Minnesota Sports Forum

FNG wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Jared Butler had 22 points and 4 assists for Utah last night. He hit 50% of his FG attempts and 43% from behind the arc. Note that he was the 40th pick in this year's draft. He was expected to be a 1st-round pick, but apparently dropped because of some medical condition. If his health holds up, he'll likely be the steal of this year's draft.

Dammit, Lip, you are 100% correct. Why the hell did Utah end up with him? Many of us must have fallen in love with this guy as he led his team to a national championship with no discernible flaws in his game. His handle is top notch, he shoots, and he's borderline elite on defense. And he goes 40th? You're right, he has a longtime heart issue that could eventually impact his career. But he's been playing with it for years, and it may not be an issue. If it's not, he's going to get big minutes backing up Conley, and eventually replace him. He's a steal.

FNG - Yep. Watching this year's draft was frustrating for me as a Wolves fan. With all the talk about the Wolves giving up a lightly-protected 1st for DLO, I saw almost nothing from media and fans about the Wolves also giving up their 2nd-round pick in that deal. That pick would have been the 36th pick in the draft, which would have put the Wolves in a position to draft Butler. I still find it hard to believe that the Wolves would have said no to the DLO deal without getting our 2nd-round pick. Would they have passed on our 1st-round pick with only top 3 protection over not including our 2nd-round picks? I highly doubt it.

News (bad) about former NBA players.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/nba-veterans-arrested-in-alleged-health-insurance-fraud-scheme-sources/3311071/?_osource=db_npd_nbc_wnbc_twt_shr

Only Telfair played for the Wolves, although Alan Anderson was a Minneapolis kid.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:News (bad) about former NBA players.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/nba-veterans-arrested-in-alleged-health-insurance-fraud-scheme-sources/3311071/?_osource=db_npd_nbc_wnbc_twt_shr

Only Telfair played for the Wolves, although Alan Anderson was a Minneapolis kid.

Mind boggling. Telfair actually apparently is reasonable comfortable financially, so you gotta wonder what he was thinking. How the heck did these knuckleheads think they would get away with this? I usually turn on guys like Alan Anderson who look really good in high school (De LaSalle) and then abandon the Gophers and go to another Big Ten school, but I feel sorry for him. Just a really bad story all around.

Guys, let's not rush to judgment. Who here hasn't gotten 17 root canals in the same year? Or discovered they'd gotten root canals on the same six teeth on the same day as a couple friends, and then found themselves all getting crowns on those teeth the same day a month later?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/07/nyregion/nba-players-charged-insurance-fraud.html

Let he who hasn't had to shake off a sedative for multiple root canals and eight crowns and take a supersonic jet or teleportation device to Taiwan for work that same day cast the first stone.

Steven Adams had 16 rebounds and 15 points tonight. All this focus on Ben Simmons and we enter the season with the same big hole in our rebounding that we had the end of last season. As I've repeated many times during the offseason, the Wolves should have moved on from Simmons long ago and focused solely on adding a rebounding big to the roster.

Also, Culver was 2 for 2 from behind the arc tonight. He also had 2 rebounds and an assist in his 10 minutes of play.

FNG wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:News (bad) about former NBA players.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/nba-veterans-arrested-in-alleged-health-insurance-fraud-scheme-sources/3311071/?_osource=db_npd_nbc_wnbc_twt_shr

Only Telfair played for the Wolves, although Alan Anderson was a Minneapolis kid.

Mind boggling. Telfair actually apparently is reasonable comfortable financially, so you gotta wonder what he was thinking. How the heck did these knuckleheads think they would get away with this? I usually turn on guys like Alan Anderson who look really good in high school (De LaSalle) and then abandon the Gophers and go to another Big Ten school, but I feel sorry for him. Just a really bad story all around.

To be fair, Minnesota was going through the Clem Haskins tutoring scandal during part of his recruitment. And it's not like he chose Rutgers, then transferred to Nebraska or something. Michigan State was in back-to-back Final Fours at the time.

Hartenstein had 16 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks in only 18 minutes of play last night against the Bulls. Meanwhile our Wolves were out-rebounded again last night. This team continues to lack size. Hartenstein is a guy I was very vocal about pursuing for the Wolves all off season. He ended up signing with the Clippers for the League minimum.

lipoli390 wrote:Hartenstein had 16 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks in only 18 minutes of play last night against the Bulls. Meanwhile our Wolves were out-rebounded again last night. This team continues to lack size. Hartenstein is a guy I was very vocal about pursuing for the Wolves all off season. He ended up signing with the Clippers for the League minimum.

Yes it will be the theme of the year. I like Vando but Im not sure you can even really call him a 4. I think once we start seeing every team get easy offensive boards on us it will be hard to watch.

thedoper wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Hartenstein had 16 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks in only 18 minutes of play last night against the Bulls. Meanwhile our Wolves were out-rebounded again last night. This team continues to lack size. Hartenstein is a guy I was very vocal about pursuing for the Wolves all off season. He ended up signing with the Clippers for the League minimum.

Yes it will be the theme of the year. I like Vando but Im not sure you can even really call him a 4. I think once we start seeing every team get easy offensive boards on us it will be hard to watch.

Vando is a great individual rebounder due to his hustle and pursuit. But he doesn't do much to help overall team defensive rebounding because he gets pushed off his spot so easily and doesn't carve out space. It's pretty much the same story for anyone we pair up with KAT and KAT himself isn't big and strong enough to dominate the defensive glass.

At some point, hopefully Gupta sees the value in adding a legit big man. And don't forget that it's valuable on the other end as well. One of our other chronic problems is poor screening on high pick and rolls. It doesn't take much effort to get over a KAT or Vando screen.

Q12543 wrote:

thedoper wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Hartenstein had 16 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks in only 18 minutes of play last night against the Bulls. Meanwhile our Wolves were out-rebounded again last night. This team continues to lack size. Hartenstein is a guy I was very vocal about pursuing for the Wolves all off season. He ended up signing with the Clippers for the League minimum.

Yes it will be the theme of the year. I like Vando but Im not sure you can even really call him a 4. I think once we start seeing every team get easy offensive boards on us it will be hard to watch.

Vando is a great individual rebounder due to his hustle and pursuit. But he doesn't do much to help overall team defensive rebounding because he gets pushed off his spot so easily and doesn't carve out space. It's pretty much the same story for anyone we pair up with KAT and KAT himself isn't big and strong enough to dominate the defensive glass.

At some point, hopefully Gupta sees the value in adding a legit big man. And don't forget that it's valuable on the other end as well. One of our other chronic problems is poor screening on high pick and rolls. It doesn't take much effort to get over a KAT or Vando screen.

I agree with both of you. I'm with Q in hoping that Gupta sees the value of adding a legitimate big man. Actually, I think he already does. The challenge will be getting one. We had Hartenstein within our grasp as a cheap free agent. There are no gettable bigs worth getting right now that I can see, either as free agents or trade targets. Maybe Cam's hypothetical 3-way deal for Sabonis is actually possible.