Minnesota Sports Forum

I'd give Flip a pass on Martin. He tried hard to get Redick and after missing out on him you've got Kevin Martin behind door #1, O.J. Mayo behind door #2, and incumbent starter at SG Luke Ridnour behind door #3. (Ridnour wasn't a real option, just saying the market for starting SGs was slim last offseason)

The contract is too long, but what are your alternatives if they hold firm on 3 years for Martin? It's more indicative of the Wolves history but if he plays 65 games a year with 15-18 PPG for the rest of its duration, could sadly be the best free agent signing in team history?

zigzag22 wrote:Lip--Good stuff as always, but my only comment would be that the hiring of Ryan Saunders was greatly applauded around different blogs and the Twittersphere (where MY sources are haha). I know it's Flip's son, but a lot of NBA guys and writers credit him specifically for the development of Wall and Beal over the last few seasons, and say this he is an up-and-coming stud in terms of basketball analytics, which is something this team DESPERATELY needs.

Zig -- Good points about Ryan. I had heard some of that, but not all. I'd feel better about the Ryan hiring if Flip had at least brought one person into the organization from outside his own inner circle. So it's the cumulative effect that bugs me. I guess the counter is that you want people around you who you know and can trust and who will understand exactly what you want. My point is that the best executives in my experience tend to bring in at least one of two high level people from outside their circle who can bring fresh perspectives and challenge them.

foye2smith wrote:I'd give Flip a pass on Martin. He tried hard to get Redick and after missing out on him you've got Kevin Martin behind door #1, O.J. Mayo behind door #2, and incumbent starter at SG Luke Ridnour behind door #3.

The contract is too long, but what are your alternatives if they hold firm on 3 years for Martin? It's more indicative of the Wolves history but if he plays 65 games a year with 15-18 PPG for the rest of its duration, could sadly be the best free agent signing in team history?

lol. Yes, it's sad that 65 games a year could make Martin the best FA signing in Wolves history. I definitely understand Flip's thinking behind the Martin signing. If it had been up to me, I would have taken a pass on Martin and signed someone like Jodie Meeks. I'll add that what makes the Martin signing so bad in my view is the cumulative combination with the contracts handed out to Budinger, Corey and Pekovic. Too may lucrative longer term contracts to mediocre players, two of them with significant injury histories or, in Pek's case, a very good player with a history of missing lots of games due to injury.

I have to admit Martin was a big disappointment for me, and even though I sense it was a concession to Rick, I still hold Flip accountable as PBO. Martin is a great shooter and scorer, but his porous defense, bench demeanor, and tendency to disappear at crunch time, he was not a positive influence on the team. He still has value as a sharpshooter off the bench for 15-20 a game, but that's all.

Mook from the "highpost" man that's a trip down memory lane. I wonder where good ole Mook and Narf are these days?

A Friendly Flatulence wrote:Mook from the "highpost" man that's a trip down memory lane. I wonder where good ole Mook and Narf are these days?

Hazelden?

Another thread judging a guy way before he should be judged. He's completed 2 drafts and 1 offseason. He's only given out 1 bad deal in Bud because you can't call getting Martin at 6.5 and Brewer at 5 bad deals. They started and were part of one of the best lineups in the league with Ricky, Love and Pek while making MLE to just above MLE level money. With guys like Meeks getting 6 million a year, how is getting actual starters at around that money a bad deal? Given that draft picks shouldn't be judged until after year 3 at the earliest, we shouldn't be judging Flip on his picks until that time. He hasn't coached a game for us with this team, so he shouldn't be judged as a coach. He hasn't coached in a few years so I don't see how that is relevant to how he is going to coach this team, this year. You should be judging him on what he does this year as a coach more than assuming he is probably not going to be great at it because "how can he be good when nobody else wanted him?". He's had 1 offseason (working on number 2) and our W-L increased by 9 games with a ton a roster turnover and a coach who threw in the towel in terms of giving a crap half-way through the season.

You say you don't hate Flip, but you nitpick the crap out of him and expect what you would consider perfection otherwise it was a mistake to hire him (you should be the guy saying "it's my money and I want it now" because you have no patience with Flip right now and your posts are definitely showing it). He tried to appease a HOF coach and put a team on the floor that coach wanted. You can't fault a GM for bringing in guys that were going to perform well in Adelman's system who in turn did play well (Brewer had probably his best overall year of his career and Martin was a solid perimeter scoring option for slightly above MLE money). The only deal that didn't work out was Bud and that deal was decided by the market and the coach. Flip didn't trade for Bud, but he paid what the market was going to give Bud to keep a veteran of the system on the team. That is the 1 bad FA deal he has made so far. D Will didn't do crap in Sacramento just like LRMAM didn't do crap here so that is a wash.

As to your source, there have been multiple other sources who have said the Love/Martin deal was agreed in principle and that it was the extra pieces like Barnes and picks holding it up, so there are too many different reports to say for sure what is happening with that deal. You have your sources and the reporters have theirs, so it's not fair to say that yours is going to be any better than theirs when everyone is anonymous to begin with. Just because you don't view the people Flip brought in as good basketball people, doesn't mean they are automatically not going to work out here. You should actually give Flip, this team and these coaches more than 1 year before continuing to passive-aggressively bash him while saying you aren't that much against him. You couldn't even wait for this offseason to conclude or the Summer League to begin before you bring it back into the fold how little room Flip has for error. That's the actions of a person looking for failure at every turn whether you want to admit it or not. Flip may not work out, but he also has a chance at working out and we won't know for another 2 seasons in my mind. 3 years is enough time to mold a team how you want, put the people in place you want and give them a years worth of continuity to see if you did it right.

I think Martin and Brew's deals were bad not for last year, but for the future years where they obiviously won't be as valuable.

In saying that though however, given the contracts given out this off season so far, they don't look so bad

alexftbl8181 wrote:I think Martin and Brew's deals were bad not for last year, but for the future years where they obiviously won't be as valuable.

In saying that though however, given the contracts given out this off season so far, they don't look so bad

Although Martin ended up really pissing me off last year, you make a good point about this year's non-wolf deals shedding a more positive light on last year's signings. For instance, I was critical of the size of the Pek deal, but with Gortat getting the same this year, it doesn't look as bad.

I'm struck by the fact that everything under the bad heading has always been believed to be moves Adelman wanted rather than Flip. I realize as POBO he needs to have a long term view but the belief was the team had a HOF coach and an injury riddled team that only needed tweaks to make the jump into the playoffs so I have to give Flip a pass on those.

I agree with everything else but mostly having to many yes men surrounding you is never a good thing!

Great post as usual LIp, in spite of the newbs opinions!!