Minnesota Sports Forum

Lip, we thought you and cam left us for.realgm. Nice report. Glad we were able to hold off the Monroe-less Pistons. Also encouraging to see Pek rebound from the previous nights disaster.

Plus a win on a back to back. Bonus!

BizarroJerry wrote:Lip, we thought you and cam left us for.realgm. Nice report. Glad we were able to hold off the Monroe-less Pistons. Also encouraging to see Pek rebound from the previous nights disaster.

Plus a win on a back to back. Bonus!

I checked out realgm. Wolves lose to the Grizzles on the road and all hope is lost, win against the Pistons and it's fighting for the number 1 seed. It's annoying as hell

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Thanks Lip. We need to get your prediction in the wins thread asap.

And anybody know what happened to Cam?

Hey Cool. I'll go on record here predicting 32 wins. We're not good enough now to win that many games, but I'm counting on improvement from the younger guys. Wiggins still has a long way to go, but he already has an NBA game. LaVine seems to have a steeper development curve than Wiggins, so I'm not counting on much from his this season. Bennett is living up to my expectations, which were higher than many on this Board. But still not sure about him. Have to give credit to Flip for bringing in quality vets like Mo Williams and Thad Young. If Wiggins suddenly breaks through this season, things could get very interesting.

Thanks as always for the report Lip. I just finished watching this game. A couple of observations to add.

Wiggins does need to work on his handle but he had 2 really nice passes on drives that were really impressive. Pete mentioned how on one postup play he just went too fast. I think thats part of Wiggins problem he is too athletic for his skill level. He both has to slow down or smooth things out and improve his ball-handling. Its clear though he has some really high upside as a post up guy for mid-range jumpers. He is a VERY young guy to have some ability in that area already and potential for alot more. He has alot to work on but I like what he has to work with. There is actually something there.

Bazz only had 1 rebound in the box score, but I think he is going to get minutes becasue he is a force on the board as a wing player an that helps at times when we need some rebounding. This is a better team rebounding squad than we saw before and part of that is they know they have to get to balls they aren't just waiting for Love to gobble them up. Also I've seen alot of guys fighting for the rebounds. DAMN Flip better set those guys straight keeping them from padding their stats!!! Sorry I just couldn't help it. Back to Bazz the guy really has looked pretty good so far I have been pulling for him, but he has looked better than I was hoping for although I had pretty reasonable expectations.

Lots of praise for Flip as a coach. I think Flip really has got these guys playing team basketball. He has talked about trying to emulate the Spurs and Flip has talked about TEAM since the season ended. So far he has put guys in spots to succeed and the team is playing together even when they are playing poorly better than they were last year. That was a real strength of Flip when he was the Wolves coach before. I thought it was interesting the stat they pulled up in the first game about Flip's record in games decided by 4 points or less was really impressive as a Wolves coach. Another interesting thing is the Wolves have started out by getting to the line at a pretty good rate. There are aggressive players going to the rim on this team.

LavIne got some real minutes and he didn't really help but he didn't hurt the team either which is probably a bit of a success. LOL

Caron Butler dude just walk off the court and retire after that performance..well if they had won. lol Unbelievable. I've always liked that guy wow I wasn't sure an ice bucket challenge was gonna cool him off. Glad he finally missed a shot.

It will be interesting to see if Thad can keep hitting 3's at a reasonable rate. He actually brings some of the same aspects on offense that Love does in that if he can hit enough open 3's he is able to score all over the floor.

lipoli390 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Thanks Lip. We need to get your prediction in the wins thread asap.

And anybody know what happened to Cam?

Hey Cool. I'll go on record here predicting 32 wins. We're not good enough now to win that many games, but I'm counting on improvement from the younger guys. Wiggins still has a long way to go, but he already has an NBA game. LaVine seems to have a steeper development curve than Wiggins, so I'm not counting on much from his this season. Bennett is living up to my expectations, which were higher than many on this Board. But still not sure about him. Have to give credit to Flip for bringing in quality vets like Mo Williams and Thad Young. If Wiggins suddenly breaks through this season, things could get very interesting.

I'm not trying to sell Lavine short here, but to me right now basically what he brings is a scorer and in some ways thats going to be hard for him to find his way. Flip put him in at a time when it mattered and I don't think he blew it so I think the guy could still end up contributing this year even if there are not a ton of injuries. One thing I see that will help him get minutes is he can get rebounds which could get him some time.

Overall I've been impressed with this team more than I expected, but I refuse to worry about a win-loss total. I'm just along for the ride. So far its been bumpy but pretty fun.