Minnesota Sports Forum

FNG wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

Duke13 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:But as we all remember, Rubio started off last season HORRIBLY and was partially responsible for our terrible start. What the hell is it with the vets we bring in unable to adapt and play well from the get go? I again go back to the "Wolves Performance Discount" you have to apply.

As much as we all get frustrated with KAT, DLO, and (at times) Edwards, the reality is we have a few bench players that are giving us next to nothing or actively hurting our chances of winning. Beasley, Prince, and McLaughin are on the top of that list in my opinion. These guys have been absolutely terrible - like Bottom 5% terrible. We just aren't going to win many games without at least adequate play from regular rotation players even if they aren't in your starting 5.

I'd say it's a combination of things, but a big part is Kat and Dlo don't necessarily makes playing with them easy, polar opposite of Curry and the system GS runs. Plug n play with them

May be. But our offense was cooking last year with both KAT and DLO played. I mean it was nearly a top 10 offense. So are you saying they suddenly changed and now they bring everyone else down? How did that happen in one offseason?

KAT, DLo and Ant are all great scorers, but I agree with Doper that they don't have the reputation of making their teammates better. There has to be some other reason that our half court offense was clicking at the end of last season but now ranks at the bottom of the league. Hmm...wasn't there a guy who was playing a lot of minutes running the offense for our three big scorers when things were kind of good in April and May? Who was that guy, and where did he go?

Fair point. Rubio was in most of our best 5-man lineups during our "good" (i.e. .500-ish) stretch of play. Too bad he sucked so bad when it mattered earlier in the season!

thedoper wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

thedoper wrote:

Q12543 wrote:But as we all remember, Rubio started off last season HORRIBLY and was partially responsible for our terrible start. What the hell is it with the vets we bring in unable to adapt and play well from the get go? I again go back to the "Wolves Performance Discount" you have to apply.

As much as we all get frustrated with KAT, DLO, and (at times) Edwards, the reality is we have a few bench players that are giving us next to nothing or actively hurting our chances of winning. Beasley, Prince, and McLaughin are on the top of that list in my opinion. These guys have been absolutely terrible - like Bottom 5% terrible. We just aren't going to win many games without at least adequate play from regular rotation players even if they aren't in your starting 5.

With the vet thing I think it is that vets come here and they think they can or are needed to stretch beyond who they really are because we are the crappy Wolves. I feel like it's happened with a number of free agents that we sign. There's not a leadership hierarchy in place so players with some experience immediately try to fill a void that they are unable to fill based on their talent. This then causes them to play worse rather than just filling the niche that their talent would dictate on a functional team.

I know that has been the case at times in the past, but I don't think we're expecting too much from our bench guys this year. None have been asked, for example, to fill in for major starters for some stretch of time. I mean Beasley we're expecting less of as a 6th or 7th man versus a regular starter. Yet he's been terrible. McLaughlin is playing reasonable minutes as a floor general. Prince just needs to make some open 3s. It isn't that high of a bar this season so far.

On how I look at this with Beasley, yes he's a bench guy, but what other team would allow Beasley to try out his dribble drive game? He'd be yanked on a good team. But we just watch the train wreck and there are no repercussions. Plus we don't have a starting 4, so that means everyone in that position has been asked to play beyond their means. There's a collective dellusional bump when players come to the Wolves where they think they can finally expand their game and show what was missed in other places. Like I don't know the details DLo's shot selection in Brooklyn, but its insane here even with his talent. Ant is already shooting 10 3s a game, and KAT thinks he's a good defender.

But isn't this coaching then? Does Finch deserve the blame if these guys are getting out of line with their roles and trying to do too much?

We knew going in that defensive rebounding was going to be a problem, but the lack of a traditional big should not be affecting the offense this much.

Q12543 wrote:

FNG wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

Duke13 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:But as we all remember, Rubio started off last season HORRIBLY and was partially responsible for our terrible start. What the hell is it with the vets we bring in unable to adapt and play well from the get go? I again go back to the "Wolves Performance Discount" you have to apply.

As much as we all get frustrated with KAT, DLO, and (at times) Edwards, the reality is we have a few bench players that are giving us next to nothing or actively hurting our chances of winning. Beasley, Prince, and McLaughin are on the top of that list in my opinion. These guys have been absolutely terrible - like Bottom 5% terrible. We just aren't going to win many games without at least adequate play from regular rotation players even if they aren't in your starting 5.

I'd say it's a combination of things, but a big part is Kat and Dlo don't necessarily makes playing with them easy, polar opposite of Curry and the system GS runs. Plug n play with them

May be. But our offense was cooking last year with both KAT and DLO played. I mean it was nearly a top 10 offense. So are you saying they suddenly changed and now they bring everyone else down? How did that happen in one offseason?

KAT, DLo and Ant are all great scorers, but I agree with Doper that they don't have the reputation of making their teammates better. There has to be some other reason that our half court offense was clicking at the end of last season but now ranks at the bottom of the league. Hmm...wasn't there a guy who was playing a lot of minutes running the offense for our three big scorers when things were kind of good in April and May? Who was that guy, and where did he go?

Fair point. Rubio was in most of our best 5-man lineups during our "good" (i.e. .500-ish) stretch of play. Too bad he sucked so bad when it mattered earlier in the season!

Yeah, so true. His post-Covid play at the start of last season was a big reason for our poor start last year. And now that he's healthy and in shape again, his play is a big reason for the Cavs being such a resurgent team this season. More evidence of how snake bit this franchise is :mad: .

One interesting thing of note about the KAT / Russell pairing last season...

Much of the late-season "success" came with Russell coming off the bench. Now granted, he was still getting more minutes than Rubio so I wouldn't dare success that Rubio was more responsible.

But it might be interesting to see just how many minutes the Russell - Towns - Edwards trio shared during that stretch. If I remember correctly, Towns + Russell had amazing on/off numbers together, at least offensively. Was that the same when Edwards was in the mix?

The three players are so vastly different, that you can definitely talk yourself into how it SHOULD work effectively. And hopefully it will before it's too late. Because I'm not looking forward to yet another late-season resurgence that convinces us that maybe/just maybe we have something here and we should give it even more time.

I want to know definitively one way or the other this season. As soon as possible.

The DLO-KAT-Ant trio had the following ratings:
Ortg - 120.9
Drtg - 116.0
327 minutes played over 24 games, most of which came later in the season.

Clearly, these guys could put the ball in the hoop at an elite rate.

Rubio-KAT-Edwards:
Ortg - 113.5
Drtg - 114.9
1044 minutes played over 48 games

Rubio-KAT-DLO:
Ortg - 119.1
Drtg - 113.8
214 minutes played over 23 games

Q12543 wrote:

thedoper wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

thedoper wrote:

Q12543 wrote:But as we all remember, Rubio started off last season HORRIBLY and was partially responsible for our terrible start. What the hell is it with the vets we bring in unable to adapt and play well from the get go? I again go back to the "Wolves Performance Discount" you have to apply.

As much as we all get frustrated with KAT, DLO, and (at times) Edwards, the reality is we have a few bench players that are giving us next to nothing or actively hurting our chances of winning. Beasley, Prince, and McLaughin are on the top of that list in my opinion. These guys have been absolutely terrible - like Bottom 5% terrible. We just aren't going to win many games without at least adequate play from regular rotation players even if they aren't in your starting 5.

With the vet thing I think it is that vets come here and they think they can or are needed to stretch beyond who they really are because we are the crappy Wolves. I feel like it's happened with a number of free agents that we sign. There's not a leadership hierarchy in place so players with some experience immediately try to fill a void that they are unable to fill based on their talent. This then causes them to play worse rather than just filling the niche that their talent would dictate on a functional team.

I know that has been the case at times in the past, but I don't think we're expecting too much from our bench guys this year. None have been asked, for example, to fill in for major starters for some stretch of time. I mean Beasley we're expecting less of as a 6th or 7th man versus a regular starter. Yet he's been terrible. McLaughlin is playing reasonable minutes as a floor general. Prince just needs to make some open 3s. It isn't that high of a bar this season so far.

On how I look at this with Beasley, yes he's a bench guy, but what other team would allow Beasley to try out his dribble drive game? He'd be yanked on a good team. But we just watch the train wreck and there are no repercussions. Plus we don't have a starting 4, so that means everyone in that position has been asked to play beyond their means. There's a collective dellusional bump when players come to the Wolves where they think they can finally expand their game and show what was missed in other places. Like I don't know the details DLo's shot selection in Brooklyn, but its insane here even with his talent. Ant is already shooting 10 3s a game, and KAT thinks he's a good defender.

But isn't this coaching then? Does Finch deserve the blame if these guys are getting out of line with their roles and trying to do too much?

We knew going in that defensive rebounding was going to be a problem, but the lack of a traditional big should not be affecting the offense this much.

I think so yes. I can't see an offensive system in place yet. But I go back to culture too. I think guys come to this team ready to ignore coaches. Who garners respect on this roster or the organization. We've been a coach killing franchise for a while now, and that includes two potential hall of fame coaches in Adelman and Thibs. It's hard for anyone beyond this message board to take this joke of a franchise seriously at times. The one real lunch bucket player we had in Butler couldn't wait to leave, and he was playing for a coach he loved.

This year's DLO-KAT-Ant:
Ortg - 101.7
Drtg - 102.9
164 minutes over 8 games

Again....What the hell happened!?

I fully recognize this is a very small sample size and that I can be accused of using that sample size to belabor a point, but let's compare points per 100 possessions for our Big Three alone this year and last year when they were combined with Rubio:

2021/2 KAT/DLo/Ant: Offense 108.3 Defense: 125.7 Differential: -17.3

2020/1 KAT/DLO/Ant/Rubio: Offense 125.6 Defense: 116.5 Differential: 9.1

Again, we're only 9 games in and I expect our Big Three to improve as the season goes on even without Ricky (despite the fact that we have finished the softest section of our schedule), but a 26.4 point swing with significant differences on both offense and defense has to at least raise some eyebrows, doesn't it?

Cam has raised an interesting point that our uncontested 3-point shooting has taken a big dive this year, and that may be evidence that our offense is still functioning well...we're just missing shots. But that doesn't match the eye test for me, and doesn't it seem a little strange that almost the entire roster is struggling with their shooting? I would argue that all "uncontested shots" are not created equally. Rubio has often been praised for making the right pass, and that means more than finding the open guy. It also means getting the ball to the open man in the right place and in a manner that allows him to shoot in rhythm...very important for shooters. Watch video of him and you will quickly see how he delivers the ball at just the right time and in just the right place. One of my frustrations with KAT is the accuracy of his passes. So often he finds the open man (he's got good vision and is actually quite good at that), but he delivers the ball in such a fashion that the open man isn't taking his best shot. It may be "uncontested" in the stat sheet, but it's far from optimal. DLo and PatBev are better than KAT, but far from Rubio's level in making the perfect pass. Since those are our three top assist guys, it's not all that surprising to me that we are struggling as a team with our shooting this year. The offense frankly looks clumsy compared to last year. Hopefully it will change significantly, or we're in for a long season.

FNG, Not sure where you are getting your numbers from as mine are way off from yours for Ant-KAT-DLO (see my post above yours). I got mine from NBA.com which isn't known for completely botching stats.

As for DLO/KAT/Ant playing without Rubio in lineups in 20/21, they are almost overwhelmingly positive, just like they were with Rubio. In other words, the KAT/Ant/DLO trio last year was quite good offensively whether Rubio was on the court with them or not.

I think the Rubio explanation is a stretch and that's coming from one of his biggest fans.

Q12543 wrote:FNG, Not sure where you are getting your numbers from as mine are way off from yours for Ant-KAT-DLO (see my post above yours). I got mine from NBA.com which isn't known for completely botching stats.

As for DLO/KAT/Ant playing without Rubio in lineups in 20/21, they are almost overwhelmingly positive, just like they were with Rubio. In other words, the KAT/Ant/DLO trio last year was quite good offensively whether Rubio was on the court with them or not.

I think the Rubio explanation is a stretch and that's coming from one of his biggest fans.

I'm also curious on where FNG got his number because according to cleaningtheglass.com the Wolves were a +5 with the Rubio/Ant/Dlo/Kat pairing and a +5.8 in that pairing without Rubio.

Not trying to be that guy because I like Rubio and think he is off to a very solid start this year but Ricky was bad last year. Numbers with Dlo Ricky were really bad last year and when Ricky wasn't on the court with Kat last year the Ricky +/- numbers were not good.

In the end Ricky is a very solid nba player but he isn't a needle mover