Camden wrote:Can I throw this tidbit in here too? I've only seen it said maybe once or twice, but it's been on everyone's mind for years now I'd bet. Even with Love our ceiling is capped, unless we get really lucky and strike gold on a draft pick. I'd rather rebuild properly and boost this team's potential than hope to be a 2nd round exit.
I know we're supposed to want to change the culture, but the big goal is to build a winner. I wouldn't be satisfied with a team I knew had no chance at winning a championship.
Two thoughts on this. First, some of us actually like watching good, competitive basketball, even if our team may not win the title. I enjoyed watching this past season's squad, which was by far the best product they put out on the floor in nearly a decade. They were better than their 40-wins indicated IMO too.
Second, if your sole goal is to win a title, and being "just" a playoff team isn't good enough for you, than the first thing you need is a superstar. Other than Kevin Garnett, Kevin Love is the closest thing we have had to a superstar in this franchise's history. The best chance this team has of contending in the short-term is to keep Kevin Love. Everyone else is fair game, but he must be kept if you have any chance of contending next season. If you want to throw in the towel on that in the interest of tearing things down to the studs so that we can rebuild "properly", than you are probably looking at another 3-5 years of sub-30 win seasons. That might be something you will happily live with, but the majority of fans are not and it could very well lead to an existential crisis for this club.
Has a rebuilding "properly" ever won the title in the history of the NBA? Seriously there's been like 5 teams that have ever won the title
How can anyone be a basketball fan and have an attitude of title or bust? Only 1 team gets to win the title every year. So your saying that the other 29 teams should call their seasons a bust because they didn't win the title? Only 8 teams have won the title in the last 20 years out of 30 total teams. That's a little more than a quarter of the league in the last 20 years. How can you possibly be title or bust when almost 75% of the league hasn't won a title in the last 20 years. You can't win a title if you are never competitive to begin with and that is where we are and will be if we strip it to the studs yet again. I'll take a string of playoff exits any day of the week because then at least we are part of the 53% of teams who can say their seasons weren't complete failures on a yearly basis. You should probably not be a Minnesota fan if you only care about titles because we haven't seen any in a major male sport since '91.
mrhockey89 wrote:I think the Wolves ultimate key to success is finding more 2 way players. Look up and down the roster, the Wolves really lack many of those..
mrhockey89 wrote:I think the Wolves ultimate key to success is finding more 2 way players. Look up and down the roster, the Wolves really lack many of those..
Uhh JJ? He sucks at offense AND defense
Which reminds me..we also lack players who are are prototypical NBA size.. JJ is tiny, Love is productive but he's limited in defensive matchups, Pekovic is a beast inside and has plenty of size, but lacks length, Brewer has decent length but is a twig...and when we did have those guys, they were named Martel Webster and would go in for a dunk when down by three with 5 seconds left.
I don't have an attitude of title or bust. But I do have an attitude of title, building for a title, or bust. I definitely don't want a franchise building for the final 16. That just doesn't excite me in the least. If there is no hope for the year or next few years what's the point?
Lets say you have a team and Love is available would you give up some pretty good assets if you thought you had a chance to keep Love? Its been reported even the Kings are willing to do just that. WHY WOULD WE NOT TRY AND DO THE SAME THING? I'll tell you why we don't know whether Flip and the wolves organization has what it takes to make the right moves this offseason to improve the team. We have been lulled into optimism too many years its a tough sell with so much riding on whether or not the team makes the playoffs. We have 2-3 significant players that are injury concerns. We don't know if Bazz will bring anything next year. We dont' know if any of our picks will be rotation players. If Bud is healthy he would help at least give a legit bench player we sorely missed last year. Can Flip add the right backup PG? The Pacers, Memphis, Bulls those teams have been able to build through the draft finding good or at least solid players even late in the draft that have helped them win. Dieng is the first guy thats been anything worth mentioning since Rubio as a draft pick for he Wolves. Thats embarrassing.
Flip doesn't even have to work super magic to make this team better. Get a solid rotation player that contributes right away at #13 (the odds are against it but its not too much to ask) pick up a couple solid bench players and cross your fingers that Bud gets and stays healthy. yes every team will theoretically get better but I'll mention this. Even though the Wolves will be playing with a new coach it will be the 2nd year this group has played together and that will be significant if it happens. Last year people forgot that alot of the key players hadn't really played with each other that much. Continuity tend to make a difference. Even adding the right backup PG could make JJ more useful if he does stick around.
My point is that if a bunch of other teams are so desperate to get their hands on Love why not do whatever you can to keep him? I think Flip and Glenn are looking at it that way also but if someone really blows them away with an offer then maybe they do take it. Realistically I dont' think anyone hear really believes in the Wolves doing the right thing no matter what happens. Thats why we are so conflicted. Its a little unfair to Flip he has only been on the job a year and his first year I think he made some pretty solid moves, but some bad luck like Bud getting hurt again and Adelman predictably not being as bought in as he would be any other season didn't help. I feel like the bottom end of the roster was a fail with no real backup PG. Like I've said in this long winded post if we had a real sense of confidence in the Wolves I don't think we would be really giving up so easily on Love which also is why Love is silent as well and so the consensus is nobody is really mad at him because we get why he is looking at leaving.
Camden wrote:Can I throw this tidbit in here too? I've only seen it said maybe once or twice, but it's been on everyone's mind for years now I'd bet. Even with Love our ceiling is capped, unless we get really lucky and strike gold on a draft pick. I'd rather rebuild properly and boost this team's potential than hope to be a 2nd round exit.
I know we're supposed to want to change the culture, but the big goal is to build a winner. I wouldn't be satisfied with a team I knew had no chance at winning a championship.
Two thoughts on this. First, some of us actually like watching good, competitive basketball, even if our team may not win the title. I enjoyed watching this past season's squad, which was by far the best product they put out on the floor in nearly a decade. They were better than their 40-wins indicated IMO too.
Second, if your sole goal is to win a title, and being "just" a playoff team isn't good enough for you, than the first thing you need is a superstar. Other than Kevin Garnett, Kevin Love is the closest thing we have had to a superstar in this franchise's history. The best chance this team has of contending in the short-term is to keep Kevin Love. Everyone else is fair game, but he must be kept if you have any chance of contending next season. If you want to throw in the towel on that in the interest of tearing things down to the studs so that we can rebuild "properly", than you are probably looking at another 3-5 years of sub-30 win seasons. That might be something you will happily live with, but the majority of fans are not and it could very well lead to an existential crisis for this club.
I enjoy watching good, competitive basketball too. But I also don't think we'll be a poor basketball team (results or entertainment-wise) if we trade Love. We'd take two steps back to try and take five steps forward. Better than their 40 wins this year, yes, but they had no chance to make it to the conferance final let alone anything higher than that. This is the point I'm illustrating. At some point, the process has to be done correctly with an NBA championship in mind. Hanging on to Love and company right now ensures that our ceiling is capped, barring some good luck in the draft.
10 years without playoff basketball sucks. I get it, but just making the playoffs and knowing that's the potential for the team isn't fully satisfying. If Glen Taylor thinks the way that you do, this franchise really is doomed.
"The best chance this team has of contending in the short-term is to keep Kevin Love."
Really not sure why you started talking about this. We're not contending for a championship with or without Love in the short term.
khans2k5 wrote:How can anyone be a basketball fan and have an attitude of title or bust? Only 1 team gets to win the title every year. So your saying that the other 29 teams should call their seasons a bust because they didn't win the title? Only 8 teams have won the title in the last 20 years out of 30 total teams. That's a little more than a quarter of the league in the last 20 years. How can you possibly be title or bust when almost 75% of the league hasn't won a title in the last 20 years. You can't win a title if you are never competitive to begin with and that is where we are and will be if we strip it to the studs yet again. I'll take a string of playoff exits any day of the week because then at least we are part of the 53% of teams who can say their seasons weren't complete failures on a yearly basis. You should probably not be a Minnesota fan if you only care about titles because we haven't seen any in a major male sport since '91.
This is an empty post. My entire argument was based on wanting to have a championship ceiling aka title contender. How many title contenders have there been? A bunch. There were five-six this year. Not once did I say title or bust. Slow your roll.
CoolBreeze44 wrote:I don't have an attitude of title or bust. But I do have an attitude of title, building for a title, or bust. I definitely don't want a franchise building for the final 16. That just doesn't excite me in the least. If there is no hope for the year or next few years what's the point?
Ding ding ding! This is what I'm talking about. Agreed.
