Minnesota Sports Forum

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

60WinTim wrote:On the Funkadelic Flip tossed out the possibility of Wiggins and Bazz starting at the wings...

That's intriguing, Tim. Robson called for the same thing in his column today.

I think Flip gives LaVine every chance to beat out Martin at the 2, and since he isn't going to start 3 20 year olds (like I said in another thread, he saw too much of that late last season!), I think Towns starts the season backing up KG and Pek. I think Flip wants to get Towns a lot of minutes, but this way puts less pressure on him...after all, it's tough to go from playing 20 minutes a game in college to starting on an NBA team.

That starting five lends itself to a nice rotation too, that allows Flip to limit KG's and Pek's minutes. Towns subs in for KG at the 8 minute mark of the first period, and then moves over to take Pek's place at C at the end of the quarter, with whoever emerges as our next best option at PF (AB, Payne or Bjelica) starting the second quarter at PF.

But if Pek isn't ready to go at the start of the season, Flip will start Towns, KG, Wiggins, Rubio and either Martin or Zach.

I'll add that the reason Bazz and Wiggins starting was discussed was because Brit's column was brought up and Flip laid out the arguement for Bazz playing with Wiggins that Brit has been saying for months. Brit would be happy to know Flip knows that's a legit option. Lol

Flip was just trying to be politically correct in his response. His main point was that everybody has to earn their spot/time. So he wasn't going to preclude Bazz from having a chance to start, just like Martin or Zach.

He was explaining the benefit of Bazz and Wiggins together but yeah he wasn't saying who was starting or not although he said at one point today Bazz could start. It's nice to have options of guys that have actually shown something promising to choose from instead of something more like blind hope.

TeamRicky wrote:Can KG teach Bazz to play defense?

I don't know if I was watching a completely different player but Bazz worked his ass off on defense the games I saw. He's got long arms, hustles, has the fire to compete and is strong, I don't think his defense is an issue moving forward. He's not Shumpert but I think people want to label players as elite or terrible with no in between. I'm not trying to pick on this statement but I see a lot about Shabazz's defense being awful and a liability but I didn't see that personally.

What is the point of having KG if he is not playing with Towns? Towns and KG will start. KG was healthy last year and Flip shut him down because we started winning.

SG is where it will be interesting. I lean towards Shabazz personally.

PG: Rubio 36, Jones 12
SG: Martin 20, LaVine 20, Shabazz 8
SF: Wiggins 36, Shabazz 12
PF: Towns 28, Bjelica 20
C: KG 20, Pek 20, Dieng

Nights that KG and Pek don't play you will see Dieng get more minutes and Payne getting off the bench.

I see KG guarding and playing center with Towns. I think we will protect him in year one from getting abused by big centers.

One lineup I would be curious about would be:

Rubio, Wiggins, Bjelica, Towns, and KG.

Sounds like Bjelica has the skill to play SF. That would be a pretty big team with lots of guys that can pass, shoot,and rebound.

bleedspeed177 wrote:One lineup I would be curious about would be:

Rubio, Wiggins, Bjelica, Towns, and KG.

Sounds like Bjelica has the skill to play SF. That would be a pretty big team with lots of guys that can pass, shoot,and rebound.

That's true, bleed, DX still calls him a SF, or even a PG trapped in a PF's body.. That would be a tall team, and just as long and tall if you substitute Dieng for KG.

longstrangetrip wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:One lineup I would be curious about would be:

Rubio, Wiggins, Bjelica, Towns, and KG.

Sounds like Bjelica has the skill to play SF. That would be a pretty big team with lots of guys that can pass, shoot,and rebound.

That's true, bleed, DX still calls him a SF, or even a PG trapped in a PF's body.. That would be a tall team, and just as long and tall if you substitute Dieng for KG.

I think the reality is DX hasn't updated anything about him in quite a while which is fair enough. From the video I have seen from the last couple years he is more a PF than anything else but has retained some of that perimeter skill as well obviously. He is a guy that really is interesting because he can do a variety of things on the court so you can play guys in different spots that may be more effective than you normally would. You could maybe use him as a playmaker if you don't have a traditional PG out there. You can have Bazz play as a PF with Bjelica playing on the perimeter on offense. Same thing with Wiggins too I suppose. That's what makes this team actually exciting a lot of pieces actually fit together and or compliment each other. There are lots of fun combinations plus if you like the idea of getting out and running (Flip said yesterday he want to get out and go after defensive stops) Bjelica is going to help you do that and whatever time KG plays he will help you there too. Towns seems to have the passing and dribbling base skill to get things moving if he secures the ball. We don't have Brewer anymore but Bazz is a guy that releases down the court and other guys can do that too. Of course that's all based on being better at defense and also rebounding. Towns helps both areas but hopefully we can make some sort of reasonable leap to a decent defensive team this year. We can hope.

Please Flip bring in a new training staff immediately. Don't let the current group even meet Towns.

BizarroJerry wrote:Please Flip bring in a new training staff immediately. Don't let the current group even meet Towns.

They shouldn't even have his e-mail address.

A 4 part rundown of some of the Wolves training staff. If you don't want our Wolves working with Greg Farnam at least a lot of the guys on the team don't play for team USA. Lol

http://www.nba.com/timberwolves/news/trainer-feature-koichi-sato

http://www.nba.com/timberwolves/news/trainer-feature-dave-crewe

http://www.nba.com/timberwolves/news/trainer-feature-mark-kyger

http://www.nba.com/timberwolves/news/trainer-feature-gregg-farnam

Thanks monster. Looks like a couple new guys which is good. But Farnam is the problem, wish we could get rid of him. I'm not sure how he gets to keep his job after the last few years, it's baffling to me.