Ant and Winning a Title

[FNG]

I don't think the question is whether or not Ant is a top 5 player, it's is he a top 10 player. Right now the answer is no...it's pretty easy to come up with 10 players who are playing better than Ant this season.

Ant gravity alone is top 10. Every time Naz, Donte, Mike, Randle get a wide open three it's because other teams are focused on anyone but Ant to beat them. Whenever Randle drives to the hoop one one one, it's because defenses are doubling Ant. When a team is cocky enough to defend Ant 1-1 like Portland was with an excellent defender in Camara, Ant smoked them.

But Rap, how many dominant scorers don't have gravity? I would argue that all these guys, all of whom are outscoring Ant this season and might not be on some's top 10 list, have an equal amount of gravity...more so, in some cases, because they don't have a secondary scorer like Ju next to them: Maxey, Lauri, Mitchell, Brunson, Brown, Booker, Cunnignham, etc. And that doesn't include guys who are likely top 5 like Luka, SGA, Joker, Wemby and Giannis, or future HOFers who are outscoring Ant this season like Curry, Harden and Durant. Ant is obviously slumping right now, but I don't have him in my top 10 right now.

[Q-is-here]

I don't think the question is whether or not Ant is a top 5 player, it's is he a top 10 player. Right now the answer is no...it's pretty easy to come up with 10 players who are playing better than Ant this season.

Ant gravity alone is top 10. Every time Naz, Donte, Mike, Randle get a wide open three it's because other teams are focused on anyone but Ant to beat them. Whenever Randle drives to the hoop one one one, it's because defenses are doubling Ant. When a team is cocky enough to defend Ant 1-1 like Portland was with an excellent defender in Camara, Ant smoked them.

But Rap, how many dominant scorers don't have gravity? I would argue that all these guys, all of whom are outscoring Ant this season and might not be on some's top 10 list, have an equal amount of gravity...more so, in some cases, because they don't have a secondary scorer like Ju next to them: Maxey, Lauri, Mitchell, Brunson, Brown, Booker, Cunnignham, etc. And that doesn't include guys who are likely top 5 like Luka, SGA, Joker, Wemby and Giannis, or future HOFers who are outscoring Ant this season like Curry, Harden and Durant. Ant is obviously slumping right now, but I don't have him in my top 10 right now.

Every opposing coach has to make a decision as to whether they let the opposing team's leading scorer "get theirs" while trying to keep a lid on everyone else OR try to get the ball out of the leading scorer's hands and be OK with letting some other guys get better looks.

In Ant's case, opposing coaches almost always choose the latter of those two strategies. He gets blitzed more than any other player in the NBA, including Steph and Luka. That's nuts to me.

Now we can quibble about Ant's play making and decision making out of those blitzes and over-help situations, but he absolutely is schemed for defensively as much as anyone in the NBA. There is a huge difference between a 25 PPG scorer that is schemed for like that versus, say, Zach LaVine at the other extreme. Ant enables all sorts of 4 on 3 situations and advantageous one on one situations for guys like Julius and Jaden.

[AussieWolf3]

I don't think the question is whether or not Ant is a top 5 player, it's is he a top 10 player. Right now the answer is no...it's pretty easy to come up with 10 players who are playing better than Ant this season.

Ant gravity alone is top 10. Every time Naz, Donte, Mike, Randle get a wide open three it's because other teams are focused on anyone but Ant to beat them. Whenever Randle drives to the hoop one one one, it's because defenses are doubling Ant. When a team is cocky enough to defend Ant 1-1 like Portland was with an excellent defender in Camara, Ant smoked them.

But Rap, how many dominant scorers don't have gravity? I would argue that all these guys, all of whom are outscoring Ant this season and might not be on some's top 10 list, have an equal amount of gravity...more so, in some cases, because they don't have a secondary scorer like Ju next to them: Maxey, Lauri, Mitchell, Brunson, Brown, Booker, Cunnignham, etc. And that doesn't include guys who are likely top 5 like Luka, SGA, Joker, Wemby and Giannis, or future HOFers who are outscoring Ant this season like Curry, Harden and Durant. Ant is obviously slumping right now, but I don't have him in my top 10 right now.

I think we kinda need to chill. Ant has had two very bad games- inexcusably bad in my opinion- a game where he scored 5 points in 3 minutes, and a 15 point game that was his first back from injury.

The season is very young, and I agree that he is not playing like even a top 10 player right now, he has also just had a weird start to the season with the injury and the uneven schedule.

If we remove the games I mentioned above (which includes the poor shooting against the Kings and Nuggets), he averaging 32.3/5.4/4. Obviously he's gonna run out of excuses soon, but I believe that stat line is a stronger signal of what he's been playing like this year.
If we're still having problems by Christmas than we can raise some alarm bells, but right now the kid has the equity that puts him in the top 10 and honestly top 5 imo (not factoring Taytum or Haliburton)

[Wolvesfan21]

Ant gravity alone is top 10. Every time Naz, Donte, Mike, Randle get a wide open three it's because other teams are focused on anyone but Ant to beat them. Whenever Randle drives to the hoop one one one, it's because defenses are doubling Ant. When a team is cocky enough to defend Ant 1-1 like Portland was with an excellent defender in Camara, Ant smoked them.

But Rap, how many dominant scorers don't have gravity? I would argue that all these guys, all of whom are outscoring Ant this season and might not be on some's top 10 list, have an equal amount of gravity...more so, in some cases, because they don't have a secondary scorer like Ju next to them: Maxey, Lauri, Mitchell, Brunson, Brown, Booker, Cunnignham, etc. And that doesn't include guys who are likely top 5 like Luka, SGA, Joker, Wemby and Giannis, or future HOFers who are outscoring Ant this season like Curry, Harden and Durant. Ant is obviously slumping right now, but I don't have him in my top 10 right now.

Every opposing coach has to make a decision as to whether they let the opposing team's leading scorer "get theirs" while trying to keep a lid on everyone else OR try to get the ball out of the leading scorer's hands and be OK with letting some other guys get better looks.

In Ant's case, opposing coaches almost always choose the latter of those two strategies. He gets blitzed more than any other player in the NBA, including Steph and Luka. That's nuts to me.

Now we can quibble about Ant's play making and decision making out of those blitzes and over-help situations, but he absolutely is schemed for defensively as much as anyone in the NBA. There is a huge difference between a 25 PPG scorer that is schemed for like that versus, say, Zach LaVine at the other extreme. Ant enables all sorts of 4 on 3 situations and advantageous one on one situations for guys like Julius and Jaden.

Agree with your post. Especially on the double teams, he led the NBA last year in getting doubled! Partly because our others we're not making them pay enough and partly because Ant was in the process of learning the right read and pass. And probably most importantly Ant led the NBA in 3P's made AND at an elite clip. You would rather leave Jaden open in the corner then let Ant go one on one most nights.

Ant's still obviously getting his share of defensive attention, IDk if he leads the NBA now in getting doubled, maybe not but our others are doing a nice job most nights making teams pay. Our offense is very good.

As far as this Ant slump of bad games, it's about a 1/10 on my concerned list. He's going to start cooking again soon enough, especially now that Ju, Jaden DDV and Rudy are all cooking well on offense.

[Q-is-here]

Going back to my original analysis, I think Ant is good enough to be the best player on a Finals team. But it comes with the caveat that he needs more help and depth than Jokic or Giannis needed when they won titles.

[Coolbreeze44]

Ant will be fine but it's not too soon to question whether he has the whole package or not. The athleticism and talent is there for sure. But does he have the smarts and the heart to drive winning at the highest level. We don't that yet but the day is coming when we will. I think at a minimum we need to hope his dedication goes up a notch.

[Phenom]

Can we put Dillon Brooks on the team the Wolves next face in the WCF? That'll get em over the hump.

[Coolbreeze44]

I doubt MJ ever missed two free throws like that

[Lipoli390]

Ant will be fine but it's not too soon to question whether he has the whole package or not. The athleticism and talent is there for sure. But does he have the smarts and the heart to drive winning at the highest level. We don't that yet but the day is coming when we will. I think at a minimum we need to hope his dedication goes up a notch.

I think that’s right, Cool.

[Wolvesfan21]

I doubt MJ ever missed two free throws like that

Oh he did, no one is ever 100% clutch. MJ missed a lot of game winners too. But he also took a lot too, you're bound to miss and make both ways.