Minnesota Sports Forum

Dieng - Yeah, he filled up the box score, but man, he was absolutely taken to the woodshed by Markieff Morris. Gorgui has a target on his back everytime he walks out onto the floor. That should tell you something about how he's viewed as a defender around the league. It's a problem.

Dieng Part II - I'm generally an advocate for playing Gorgui more at the 4 and last night it happened by necessity. However, per my comments above, there are certain 4's he just can't matchup against. And there are a lot of 5's he can't matchup against. Again, it's a problem.

Neal - I had thought he was holding out awaiting a buyout. I even forgot that we even landed him in a trade! Needless to say, I did a double-take when he walked out onto the floor.

Martin - Weird cat. His defense was pretty pathetic last year playing for a playoff-contending squad. Now this year with the season in the tank he's defending his heart out.

Payne - Seems to have the Gorgui disease of leaving his feet every damn time an opposing player gets into the paint. Since the coaching staff seems unwilling or unable to teach defensive discipline to these young bigs, hopefully KG can have an influence (and the list of ills we expect KG's presence to solve grows....). And is it me, or does Payne have ridiculously skinny legs? Great, another post player that can easily be pushed around in the paint. I like the athleticism though.

Shabazz - Made a poor pass, got burned off the bounce by one of the Morris brothers, and missed a wide open 3. He also made his fair share of tough transition points. I really want Shabazz to evolve into more than a bench scorer, but he's got a ways to go yet.

LaVine - More of the same. I guess Flip is intent on playing him as Ricky's backup with the thought that it will somehow make him a better SG some day. The forced PG minutes certainly don't seem to be helping him or the guys he's out there with.

Wiggins - Very nice,efficient game. Made some really tough shots. Still wish he'd do more off the ball to make things happen. It's interesting that Flip has put Martin on the better opposing wing these last two games (Thompson and Green. Drew guarded Barnes and Tucker. Not sure what's up with that).

Overall it was a nice win, but it was a bit disappointing to see us come out flat in the 2nd half after controlling the 1st half so handily. Phoenix is not nearly as good of a team without Dragic and Thomas, yet they gave us all we could handle.

zigzag22 wrote:If you watched or attended the game tonight, Rubio's shot looked like his shot from old, not his new (and hopefully improved) one. His feet weren't set and his shot was flat. Hopefully it was rust from a week off.

You know what it was? Rubio was actually being guarded. If you noticed in his "improved shot" games, he was basically wide open. Whenever someone tries to contest the shot, he can't shoot a lick

So Flip now has Payne, KG, and AB. So if Towns continues to pay well and is there with the Wolves pick, does he take him? I don't think he's trading any of the aforementioned guys. Makes me wonder what his plan is, that's alot of money tied up into one position. Thoughts guys?

BizarroJerry wrote:So Flip now has Payne, KG, and AB. So if Towns continues to pay well and is there with the Wolves pick, does he take him? I don't think he's trading any of the aforementioned guys. Makes me wonder what his plan is, that's alot of money tied up into one position. Thoughts guys?

I still think he'd draft Towns, "one of the talented bigs in this class" as someone said that Flip said. He can worry about balancing the roster after he has all the talent he can collect.

In that case, Bennett is still the odd man out to me.

Plus both KG and Payne can play solid minutes at C. There is still a need, and plenty of room, for another big.

So then we have 3 PF's and 3 centers, however you slice it, that's a lot of money for bigs. Payne and AB make about 5 I think, Towns will get that much too, KG will get 3-4 (hopefully no more than that). He's gonna have to cut someone. If AB makes some small improvements, then I'd like to keep him.

The plus / minus stat notwithstanding, Zach wasn't that bad last night. Look at his line and extrapolate those numbers out to 36 minutes. He fouled too much and had a couple turnovers but other than that he played pretty well. When you only play 10 minutes the plus / minus number is almost irrelevant. He has a lot of growing up to do, but let's not look for ways to pile on him just for the sake of doing it.

Cool scolding LST for being too negative?!? My, oh my, oh my! ;-)

LloydBraun wrote:So then we have 3 PF's and 3 centers, however you slice it, that's a lot of money for bigs. Payne and AB make about 5 I think, Towns will get that much too, KG will get 3-4 (hopefully no more than that). He's gonna have to cut someone. If AB makes some small improvements, then I'd like to keep him.

What small improvements does he need to make? He's not a tweak or two away from being good. He's large changes in his game away from being capable.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:The plus / minus stat notwithstanding, Zach wasn't that bad last night. Look at his line and extrapolate those numbers out to 36 minutes. He fouled too much and had a couple turnovers but other than that he played pretty well. When you only play 10 minutes the plus / minus number is almost irrelevant. He has a lot of growing up to do, but let's not look for ways to pile on him just for the sake of doing it.

When you go that negative that quickly it does mean something. It means when he came in the game the backups got taken to the woodshed and he is the first line of defense stopping the ball and the floor general on offense running the team. Stretching 10 minutes to 36 is ridiculous as well. It's one thing to take 20-25 minutes and doing it, but you can't expect the pace of stats to reasonably stay the same in 3+ times the minutes. I wasn't going to call him out, but don't be a Cam (for Thad) and try to make good games out of very little positive play. There's a reason he played so little and that is because Flip knew it would be a loss if he gave him his usual 20 MPG. He's not affecting the game positively right now which is understandable, but I also don't think we should be reaching for positives saying he should play more if we are trying to win games because he doesn't help that goal very much at this stage in his career.