Minnesota Sports Forum

Q12543 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Q12543 wrote:You're right Monster about the author of the article. He has the right idea in terms of 'Bazz being a decent trade target, but his description of 'Bazz is off base.

He's frankly been a bit of a disappointment this season. I thought he would build off the great strides he made last year, but he's regressed a little bit. His rebounding, 3-point shooting, and passing are all worse. Let's hope we see more of what we saw against the Clippers.

That's what I was going to write...

- "he's all of a sudden a very versatile and well-rounded forward with the ability to fill multiple roles."
- "Muhammad's versatility is kind of what makes him such a good fit."

Huh? I think Muhammad is a rotation guy in the NBA. But it's because he can bring scoring off the bench... not as a jack-of-all-trades type or as a guy who can fit multiple roles. He does one thing... and a guy can develop a career around that one skill.

To be fair, sometimes rotation guys like Muhammad end up bouncing around the league a bit.

Agreed. He's just a tough guy to ever justify starting and playing for 30+ minutes per night on a really good team, which is probably what he and his agent feel he could do. You have to be able to keep the ball moving these days. That, along with his inconsistent outside shot and defense is also problematic for a starting wing. He is definitely an energy bench scorer until he proves otherwise.

I agree with all of this and doesn't Bazz basically still have the skills of a handy stretch PF in the sorta body of a wing although the 3 ball hasn't fallen for him this year overall? Maybe he has hit more of his typical shots with that right hand he said he worked on this summer so haven't paid attention but I don't see any other significant or really noticeable improvement in his offensive game. I do think he has made strides defensively. I am not suggesting he is good there but he has not only put forth the effort but has seemingly gotten better at beig in control and knowing the team concept better as the season goes on. That's noteworthy he is improving because that's an area he has to improve if he wants to be a starter or top level rotation player regardless.

While Bazz has been a bit of a disappointment so far this year lets keep a couple things in mind that you can find positives in his game.

Do the wolves run any plays for him? It seems pretty rare. So he is scoring 8ppg with few plays run for him in a bench group where he is far from a top scoring option. That's not too shabby. Does he get the ball and attack without care about anything which is sometimes not the way to go? Sure but he has had to work for his shot one way or another based on what I have seen.

Bazz is shooting over 52% on 2 point shots. That's pretty good. Of course he takes alotnof shots near the basket which helps but hey that sounds good to me.

He 3 point attempt rate is the highest of his career. He isn't knocking them down but he is letting them fly and he isn't taking dump shots either they are typically catch and shoot 3's. In a league where PF and centers can and do jack up 3's and have added that to their game there is no reason Bazz shouldn't be putting up those shots. Maybe he will never consistantly find the range from out there but having an in and out game in addition to being a guy that has shown ability to make good cuts would make him a pretty nice offensive player.

I am far from saying Bazz is untouchable but similar to Dieng he has some interesting positives to his game. It was literally days ago that Dieng wasn't thought of to highly here and for good reason and then he put together a really nice stretch of games where he showed some very intruiging play during that time and we feel much more positive about him right now. Maybe that won't last but maybe it does to a certain extent. Maybe Bazz finds himself here the next 10 games or so and we value him more highly than we do right now at that point.

The thing is what are the wolves going to get that would make the wolves better now and in the future, I honestly can't see what the point of making the trade.

monsterpile wrote:I am far from saying Bazz is untouchable but similar to Dieng he has some interesting positives to his game. It was literally days ago that Dieng wasn't thought of to highly here and for good reason and then he put together a really nice stretch of games where he showed some very intruiging play during that time and we feel much more positive about him right now. Maybe that won't last but maybe it does to a certain extent. Maybe Bazz finds himself here the next 10 games or so and we value him more highly than we do right now at that point.

To me Dieng is the more intriguing prospect. If his recent play is a sign of growth, and not just a high point from which he'll trend back to his average then you have to keep him into his second contract IMO. Bazz has awesome instant offense potential, and I love his heart, but within the constraints of team basketball he is IMO very limited. I would put it this way, Bazz has greater potential to impact any given game, Dieng has greater potential to impact a season.

Would the Lakers be dumb enough to do D'Angelo Russell for Shabazz?

bleedspeed177 wrote:Would the Lakers be dumb enough to do D'Angelo Russell for Shabazz?

No.

I see this report or article as the truth but also as a smokescreen. I think they know he might have value and another team might be able to give him more minutes. So why not say he is valuable to us and that we plan to keep him...might make other teams salivate a little more. I like Shabazz and know he helps us, but if a better player is out there and Shabazz becomes the asset to trade, I am all for it. I am not convinced we have a championship roster right now (meaning with the growth of Wiggins, Lavine, Rubio and KAT), so there might still need to be improvements down the road.

Wolfson said nets and Lakers were the team's interested. Nobody on the Nets I want and nobody on the Lakers that I would want we could get (maybe clarkson)

kurrdog53 wrote:I see this report or article as the truth but also as a smokescreen. I think they know he might have value and another team might be able to give him more minutes. So why not say he is valuable to us and that we plan to keep him...might make other teams salivate a little more. I like Shabazz and know he helps us, but if a better player is out there and Shabazz becomes the asset to trade, I am all for it. I am not convinced we have a championship roster right now (meaning with the growth of Wiggins, Lavine, Rubio and KAT), so there might still need to be improvements down the road.

Yeah, it's kind of funny to think that the Wolves would be so deadset against moving a largely one-dimensional player who gets only 17 mpg a game in his 3rd year for a possible 50-loss team...

Especially since there's no clearcut path for the guy to even get more minutes moving forward if Wiggins and LaVine improve as everybody hopes.

kekgeek1 wrote:Wolfson said nets and Lakers were the team's interested. Nobody on the Nets I want and nobody on the Lakers that I would want we could get (maybe clarkson)

Kobe
Nick Young
Lou Williams
Shabazz Muhammad

Yikes.

TheSP wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:Would the Lakers be dumb enough to do D'Angelo Russell for Shabazz?

No.

More clarity please.