Wolves fans were like "Oh not Jaden in any Giannis trade... hell no!" ...

He's posted this combined stat line over the past two games:

3 - 12 fg
8 points
3 reb
2 assists
1 stl
0 block
4 TOs
7 fouls

Those are bad numbers for a G-League, 2-way contract guy filling in as a last resort...

If we give the guy his flowers when he's doing well... we also have to acknowledge that the past two games have been absolutely terrible and unacceptable... and we should be ripping him a lot more than we are while we rip Randle, Edwards, Finch, et al.

Those are embarrassing numbers, which puts McDaniels at the forefront of what was wrong with the Wolves this weekend. A true potential #2 or #3 or even #4 just can't have those types of games where he completely disappears. The best NBA players force you to take notice of them on the court.

If we want to treat McDaniels as an untouchable player... we have to treat him as such when he performs woefully short of that.

I won't disagree with anything you say here, and I agree he was listless yesterday. But this is a very efficient player who too often gets ignored on the offensive end. A two game stretch of bad basketball is notable, but not representative of the type of player he is. If you watched the 2nd half I saw a guy who was pissed off about what was going on. I watched possession after possession of him running down to his corner on offense, watching Ant or Julius try to play iso ball, and then run back to play defense, where he continued to work hard. I could read his mind, "if you want me to just play defense that's what I will do". Jaden doesn't talk about it or show much emotion outwardly, but he has an ego just like everyone else. He's also very confident in his own ability. But he's willing to play the game the right way. He keeps the ball moving and will defer to the teammate with the higher percentage shot. Not all his teammates do that. So I'm not going to condemn him for back to back poor outings, and he has every right to be pissed about his role in the offense.

Agreed, Cool. If ANT is going to be "Lead Guard", he needs to a whole lot more to get others involved. Otherwise, we need a legit PG and keep ANT as "Scoring Guard".

[Coolbreeze44]

We all know the value of Jaden McDaniels. We've seen his growth. We know his strengths and warts and all. He's a good to very good player who has improved and is key to the future of the franchise.

But just days after many Wolves fans were like "Oh not Jaden in any Giannis trade... hell no!" ...

He's posted this combined stat line over the past two games:

3 - 12 fg
8 points
3 reb
2 assists
1 stl
0 block
4 TOs
7 fouls

Those are bad numbers for a G-League, 2-way contract guy filling in as a last resort...

If we give the guy his flowers when he's doing well... we also have to acknowledge that the past two games have been absolutely terrible and unacceptable... and we should be ripping him a lot more than we are while we rip Randle, Edwards, Finch, et al.

Those are embarrassing numbers, which puts McDaniels at the forefront of what was wrong with the Wolves this weekend. A true potential #2 or #3 or even #4 just can't have those types of games where he completely disappears. The best NBA players force you to take notice of them on the court.

If we want to treat McDaniels as an untouchable player... we have to treat him as such when he performs woefully short of that.

I won't disagree with anything you say here, and I agree he was listless yesterday. But this is a very efficient player who too often gets ignored on the offensive end. A two game stretch of bad basketball is notable, but not representative of the type of player he is. If you watched the 2nd half I saw a guy who was pissed off about what was going on. I watched possession after possession of him running down to his corner on offense, watching Ant or Julius try to play iso ball, and then run back to play defense, where he continued to work hard. I could read his mind, "if you want me to just play defense that's what I will do". Jaden doesn't talk about it or show much emotion outwardly, but he has an ego just like everyone else. He's also very confident in his own ability. But he's willing to play the game the right way. He keeps the ball moving and will defer to the teammate with the higher percentage shot. Not all his teammates do that. So I'm not going to condemn him for back to back poor outings, and he has every right to be pissed about his role in the offense.

Agreed, Cool. If ANT is going to be "Lead Guard", he needs to a whole lot more to get others involved. Otherwise, we need a legit PG and keep ANT as "Scoring Guard".

Tim you're exactly right. Ant is a shooting guard and there's nothing wrong with that, but he's not a lead guard in the mold of Harden who CAN get others involved. I've been saying we needed a point guard since the summer, so I totally agree.

[Lipoli390]

I won't disagree with anything you say here, and I agree he was listless yesterday. But this is a very efficient player who too often gets ignored on the offensive end. A two game stretch of bad basketball is notable, but not representative of the type of player he is. If you watched the 2nd half I saw a guy who was pissed off about what was going on. I watched possession after possession of him running down to his corner on offense, watching Ant or Julius try to play iso ball, and then run back to play defense, where he continued to work hard. I could read his mind, "if you want me to just play defense that's what I will do". Jaden doesn't talk about it or show much emotion outwardly, but he has an ego just like everyone else. He's also very confident in his own ability. But he's willing to play the game the right way. He keeps the ball moving and will defer to the teammate with the higher percentage shot. Not all his teammates do that. So I'm not going to condemn him for back to back poor outings, and he has every right to be pissed about his role in the offense.

Agreed, Cool. If ANT is going to be "Lead Guard", he needs to a whole lot more to get others involved. Otherwise, we need a legit PG and keep ANT as "Scoring Guard".

Tim you're exactly right. Ant is a shooting guard and there's nothing wrong with that, but he's not a lead guard in the mold of Harden who CAN get others involved. I've been saying we needed a point guard since the summer, so I totally agree.

Well, if you guys are right you should write letters to TC. He chose to trade for Ayo rather than Tre Jones or some other true PG at the deadline. I like Ayo and think the trade was a very good one, but I would have preferred Tre for what we need. TC also chose to put his faith in Mike Conley last summer rather than trade Randle for a bone fide PG. Perhaps TC’s decision-making ties back to him deferring to his head coach who I believe has blinders on when it comes to Randle and Mike Conley. But the failure to properly balance this team’s roster in a way that gets the most out of its parts is ultimately on TC.

I still think our main issue is lack of effort intensity, not the lack of a true PG. If you can’t beat the Pelicans and Clippers at home with their rosters relative to ours, you’re not a true PG away from contending.

[Lipoli390]

https://youtu.be/tgHoITlplWo?si=heZZgFh0sQP_K-7B

This is a good one to listen to. Some of the comments align my thinking about Finchy’s reaction to Rudy’s public comments about lack of effort and accountability. I was bothered by how defensive Finch was. Finch himself has commented publicly on the team’s repeated lack of effort. Rudy just went into a little more detail but not a lot more. Finchy’s reaction was clearly related to Rudy’s comment about accountability. I thought Finch’s comment that the team is all about accountability rang hollow in the face of the evidence which clear shows a lack of it. In my view, Finch should have embraced Rudy’s comments instead of throwing Rudy under the bus.

This team is not responding to Finch - a fact that couldn’t be more clear. Perhaps no coach would be able to get this team to play with consistent effort and intensity. Maybe it’s just the nature of the players we have, which would indicate the need for a major overhaul of the team around Ant. That’s perhaps what TC had in mind behind his pursuit of Giannis and why he was willing to part with Jaden to get him. In any event, the trade deadline has come and gone, which means the only arrow in TC’s quiver for this season is a coaching change.