Minnesota Sports Forum

monsterpile wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:Monster, you make a great point that Young has played completely different for different coaches...his year-to-year stats sometimes don't even look like the same player. Take a look at his three-point shooting. Last year, he jacked up 292 threes, or almost four per game...more threes than free throws! In contrast, in three years under Doug Collins, he only tried 34 threes total.

I'm hoping Flip encourages Young to be the Doug Collins version, not the Thad Young from last year. We are not going to be successful if Young is shooting almost 4 threes per game at 31% and only pulling down 6 rebounds. If you watch Thad's shooting stroke, you have to conclude that he is not a long-distance shooter. His form is inconsistent and he struggles to stay balanced sometimes on his release, and if you watch his highlights last year, several of his successful threes were banked in (probably not intentionally)! Flip has already said that he wants Bennett to shoot fewer threes, so I suspect he will do the same with Young.

If Flip can convince Thad to give up the long-distance game and focus on staying inside, rebounding and playing defense, he can put up the kind of efficient stats he put up for Collins in 2012-13...15 and 7.5 on 53% shooting. Flip has to notice (and if not, son Ryan will point it out to him) that Young shot over 50% all three years Collins coached him, but only once in his other four years. Actually, I expect Young to get fewer minutes than he did with talent-challenged Philly, so I would be happy with 12 and 7 in 28 minutes of efficient shooting...that would be a great season.

I don't think its going to be hard to convince Thad to give up shooting 3's. I wouldn't mind him taking a few here and there its not like he totally sucks shooting them but yeah I think he will be back to an efficient guy that's more around the pained area than jacking up 3's. I wonder if anyone is going to play 35 minutes per game this year. I think Flip may really play guys and keep people fresh. Wolfson tweeted today that they want to keep pek's minutes under 30 per game. Sounds good to me.

It won't be hard at all to convince him, monster, because by all reports Thad is one of the most coachable players in the league. Just a quick look at the variance in his year-by-year stats shows that he does what his coach asks him to do...gotta be one of the big reasons Flip wants him.

Camden wrote:And we're back at it...

What makes you expect Young to player fewer minutes, or 28 in your estimation? Power forward is our weakest position right now with him being the only body capable of being productive. That's 20 minutes unaccounted for...

Cam, you know the answer to this one. Last year Philly had superstars like Lavoy Allen and Arnett Moultrie backing up Young at PF, so Thad had to be on the court whenever he was physically able to be. This year he has Anthony Bennett backing him up. I know you don't like him and I admit that his rookie year was forgettable, but he was a dominant beast two years ago and showed in summer league that last year was an aberration...and that he is ready to be productive in the NBA. His shoulder issues are behind him, he has lost a lot of weight since last year (not even taking into account what his current boot camp will do for him), has reportedly taken care of his sleep apnea issues, and has an enormous chip on his shoulder after his rookie flop. Combine these factors with his enormous talent, and he will force Flip to give him significant minutes. If Flip wants to play end-to-end up-tempo basketball, he is going to have to limit the overall minutes of his starters and maximize how he utilizes his bench. I look for both Young and Bennett to get significant minutes at PF this year, and the Wolves will be better if they do. But I agree that if the real Anthony Bennett turns out to be the rookie Bennett and not the UNLV and SL Bennett, then Young will get his 35 minutes...I just don't think that will happen.

I am not worried about Thad on offense. I doubt we call his number much, but he will get his.

This team should be able to play team defense with the best when Rubio,Brewer, Wiggins, Young, and Dieng are on the floor. They each can guard multiple positions fairly well and can rotate.

longstrangetrip wrote:

Camden wrote:And we're back at it...

What makes you expect Young to player fewer minutes, or 28 in your estimation? Power forward is our weakest position right now with him being the only body capable of being productive. That's 20 minutes unaccounted for...

Cam, you know the answer to this one. Last year Philly had superstars like Lavoy Allen and Arnett Moultrie backing up Young at PF, so Thad had to be on the court whenever he was physically able to be. This year he has Anthony Bennett backing him up. I know you don't like him and I admit that his rookie year was forgettable, but he was a dominant beast two years ago and showed in summer league that last year was an aberration...and that he is ready to be productive in the NBA. His shoulder issues are behind him, he has lost a lot of weight since last year (not even taking into account what his current boot camp will do for him), has reportedly taken care of his sleep apnea issues, and has an enormous chip on his shoulder after his rookie flop. Combine these factors with his enormous talent, and he will force Flip to give him significant minutes. If Flip wants to play end-to-end up-tempo basketball, he is going to have to limit the overall minutes of his starters and maximize how he utilizes his bench. I look for both Young and Bennett to get significant minutes at PF this year, and the Wolves will be better if they do. But I agree that if the real Anthony Bennett turns out to be the rookie Bennett and not the UNLV and SL Bennett, then Young will get his 35 minutes...I just don't think that will happen.

Its stuff like this that makes me understand why Cam gets so passionate about Thad. So Thad who has been a legit significant rotation player since he stepped foot in this league as a young rookie is going to lose minutes to Bennett who was worse as a rookie than the new Wolves punching bag Robbie Hummel? Come on let's be a little more realistic. I like Bennett and I'm glad we got him in the trade but I want to see him actually do something before I even consider him better than Dante was last year. I'm not trying to be a downer but some people have Bennett written in as a legit rotation player already with upside etc. He will get minutes because he is the only other true PF on the team but who lknows if he will actually be good. I'm optimistic about how he will do but him taking away Thad's minutes? Very unlikely.

bleedspeed177 wrote:I am not worried about Thad on offense. I doubt we call his number much, but he will get his.

This team should be able to play team defense with the best when Rubio,Brewer, Wiggins, Young, and Dieng are on the floor. They each can guard multiple positions fairly well and can rotate.

Good post although I think Thad will get some opportunities in the post to score and also passing the ball. I would LOVE to see that lineup you have there playing defense taking the ball from people.

monsterpile wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

Camden wrote:And we're back at it...

What makes you expect Young to player fewer minutes, or 28 in your estimation? Power forward is our weakest position right now with him being the only body capable of being productive. That's 20 minutes unaccounted for...

Cam, you know the answer to this one. Last year Philly had superstars like Lavoy Allen and Arnett Moultrie backing up Young at PF, so Thad had to be on the court whenever he was physically able to be. This year he has Anthony Bennett backing him up. I know you don't like him and I admit that his rookie year was forgettable, but he was a dominant beast two years ago and showed in summer league that last year was an aberration...and that he is ready to be productive in the NBA. His shoulder issues are behind him, he has lost a lot of weight since last year (not even taking into account what his current boot camp will do for him), has reportedly taken care of his sleep apnea issues, and has an enormous chip on his shoulder after his rookie flop. Combine these factors with his enormous talent, and he will force Flip to give him significant minutes. If Flip wants to play end-to-end up-tempo basketball, he is going to have to limit the overall minutes of his starters and maximize how he utilizes his bench. I look for both Young and Bennett to get significant minutes at PF this year, and the Wolves will be better if they do. But I agree that if the real Anthony Bennett turns out to be the rookie Bennett and not the UNLV and SL Bennett, then Young will get his 35 minutes...I just don't think that will happen.

Its stuff like this that makes me understand why Cam gets so passionate about Thad. So Thad who has been a legit significant rotation player since he stepped foot in this league as a young rookie is going to lose minutes to Bennett who was worse as a rookie than the new Wolves punching bag Robbie Hummel? Come on let's be a little more realistic. I like Bennett and I'm glad we got him in the trade but I want to see him actually do something before I even consider him better than Dante was last year. I'm not trying to be a downer but some people have Bennett written in as a legit rotation player already with upside etc. He will get minutes because he is the only other true PF on the team but who knows if he will actually be good. I'm optimistic about how he will do but him taking away Thad's minutes? Very unlikely.

^^^

I didn't even need to add anything. This covered it for me. Well said, monster. The bolded part is what I've been trying to express since the Love trade went down.

I agree LST that already based on Thad's stat lines in different seasons you can assume that he is very coachable player. He will do what he is asked to do. But I'm not sure that if I want Thad to concentrate a lot for defensive rebounding.

One of Thad's best skills is his ability to run the field. I checked from NBA.com last years stats about players miles per game and Thad was one of the leaders in whole NBA.(only 14 player ran more miles per game and none of them were centers or power forwards) I guess that it was partly because Philly played last year quite fast pace but still I think we can consider that one of his main strengths. I also think that partly his bad defensive rebounding numbers might be because he has been released often early for fast break opportunities.

I think that if Thad will be used often for fast break, it will also wear down bigger power forwards in West and make it easier him to defend them. Other reason why I think it would make sense to use Thad more as a fast break finisher is that he is one of the elite finishers at rim. Only 12 other players have been scoring more field goals per minute at rim during last 4 years and out of those only LeBron, Howard, Griffin, McGee, Drummond and Wade have been doing it more effectively than Thad. His at rim finishing stats were even little down last year, so he has been able to get those numbers even at the time when Philly played quite slow pace.

Even though I agree that it would be great if Thad could get even more attempts at rim, (I hope playing with Rubio will help on this) I don't mind that he would take occasional three pointers as well. It has been anyway his second most effective shot. (Thad has averaged 0.96 points per shot in three pointers and he has got more points per shot only his first season from any other distance than at rim.)

I think it will be really fun to watch Ricky to lead Wolves fast break when he finally has elite finisher in Thad to run with him.