Q12543 wrote:WildWolf2813 wrote:
I'm convinced not many people in or out of the Wolves organization wants to see this kid make it.
That's ridiculous. The bottom line is that he was a train wreck in Summer League, preseason, and in the brief stints he's played in garbage time. He is totally overmatched by the NBA game right now. He should really be in the D-League to get some reps. If he performs well down there, then yeah, let's bring him back up and give him another shot.
History tells us otherwise with this team.
Remember when Jonny Flynn had a really good Summer League? What did this team proceed to do? Hire a coach to not teach him the triangle only to teach him the triangle. Not that I wanna compare the two, but find me the Wolves player that actually got developed well. I don't know about you but I refuse to give this team the benefit of the doubt, and I have a right to. Who have we remotely developed?
What did this team do? Instead of letting Shabazz get reps out there during games where we just wanna see what he can do, we wanted to fix every problem he had in a handful of Vegas games. If Summer League was so important, why is it that most of the guys that actually did well in Summer League (guys like Key-Key Clark, John Holland, Brandon Paul, etc.) not even invited to camp, let alone have a shot at the roster?
If Flip was cognizant of the situation at hand, why did he draft 2 guys, 1 of them any fool could have seen having a bit of a style clash with Adelman? If Flip wanted to see Shabazz do well, why did he practically apologize for picking him? Flip on draft night reacted like he went to go take a leak with his picks queued up and came back with Shabazz autopicked for him. If he wanted to see him do well, why did he threaten Shabazz with D-League demotion only to back track and act like D-League would be great for him anyway?
If Flip knew the coach he figured would come back (and assumed he would), why not draft and stash? Why not draft a more ready made player? This isn't some grand scheme to see Shabazz emerge as a player that can play ahead of the guys he gave $15 mil apiece to in Brewer and Budinger and now Mbah a Moute.
If Flip wanted to see him do well, why are we trying to bury him on the depth chart now and for the foreseeable future (because if he ever sees the light of day on the court, we'll find out he's not a SG. He's a SF)? If we wanted to see him do well, why are we dismissing his career based on a smattering of late game blowouts where he hasn't seen more than a handful of minutes? Was he supposed to do prime Paul Pierce numbers in a game that was out of hand well before he stepped on the court? If he had done anything well, we would have chalked it up to it being a blowout and playing against nobodies, yet he gets the jitters and we're ready to punt him anywhere else but here. You think Rick cares about what Shabazz will be in 2-3 years when he's retired? You think Flip cares about what he'll do when he won't even be the one to coach him? If he could deal Shabazz for a VERY marginal and short sighted upgrade, he would.
We've heard nothing but good things said about him as a worker, listener and teammate. He's got Love and Martin taking him under their wings. He hasn't complained. He hasn't sulked. He hasn't gotten into trouble. He has said the right things, meanwhile all fans seemingly wanna remember is him being upset about a game winning shot from Drew at UCLA. That's like me watching Chris Paul in an NBA Cares commercial yet refusing to let go of the image of him punching Julius Hodge in the nuts in college because I refuse to see him in any other light. We've never given him a clean slate. We're not holding out hope that he gets a chance and does well. We'd rather pack his bags.
Ask yourself this. If Muhammad was in D-League and tore the league up, would Adelman know or care? No. Why? Because when this team needed bodies just to fill roster space last year, they never went to the D-League to promote anyone. We'd rather bring back Lazar Hayward to speak to spirits. For a team as horribly developed as this one, this team NEVER uses D-League to scout, develop, or promote talent, and not even now, not under Flip, the D-League advocate. He wouldn't even use it for guys like Muhammad and Dieng because even he knows it's punishment.
If what Muhammad is getting from the team or the fans is support, care, and proper development, I'd love to see what we do to guys we blatantly can't stand.
