Minnesota Sports Forum

It all comes down to on-court execution by the players. I think we've been inconsistent there, and that's not really the coach's fault.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Well, Thibs can give these guys the blueprint to winning basketball games, but it's up to them to stick to the game plan and make those plays. For instance, dribbling the ball up the floor and shooting 18-footers early in the shot clock is not part of the plan. Jogging back in transition allowing unconstested layups is not part of the plan. Passing the ball into the fifth row resulting in a turnover is not part of the plan. Dribbling the ball off your knee/foot and watching it go out of bounds is not part of the plan. I think that's enough examples. The head coach can only control so much.

Just because the players are the same doesn't mean if you take the coach out of the equation that you automatically have the same or better production from last year. Ricky has played like pure and utter dog shit this year. How is that Thibs' fault? Ricky is playing within 1 MPG this year from last and yet his shooting percentages are dramatically down across the board and his do shit stats are down as well. We're giving 30 MPG's to a guy playing bad defense and averaging 6.1/6.7/3.9 on 33/25/72 splits. Compare that to last year's 10.1/8.6/4.3 on 37/33/85 with good defense and that is a major flip from good to bad. Offensively the other 4 are at/near or slightly better than what they did last year. We just have to call it what it is. In a strong PG league, ours is playing like garbage.

24/4 Conley
28/8/6 Westbrook
19/8/4. CP3
30/6/5. Kemba
29/3/2. Isaiah Thomas
34/6/8. Steph

Those are the real PG's that we've played this year and we lost every single one of those games (including another Memphis game Conley wasn't great in, but was still good). It's not all on Rubio, but some of you had him as the second most important player on this team behind KAT coming into the year and he just hasn't been close to that guy. He's not playing well and it shows. We've only managed to overcome his deficit at the position once this year against PHX (Bledsoe went for 23/10/6) and PHX has been a bad team this year. The rest of the wins have been against mediocre to bad PG's. Ricky is supposed to be the leader of this team, but he's playing horribly and the leader can't be someone who can't put the team on their back on occasion and win you a game. But by all means, keep piling on Thibs while ignoring what's really going on. The starting PG he inherited isn't living up to what he showed last year. That's not on the coach.

khans2k5 wrote:Just because the players are the same doesn't mean if you take the coach out of the equation that you automatically have the same or better production from last year. Ricky has played like pure and utter dog shit this year. How is that Thibs' fault? Ricky is playing within 1 MPG this year from last and yet his shooting percentages are dramatically down across the board and his do shit stats are down as well. We're giving 30 MPG's to a guy playing bad defense and averaging 6.1/6.7/3.9 on 33/25/72 splits. Compare that to last year's 10.1/8.6/4.3 on 37/33/85 with good defense and that is a major flip from good to bad. Offensively the other 4 are at/near or slightly better than what they did last year. We just have to call it what it is. In a strong PG league, ours is playing like garbage.

24/4 Conley
28/8/6 Westbrook
19/8/4. CP3
30/6/5. Kemba
29/3/2. Isaiah Thomas
34/6/8. Steph

Those are the real PG's that we've played this year and we lost every single one of those games (including another Memphis game Conley wasn't great in, but was still good). It's not all on Rubio, but some of you had him as the second most important player on this team
behind KAT coming into the year and he just hasn't been close to that guy. He's not playing well and it shows. We've only managed to overcome his deficit at the position once this year against PHX (Bledsoe went for 23/10/6) and PHX has been a bad team this year. The rest of the wins have been against mediocre to bad PG's. Ricky is supposed to be the leader of this team, but he's playing horribly and the leader can't be someone who can't put the team on their back on occasion and win you a game. But by all means, keep piling on Thibs while ignoring what's really going on. The starting PG he inherited isn't living up to what he showed last year. That's not on the coach.

I agree Rubio has played poorly, but I also think Thibs has taken the ball out of his hands by design, which in turn leads to fewer assists, FGAs, and FTAs. When a guy is sporting a 12% usage rate, it's just hard to get into any sort of rhythm.

Guess who has mostly soaked up that usage? Wiggins. Guess whose assist rate has flat-lined since his rookie year? Wiggins. Guess whose scoring efficiency is down this year? Wiggins. Guess who else's scoring efficiency is down this year? KAT. May be they aren't getting as many easy looks as before? And may be they aren't quite the play maker Rubio is?

I'm a pragmatist. It's clear to me that Thibs is phasing out Rubio - or the need for any type of ball dominant PG for that matter since it's a position we can't pay max $ to as long as these other guys are around. But in the meantime, we are suffering for it as these other guys just haven't figured out how to make others around them better yet.....or play defense.

Camden wrote:It all comes down to on-court execution by the players. I think we've been inconsistent there, and that's not really the coach's fault.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Well, Thibs can give these guys the blueprint to winning basketball games, but it's up to them to stick to the game plan and make those plays. For instance, dribbling the ball up the floor and shooting 18-footers early in the shot clock is not part of the plan. Jogging back in transition allowing unconstested layups is not part of the plan. Passing the ball into the fifth row resulting in a turnover is not part of the plan. Dribbling the ball off your knee/foot and watching it go out of bounds is not part of the plan. I think that's enough examples. The head coach can only control so much.

You're right that the players ultimately have to execute. But it's the same players playing worse even after a summer of off-season work and the only change is the head coach and coaching staff. I recall players dribbling the ball off themselves and watching it go out of bounds last season. I also recall players not hustling to loose balls and jogging back in transition last season. But overall this team is statistically worse this season, particularly when compared to the post-allstar period last season. We just can't ignore the obvious and go out of our ways to blame the players as if the head coach is an innocent bystander while players have inexplicably and counterintuitively regressed. It makes no sense.

However, I think we could both be right in this sense. The on-court execution might be worse because the players are still learning and adapting to a very different style and approach that will ultimately make us better in the long run. It still see that as a distinct possibility, which is why I'm not prepared to make anything close to a definitive judgment until at least mid-December or perhaps January.

I can handle some growing pains in hopes the product on the court eventually matures into a winner. We weren't exactly killing it when Rubio's usage rate was higher in previous years. I would hope the new coach would do some things differently.

I know hard core fans like us want to see tangible evidence that things are better. It's what we do on this message board as we drill down into every granular aspect of our performance in hopes of making some judgements. But it's just too early to blame Thibs or the players for that matter on what has transpired. Things are eventually going to shake out and some things will become obvious. We're just not there yet.

I am not giving up yet on this team or Thibs. I think the sample size is still too small and there may be growing pains adjusting to Thibs, however, if we don't improve as the year continues, I'll certainly lay plenty of blame on Thibs as well as some players. Thibs doesn't deserve a free pass because he's not playing. We've never given any other Wolves coach a free pass and I think most of our past coaches would have gotten more criticism had they produced the results that Thibs has done so far.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I can handle some growing pains in hopes the product on the court eventually matures into a winner. We weren't exactly killing it when Rubio's usage rate was higher in previous years. I would hope the new coach would do some things differently.

I know hard core fans like us want to see tangible evidence that things are better. It's what we do on this message board as we drill down into every granular aspect of our performance in hopes of making some judgements. But it's just too early to blame Thibs or the players for that matter on what has transpired. Things are eventually going to shake out and some things will become obvious. We're just not there yet.

Well said, Cool.

I think q's point has some serioua merit about phasing Rubio out and being less pg dominant team.

Thanks (I think?) for the stats, q...I agree that they paint a very sad picture about our new coaching regime indeed. I also agree that it's not time to give up hope because we are only 20% done with the season, and Thibs may still turn this around. But leaving hope aside for a moment, the numbers are indisputable...the much maligned Sam Mitchell was much more successful in coaching the starters than Tom Thibodeau. I love the talent on this roster and am clinging to the hope that Thibs will change what he is doing, and the strong performance in the second half in Phoenix gives us some hope that he made some modifications to his approach. The fresh legs in the 4th quarter (first time we have seen that all year?) makes me think he may have softened up his practice the day before games...let's hope so. I've also seen him let the PG run the offense in 4th quarters instead of asking Wig to run the offense, albeit with the PG he has designated as 3rd string.

Two winnable home games this week for Thibs to show us he can make necessary adjustments...anything less than 2-0 will be very disappointing to me.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I can handle some growing pains in hopes the product on the court eventually matures into a winner. We weren't exactly killing it when Rubio's usage rate was higher in previous years. I would hope the new coach would do some things differently.

I know hard core fans like us want to see tangible evidence that things are better. It's what we do on this message board as we drill down into every granular aspect of our performance in hopes of making some judgements. But it's just too early to blame Thibs or the players for that matter on what has transpired. Things are eventually going to shake out and some things will become obvious. We're just not there yet.

No it's not. We're 5-11. That's not theory - it's real. They are underperforming even the most pessimistic fans' expectations.

One can analyze and judge what has transpired to date, while holding out hope that things can still turn around in the future. I've even speculated that perhaps we take two steps backwards in order to take multiple steps forward.