Minnesota Sports Forum

I think after some things didn't go the way Flip envisioned early on, he did an admirable job of scrambling to make improvements as the offseason wore on. He had his eyes set on a couple players in the draft that he couldn't work a deal for but then made a deal to insure that we got Dieng. He probably wanted some other players in free agency that didn't work out, but then rallied to at least bring in Martin and Brewer, while not losing Budinger. But as SJM said, I think he has built a lower level playoff team without much potential for improvement beyond that. I know that will satisfy a lot of people, but I'm not one of them. We still need the great 2-way shooting guard to be a real contender. I just don't see a path to getting that player any longer.

The next couple roster spots are really as much about the upgrade in development and talent than impact although the previous guys really shouldn't have had much impact either.

Dieng has a lot high ceiling than Gelly and honestly his impact this season should be more significant. As a guy that really want Deing in the draft I see this as a big upgrade.

Shabazz should be an upgrade longterm in talent over Lee. We will see. I think if there was a great degree of certainty Lee was healthy he would be still on the roster and a useful guy but that's not the case. Personally I think Lee is more equal to whoever may end up on the roster that was opened up with the trade like Lorenzo Brown but who knows maybe we don't fill this spot so yeah.

I think Martin will be better than most think here.

Most of my > then are because of fit. It will make the team better. I wish we could have kept AK some how.

I think a line up a Rubio, Martin, AK , Love, and Pekovic would have been very tough.

I could have seen a bench of JJ, Shved, Shabazz, Williams, and Turiaf. Pick up vet minimum players like Francisco Garcia, Ronnie Brewer, and Anthony Morrow to go with Cunningham and Diegu.

Overall I sort of agaree with most Flip did a solid job the guys in and out don't really blow you away. The thing is the guys that were brought in fit the team needs, system and the roster is very well balenced in pretty much every way I can think of. Personally I was realy hoping we would avoid Mayo so that's a big plus in my book.

To the people that say this team is now topped out as a 50 win team and not a contender I think that's just not true if Love Rubio and Pek are healthy. Those guys are a very good trio and its not like the cupboard is bare after those guys. There is a nice mix of vets, young vets and young talent that this team could become evn better over time. If Martin also stays healthy that's a legit big 4 players. As it stands health is the biggest thing holding this team back. After that its just not knowing how the team comes together but with adelman coaching you gotta feel that's going to work itself out.

I'm not understanding how some of you are giving him a C grade. I'm reading your posts and it's just not making sense.

Q, you're giving him a C pretty much because he didn't re-sign AK, while you have no idea how the negotiations went down. In your grading process, to basically ignore the Martin, Bud, Brewer, Turiaf signings while focusing solely on AK's departure isn't fair to Flip. You said yourself that Martin = AK, right? So then how come Flip isn't getting fair credit from you for bringing in more than that? This off-season has been better than a C. C'mon now.

Sjm, you would have been willing to go $8M for Mayo and $12M for Iggy? Yikes. I'm 100% glad Flip didn't go that route. I wanted Mayo earlier in the off-season, but it was at the price we gave Martin. I'm not complaining with Martin, though. You give Flip a C for the off-season he had, but had you made those moves you said, we wouldn't have any depth at all because you'd have traded it all away just to fit two overpaid guys on the team.

Like I keep saying, you can attribute the Martin/Bud signings to Adelman and Rubio as much as you want to, but they got done. That's credit to Flip no matter how you want to criticize it. Flip's grade from me is an A. He handled the draft well considering who was available and his only "mistake" was paying Brewer about a mill over what he should have, but this is Minnesota and we are going to have to overpay in some instances. We all know this, yet continue to get upset when it happens.

monsterpile wrote:The next couple roster spots are really as much about the upgrade in development and talent than impact although the previous guys really shouldn't have had much impact either.

Dieng has a lot high ceiling than Gelly and honestly his impact this season should be more significant. As a guy that really want Deing in the draft I see this as a big upgrade.

Shabazz should be an upgrade longterm in talent over Lee. We will see. I think if there was a great degree of certainty Lee was healthy he would be still on the roster and a useful guy but that's not the case. Personally I think Lee is more equal to whoever may end up on the roster that was opened up with the trade like Lorenzo Brown but who knows maybe we don't fill this spot so yeah.

Monster, the best teams in the NBA are where they are because of 3-4 top players. Anybody past the 8th spot in the rotation is pretty much meaningless in this league. Only a few guys on each team can truly make an impact. So it doesn't matter one bit that Shabazz is a better 12th player than Lee. Bottom of the roster transactions are good for message board chatter, but that's about it. If you ever get to a point in the season where you have to rely on the 10 - 15th guys, your season is lost anyway.

"If you ever get to a point in the season where you have to rely on the 10 - 15th guys, your season is lost anyway."

Really good point Cool.

I like to think that several of our additions this summer give us much greater flexibility in putting different looks on the floor or countering opponents strategy. There will undoubtedly be some injuries so I think the guys on down the roster will be more apt in stepping up than guys on the end of our bench last season. The one player I am going to highlight as helping out a contender is Chris Anderson, I know they had LeBron, but he added athleticism in their front court which greatly helped them in the playoffs with easy buckets & putbacks

Yep Cool I totaly agree with your point that the last few roster spots only matter so much. I do think this team has some nice depth but we though that last year before all the injuries came crashing down. We will see how it all works out. Bazz is basically a developmental guy at this point which is just fine.