When is Towns asking out?

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

If I were the owner and POBO of the Wolves, here is what I'd do to stand out as a weak-market team. I think the Wolves have actually done some of this, so I don't claim all of this as unique:

1. Invest in the absolute best and most progressive integrated scouting/analytics operation in the business. We can't land stars, so we need to ID and uncover talent via the draft and undrafted free agents.

2. Similar to #1, invest in the absolute best developmental capabilities possible. The players should have easy and first-class access to top-notch facilities and developmental coaches and specialists.

3. Create a culture that is welcoming, family-oriented, and caring. Make it a place players will miss once they leave because they didn't know how good they had it via the intangibles.

4. Utilize as many draft picks as possible to keep throwing darts at wings and hope to God one of them turns into a 2-way stud.

I think the Wolves have had some measure of success with 1 - 3 and they seem to be trying on #4 (Okogie, Culver, Nowell, Edwards) with results TBD.

These next three things the Wolves have not done well:

4. Create a culture of defense. Defense is the easiest thing to change year-over-year and the cost of good defenders is a lot cheaper than great offensive players. The quickest way to turnaround a team and stay relevant is to play great defense. Yet this is something this franchise has struggled with for the better part of 15 years.

5. Exploit the market inefficiency for effective bigs. Get a rotation of 3-4 legit bigs that can rebound and defend. And yes, that means playing two bigs on the floor at once to create mis-matches and punish teams on the glass. It will cost less than $20M per year. Invest the big bucks in wings and point guards.

6. This starts with the bigs, as mentioned above....Focus on a team that wins the possession battle most nights. That means winning the battle on the glass and with turnovers. While I think winning the eFG% battle is the more valuable thing, it is also more costly. It's not super expensive to find good defenders, great rebounders, and point guards that take care of the basketball.

Rosas certainly wants to modernize the franchise. I think some of the things he's trying to do make sense and I think others are not a fit for this kind of market. I think he will find out soon enough that KAT and DLO are a very shaky foundation to build a house upon.

[Monster]

If he asks out then we aren't good enough with him and sure we might not be good without him but whatever. Honestly I don't really care but thee is plenty of compelling aspects of this team to follow I'm not really that worried about whether or not Towns asks out. Part of the team not being good enough will be his fault not playing good enough D and it will also be the overall competence of the organization as well as some unfortunate circumstances.

As for star players being able to dictate where they go...it sucks but I also don't completely hate it. For example is Harden just supposed to stick around when it seems likely the organization isn't fully committed to being a high level organization? Harden is annoying on a few levels but he is no-brainer HOFer and one of the best offensive players of my lifetime. If he wants to force his way out...to some extent he has earned to be able to choose his fate. I realize I'm making some assumptions that could be wrong but we will see. The way Love wanted out wasn't exactly making me feel good about it but I couldn't blame him either. Players should stay with their teams...but where is the accountability for franchises to have competent people making the basketball decisions? Yes sometimes they are basically living only to keep those guys but being an NBA executive is a pretty good paying gig (lots of long hours etc though) so yeah it's not gonna be easy. If you are actually good at your job you can turn yourself into a good team regardless. The Miami Heat got themselves back into the NBA Finals after being left with basically nothing when LeBron left and they made some mistakes along the way. Must be nice to have a HOF executive and probably head coach...and LeBron left them.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

If he wants to force his way out...to some extent he has earned to be able to choose his fate.

He did choose his fate... when he signed his most recent contract with the Houston Rockets. That was a decision point. These players are getting further and further from honoring these contracts with teams and fans are throwing up their hands as if to say, "Welp, that's it, that's all. These guys should get to choose where they play." That only plays into the mess this concept already is.

[AbeVigodaLive]

If he wants to force his way out...to some extent he has earned to be able to choose his fate.

He did choose his fate... when he signed his most recent contract with the Houston Rockets. That was a decision point. These players are getting further and further from honoring these contracts with teams and fans are throwing up their hands as if to say, "Welp, that's it, that's all. These guys should get to choose where they play." That only plays into the mess this concept already is.

Not only that... he was intrinsically involved in (1) getting McHale fired (2) dumping Howard (3) landing Paul (4) dumping Paul (5) landing Westbrook.

To cry foul that the organization didn't do enough after caving to this guy's every whim for nearly a decade rings hollow.

Now, Towns and especially Kevin Love... they had much more viable reasons for leaving. Heck, Love had to go out of his way to prove his worth and tried to stay... and was still rebuffed. Him leaving was very obvious. And justified.

[Coolbreeze44]

If he doesn't show up and play defense this year on a level we haven't seen I really don't care when the request to get out comes. He'd be doing us a favor at that point. His reputation nationally is not good enough where he's going to get to pick his landing spot so we'll be able to get a haul for him. I just wish the timing was better where Harden to Philly, Simmons to MN, Towns to Hou made sense but MN and Philly are trying to see if they can make what they have work one more year and I just don't see Harden lasting the whole year in Houston.

Man, do I love your trade idea. Then we could trade DLO too and build around the guard combination of Simmons and Edwards.

[Monster]

If he wants to force his way out...to some extent he has earned to be able to choose his fate.

He did choose his fate... when he signed his most recent contract with the Houston Rockets. That was a decision point. These players are getting further and further from honoring these contracts with teams and fans are throwing up their hands as if to say, "Welp, that's it, that's all. These guys should get to choose where they play." That only plays into the mess this concept already is.

Not only that... he was intrinsically involved in (1) getting McHale fired (2) dumping Howard (3) landing Paul (4) dumping Paul (5) landing Westbrook.

To cry foul that the organization didn't do enough after caving to this guy's every whim for nearly a decade rings hollow.

Now, Towns and especially Kevin Love... they had much more viable reasons for leaving. Heck, Love had to go out of his way to prove his worth and tried to stay... and was still rebuffed. Him leaving was very obvious. And justified.

These are excellent points. The counter and the basis of my premise is that I question the new ownership. I only have so much to go off of so it's not a certain position.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

If he wants to force his way out...to some extent he has earned to be able to choose his fate.

He did choose his fate... when he signed his most recent contract with the Houston Rockets. That was a decision point. These players are getting further and further from honoring these contracts with teams and fans are throwing up their hands as if to say, "Welp, that's it, that's all. These guys should get to choose where they play." That only plays into the mess this concept already is.

Not only that... he was intrinsically involved in (1) getting McHale fired (2) dumping Howard (3) landing Paul (4) dumping Paul (5) landing Westbrook.

To cry foul that the organization didn't do enough after caving to this guy's every whim for nearly a decade rings hollow.

Now, Towns and especially Kevin Love... they had much more viable reasons for leaving. Heck, Love had to go out of his way to prove his worth and tried to stay... and was still rebuffed. Him leaving was very obvious. And justified.

These are excellent points. The counter and the basis of my premise is that I question the new ownership. I only have so much to go off of so it's not a certain position.

I mean are the Rockets not better right now than last year? They went from having no bigs and getting crushed to having Wood and Cousins. They paired up the Kentucky duo of Wall and Cousins with Harden and the longer Cousins and Wall get away from those injuries the better they'll be. Cousins is still one of the best passing big men in the game on a team full of shooters outside of Wall. Westbrook is a ball hog stat stuffer so the ball will go back into Harden's hands more which is much more efficient. They lost Covington who was playing completely out of position for them and Tucker can play down to the 3 now with actual bigs on the team. House was a good player for them last year as well before his dumb ass bubble stuff. Wall/Harden/Tucker/Wood/Cousins with Gordon and House off the bench is a solid 7 man rotation so you just need to find 2 guys to step up to complete it. Wall/Gordon/Harden/Tucker/Wood is a good small ball lineup with 4 plus shooters around Wall. They look to be built like an actual basketball team this year rather than be all in on a gimmick to win with math. Sure there's a lot of risk with Wall and Cousins because of the injuries but you are pairing them with an MVP caliber player. I think as long as they aren't just toast from the injuries athletically that they are setup to be a top 4 team again this year.

[WildWolf2813]

In 2 years I think both Towns and Russell are gone.


The rule of 7. Only three Wolves have ever spent more than 7 seasons with this franchise: KG, Mitchell and West. Rubio pending a completion of this season would become the 4th.

[Lipoli390]

If he doesn't show up and play defense this year on a level we haven't seen I really don't care when the request to get out comes. He'd be doing us a favor at that point. His reputation nationally is not good enough where he's going to get to pick his landing spot so we'll be able to get a haul for him. I just wish the timing was better where Harden to Philly, Simmons to MN, Towns to Hou made sense but MN and Philly are trying to see if they can make what they have work one more year and I just don't see Harden lasting the whole year in Houston.

Man, do I love your trade idea. Then we could trade DLO too and build around the guard combination of Simmons and Edwards.

And how long will Simmons be content here? I think the question answers itself. The only way to build a contender here is through the draft. This Wolves organization could have done just that if, after trading for Butler, they had drafted Murray instead of Dunn, and Collins instead of Patton. Or if they had traded Wiggins for Butler, it's been widely reported that the Wolves could have kept their own first round pick. What if they had done that and drafted Donovan Mitchell to pair with KAT. They could have used the Wiggins money to help keep Butler. Imagine a combo of KAT, Butler and Mitchell. Butler could have gotten the contract he wanted and Mitchell is his kind of player. As another scenario, what if they had drafted the Greek Freak instead of Bazz? And note that the Wolves picked Glen Robinson one slot ahead of Jokic in the 2014 second round. Of course, last year they traded up for Culver instead of staying put and drafting Herro with the option to trade Saric for some other asset. The list goes on.

Bottom line is that the Wolves can't expect to rebuild or retool by trading for a star in his prime and expect that star to stay here - unless that player is seriously flawed like DLO. And even then, the cost is high and it probably won't be enough. If the time comes when the Wolves have to trade KAT, they'll have to trade DLO too and load up on future first round picks. In other words, they'll need to amass valuable draft assets and then rely on the draft and undrafted free agents for a complete rebuild from the ground up, hopefully accompanied by the development of Edwards into the player he's capable of being. Assuming we have a really good front office, presumably under new leadership, maybe this franchise can finally get it right.

In the meantime, it's all in on KAT, DLO and Beasley. That's the trio Rosas wanted to build around with his system. That trio will succeed or the organization will have to blow it up, start again and rely on the draft. That's the reality for this cold-weather, low attendance, mid-market, midwestern franchise with a reputation for losing and dysfunction.

[WildWolf2813]

Or (and you guys are gonna hate this) in this league it might not be worth it to suffer by rooting for teams; you might have to pivot to rooting for players in order to enjoy the league because as it stands the NBA isn't built for this franchise to succeed (I'd even go so far as to say the league isn't interested in this team being good). Way better run teams than this one have not succeeded in winning a title.