Minnesota Sports Forum

Q12543 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Flip is treading water. When you're in charge of a young team selling "hope"... that's all you have to do while everybody waits. Heck, the Philly guy is basically trolling people with his very obvious attempt to just tread water while waiting to get lucky.

Saunders has two chances: Towns and Wiggins. With luck... either one could be a franchise changer. Sometimes, that's all it takes to be considered a good GM.

Sometimes a series of small-ish under-the-radar moves combined with good luck also pays off. Two cases in point: Atlanta and Memphis. Neither team has a franchise changer. Neither team benefited from a super-friends collusion of free agents. Neither are known as being marquee franchises that historically attract top free agents. Both teams made some terrible draft mistakes in recent years. Yet they made enough good to great moves along the way to piece together two damn good teams.

I agree with part of your point here Q, but I don't see either of those two teams being legitimate championship contenders. Some would argue that Memphis could be, but I would disagree.

How do you talk about Flip's blunders and leave out the Payne trade? Yikes.

There seems to be a default position on this board that trading a future first round pick for Adreian Payne was a blunder. I didn't like the way Payne played at the end of last season, but I'm trying to understand why this deal is so universally panned here. Let's analyze the deal.

1) Adreian Payne was the 15th pick in the 2014 draft, and is highly lauded by a couple guys who know him well...Tom Izzo and Draymond Green.

2) The pick Flip gave up is lottery protected through 2020, at which time it reverts to a 2nd round pick. So the highest possible pick the Wolves will be giving up in exchange for last year's 15th pick is a future 15th pick, but in reality, is likely to be much worse.

3) While I think the Wolves will challenge for the playoffs next year, the consensus here is that they will not make the playoffs. Thus, the earliest the Wolves will be surrendering a pick will be in 2018.

4) Many here who do not see the Wolves making the playoffs next year are very optimistic about the leap they will make by 2017-8 as their young core develops. So it is not unreasonable to project the pick we will be giving up in 2018 will be around #20 in the first round.

5) While there will always be exceptions, most fans don't get very excited about most picks in the 20s. I know I don't, Paul Grant not withstanding.

6) We know that Flip loved Payne in the 2014 draft, and if you watched much Big 10 basketball that year, it's easy to understand why. There aren't that many hard-nosed, athletic 6'10" PFs with a nice shooting touch and big game experience available in most years.

So, I can understand why Flip would prefer a sure thing now that he coveted 7 months earlier, to an unknown who might be available around #20 a couple years later. Seems very logical to me. I understand that Payne was not able to get off the bench in Atlanta his rookie year, but Atlanta was in the hunt the entire season and had four experienced PF's ahead of him on the depth chart...it was clear early in the season that he was going to get most of his minutes in the D League. Then he was traded to a hapless Wolves team that didn't have enough healthy players where he could even practice with them. And we're surprised that he struggled at the end of the year? Come on.

I got to watch Adreian up close in Vegas this July, and while I acknowledge that Summer League is not the NBA, he looked aggressive and athletic and more like the guy we watched at MSU.

Maybe Payne will end up a complete flop in the NBA, and 2-3 years from now there will be a player available in the 20s that is a great player. If so, at that time I think it would be fair to say Flip got his ass kicked in this deal. But right now all we know is that he got a 15th pick that he liked at MSU in exchange for a future pick that could be anywhere from 15 to 44. It seems to me that the worst grade we can give Flip right now is an incomplete. Let's wait and see how Payne pans out, and what pick we eventually end up giving up, before we rip Flip on this one.

Agree 100% LST. I know there are a few others who don't hate the Payne trade. I am still in that camp. No reason he can be productive with his skill set.

Q12543 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Flip is treading water. When you're in charge of a young team selling "hope"... that's all you have to do while everybody waits. Heck, the Philly guy is basically trolling people with his very obvious attempt to just tread water while waiting to get lucky.

Saunders has two chances: Towns and Wiggins. With luck... either one could be a franchise changer. Sometimes, that's all it takes to be considered a good GM.

Sometimes a series of small-ish under-the-radar moves combined with good luck also pays off. Two cases in point: Atlanta and Memphis. Neither team has a franchise changer. Neither team benefited from a super-friends collusion of free agents. Neither are known as being marquee franchises that historically attract top free agents. Both teams made some terrible draft mistakes in recent years. Yet they made enough good to great moves along the way to piece together two damn good teams.

Sure. There's just less margin for error there. If Saunders was able to win those smaller moves more often AND hit the home run... that's when the Wolves fly up the Western Conference standings and become legit title contenders.

If anybody thinks Brewer, Mo or Thad are worth 1 more win then the trades were great because we ended up with the number 1 pick. If we win 1 more game last year, who knows where we draft. What we do know is the worst team in the league got the top pick and the second worst got the 4th pick. The AP trade is still TBD. Summer League would suggest Payne is getting better so we'll see just how much better he gets over the next couple years. Flip is treading water because one mistake at this stage could prove costly long-term, but I don't think any of the moves he has made has put any kind of dent in our future outlook which is all you can ask on a rebuilding team.

LST I used to think the way you did that payne could be a better then whoever we would draft with the pick, and that could be true. But the reason it was a bad trade in my opinion it was a bad trade is we lost an asset to make the wolves better when they are a playoff team. Late first can get you above average role players and now we lost that asset. So right now the trade dosen't hurt but when the wolves are a playoff team (hopefully), I believe the wolves will be wishing they had the pick back

Watching Payne play last year made me angry. But I'm willing to give him another shot to impress this year. I agree with those thinking it was a bad trade for the simple fact that I believe we over paid. You look at AB - we paid him not to be here this year. Payne looked to be on similar path of not being wanted by the team that drafted him. If Flip liked him, I would have thought he could have gotten him for far less - maybe after the season. I didn't see the urgency to make a move at that price.

Come on Payne is the 372nd best player in the league. We robbed the Hawks.

Flip got brainwashed by Izzo. Sadly Mike Muscala is better, younger, and cheaper and the Hawks kept him. I would have thought we could have gotten him for less then what we traded to get Payne.

http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/2490089/mike-muscala
http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/2531100/adreian-payne

I have a philosophical problem/disconnect grading a trade as favorable because it made the team worse. I know that's what teams do in the NBA on occasion.

But the Wolves have been the worst team in the L for the past decade. And the 2nd worst (overall) since its inception.

Eventually, that way of creating a team gets a bit old and redundant and futile.