Minnesota Sports Forum

I don't even know what to say. I think the move is laughable, but in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter. It's just fascinating how Thibs took a promising young roster with a lot of assets and turned it into this mess in such a short time. I thought he wanted this job because of the youth and potential.

I see some of you are doing your best to put a positive spin on all this. I think that's really naive. We will win some games this year, probably not as many as last year but we will be competitive. It's just not good enough for me. This rebuild has peaked already. Congrats Thibs.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I don't even know what to say. I think the move is laughable, but in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter. It's just fascinating how Thibs took a promising young roster with a lot of assets and turned it into this mess in such a short time. I thought he wanted this job because of the youth and potential.

I see some of you are doing your best to put a positive spin on all this. I think that's really naive. We will win some games this year, probably not as many as last year but we will be competitive. It's just not good enough for me. This rebuild has peaked already. Congrats Thibs.

My question to you is what did you want Thibs to do. We weren't winning a championship with Lavine and Dunn. Yes Thibs took a young team but besides Kat all of the other assets ended up not being that good.

Im also not trying to dis your opinion, I respect your view, I just dont see how we were any closer to a championship. The thing I have like about Thibs is that he still cared about the future. Traded Rubio for a Okogie, got a pick back in the Butler trade. We haven't traded a pick without getting a pick back in the Thibs era. Now he needs to draft better.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I don't even know what to say. I think the move is laughable, but in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter. It's just fascinating how Thibs took a promising young roster with a lot of assets and turned it into this mess in such a short time. I thought he wanted this job because of the youth and potential.

I see some of you are doing your best to put a positive spin on all this. I think that's really naive. We will win some games this year, probably not as many as last year but we will be competitive. It's just not good enough for me. This rebuild has peaked already. Congrats Thibs.

I think your mistake was ever believing Lauri, Dunn and Lavine could have been key pieces on a title contender. I would rather be a playoff team every year than waiting for the next lottery guy to fix this mess year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year. By the way that's 10 year after years because we just did that shit for the last decade and look how that turned out.

Overall I am fine with the move. Nobody else available excites me.

khans2k5 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I don't even know what to say. I think the move is laughable, but in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter. It's just fascinating how Thibs took a promising young roster with a lot of assets and turned it into this mess in such a short time. I thought he wanted this job because of the youth and potential.

I see some of you are doing your best to put a positive spin on all this. I think that's really naive. We will win some games this year, probably not as many as last year but we will be competitive. It's just not good enough for me. This rebuild has peaked already. Congrats Thibs.

I think your mistake was ever believing Lauri, Dunn and Lavine could have been key pieces on a title contender. I would rather be a playoff team every year than waiting for the next lottery guy to fix this mess year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year. By the way that's 10 year after years because we just did that shit for the last decade and look how that turned out.

I didn't make a mistake. It's not my job to build the wolves into a contender. I don't care how Thibs or anyone else gets it done, just that they get it done. That's the nice thing about being a fan. I just wish all of our fans would raise their expectations. Because what Thibs is doing currently is going to fail. I think it's very easy to see that. And by fail I mean we are not going to achieve contender status. We may make the playoffs and go out in the first round. Whoopeeee.

This move in isolation isn't a bad one. If Deng has a significant amount of his former self left in his tank then he can contribute as a player and locker room presence. -- maybe be that guy who brings the factions together. If he's as finished physically as the Lakers' coaching staff concluded, then he's nothing more or less than a relatively small salary number on the Wolves balance sheet.

The move only looks bad when viewed collectively with the other moves Thibodeau has made. His tunnel vision, lack of imagination and obsession with bringing back players from his glory years in Chicago are all readily apparent in this signing of Deng when considered along with Thibodeau's trade for Butler and prior signings of Brooks, Rose and Gibson along with what has been reported as his pursuit of Noah.

So I'm not concerned about this signing. I'm just fed up with Thibodeau generally. In that regard, I think Wildwolf and Cool have summed it up well in their posts.

I don't know, but I may be the only one here who loves this deal. Once you get past the weirdness of Thibs gathering up 4 guys he used to coach in less than a year, the deal starts to make sense. Thibs desperately wants to convince Butler to stay after his contract ends, and signing his former mentor and close friend Deng is a step in the right direction. It isn't difficult to find evidence on the internet of Butler's deep respect and love for Deng. I don't know what Deng is going to contribute on the court, but I think he will be here more than one year. Jimmy will sign a long-term contract here next summer, and Thibs will give Deng one more year also. And that will be good for this franchise.


As for what Deng might give us on the court, who knows? It comes down to this question. Did he play only 13 minutes last year because he can no longer contribute, or did he warm the bench because a Laker team that wasn't going to sniff the playoffs decided to focus on its youth? I don't know, but I sense it's mostly the latter, unless he completely forgot how to play basketball once he left Miami. He was a very effective starter his final year in Miami, just two years ago, on both ends of the court. Reports are his defense was as good as ever (he sure looked great defensively in the playoffs) and he had an eFG% for the season of 55%. For comparison purposes, Wiggins was at 50.5% last season.


If Deng can play like he did before he arrived in LA, he deserves to be the first guy off the bench backing up both Gibson and Butler, and if that takes minutes away from our two first round picks, that's fine with me if it helps us win games. But if Deng instead is the broken down piece of crap LA thought he was, we have to hope Thibs limits his role to mentoring the young guys and keeping Jimmy happy.

crazy-canuck wrote:The good: Deng is a proven mentor for young players and knows how to get through to them. He did it on the bulls and most recently on the lakers.

The bad: Kat might see this as another me(KAT and Wiggins) vs you (Thibs and Jimmy) type move.

Thibs has to be gambling that Deng is the guy to bring the lockerrom together. And Im on board with it.
We have a few vets on the team, but I dont think any are or was ever considered a mentor.

IMO, the last spot is going to be saved for Noah. However, if he doesnt get bought out, Hinrich will be coaxed out of retirement.

I'd say Tolliver and Taj for the mold of guys that are mentors leaders. Teague might do more of that off the floor than given credit for. He is till good friends with the last PG that replaced him and last year was vocally calling for Tyus to get more minutes.

If vet mentorship does matter I could see Deng having some effect on a guy like KBD or maybe his likely previous relationship with Dieng could help him regain his confidence. MAYBE he connects with Wiggins and it has a positive effect.

Every time Thibs has brought in a former Bulls player there has been a negative reaction. Meanwhile for each individual player it seems like the move seems arguably justified in hindsight.

Butler: We gave up too much. Last season although he only played 59 games he was clearly the wolves best player and had his most efficient season of his career.

Taj: Wasn't worth the money some people said he was too old and was cooked. Played like a legit starter this year. Patterson the guy that was supposed to be a better signing didn't do much for OKC.

Aaron Brooks: This guy is gonna take away minutes from Tyus. He was the 3rd PG for a team that likely needed a vet in case Tyus wasn't ready. Tyus was up to the task and Brooks stayed mostly planted on the bench.

Rose: Has nothing left why sign this guy? Has a couple nice regular season games and then has a very productive playoffs.

So now we are here with Deng. So far it seems like the guys Thibs has brought in that played with him for the Bulls have worked out ok so far. Maybe Deng will be the obvious misstep and he simply can't play. Maybe the guys mentioned above don't work out this season. Deng is the oldest former Thibs player brought in and he is 33. This is a vet min guy that used to be a quality 2 way starter a couple years ago. Some of the other guys we could sign were never quality 2 way starters. This seems like a reasonable gamble.

monsterpile wrote:Every time Thibs has brought in a former Bulls player there has been a negative reaction. Meanwhile for each individual player it seems like the move seems arguably justified in hindsight.

Butler: We gave up too much. Last season although he only played 59 games he was clearly the wolves best player and had his most efficient season of his career.

Taj: Wasn't worth the money some people said he was too old and was cooked. Played like a legit starter this year. Patterson the guy that was supposed to be a better signing didn't do much for OKC.

Aaron Brooks: This guy is gonna take away minutes from Tyus. He was the 3rd PG for a team that likely needed a vet in case Tyus wasn't ready. Tyus was up to the task and Brooks stayed mostly planted on the bench.

Rose: Has nothing left why sign this guy? Has a couple nice regular season games and then has a very productive playoffs.

So now we are here with Deng. So far it seems like the guys Thibs has brought in that played with him for the Bulls have worked out ok so far. Maybe Deng will be the obvious misstep and he simply can't play. Maybe the guys mentioned above don't work out this season. Deng is the oldest former Thibs player brought in and he is 33. This is a vet min guy that used to be a quality 2 way starter a couple years ago. Some of the other guys we could sign were never quality 2 way starters. This seems like a reasonable gamble.

Who would have thought signing guys who previously made up the best regular season team in the Eastern Conference would be productive basketball players? Funny how it works when you sign people who actually know how to play basketball versus just taking shot after shot at shitty prospects in hopes you hit on one. It's almost like we finally have a team with actual NBA players now and we won the most games we had since the early 2000's because of it.