Minnesota Sports Forum

FNG wrote: ↑Thu Nov 27, 2025 11:58 am I think we're cutting Ant way too much slack for his role in the critical Donte turnover. Physical mistakes will happen, and I generally am fairly forgiving about them. But mistakes in crunch time that reflect either a lack of hustle or a lack of concentration are inexcusable. I'll accept the "he's still young and learning" excuse in some situations. But a 6th year pro has to know that he needs to get across the mid court line before his teammate gets trapped! I'm trying to imagine how my high school coach would have reacted if I had done what Ant did...I might still be running laps!

Lipoli390 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 27, 2025 1:48 pm

FNG wrote: ↑Thu Nov 27, 2025 11:58 am I think we're cutting Ant way too much slack for his role in the critical Donte turnover. Physical mistakes will happen, and I generally am fairly forgiving about them. But mistakes in crunch time that reflect either a lack of hustle or a lack of concentration are inexcusable. I'll accept the "he's still young and learning" excuse in some situations. But a 6th year pro has to know that he needs to get across the mid court line before his teammate gets trapped! I'm trying to imagine how my high school coach would have reacted if I had done what Ant did...I might still be running laps!

I agree completely, FNG. I don’t if Ant’s slow trot up the floor was the product of a low basketball IQ or lack of effort, but either one is unacceptable from a 6-year veteran who is an elite talent and the best player on our team. Overall, I blame our coach for most of this team’s gross underperformance so far this season. From a talent perspective, the sum of this team’s parts is clearly far greater than the team’s performance to date. That has to fall largely on the head coach. It’s never one player or one position. The Lakers are second in the West and LeBron has played only 3 games. OKC played most of last season without Holmgren.

I understand Finchy’s strategy to make Ant the team’s lead guard. He’s naturally a ball dominant elite SG in the tradition of MJ, Kobe and Wade. Jon K gave numerous examples of current SGs serving de facto in the PG role for successful teams. I’m not sure the Wolves can be a championship team if Ant can’t adapt to that role successfully. Having said all that, I like the idea of pairing Ant with a PG who can handle the ball and put pressure on defenses with the ball in his hands. Right now we have one player who looks like he has the ability to do that and it’s Rob Dillingham, although Shannon might be able to fill that role. I think it’s imperative that Finch start one of those two in the backcourt with Ant. His failure to give Rob more than 10 minutes a game alone is grounds for a coaching change in my view.