Minnesota Sports Forum

Lipoli390 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 5:45 pm

Wolvesfan21 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 25, 2026 2:30 pm Low BB IQ has to be it, then not having elite athleticism to make up for being out of position too often. You can get away with avg/below avg athleticism like say Conley did for years, but he knew how to play and where to be, especially on defense.

I still think CW would have been better for us, but oh well. I'm still happy with the trade overall as I think he could figure things out eventually. New team and system too, so I can see why he is struggling a bit more to start here.

If given a choice of any of the Bulls guards other than Giddy, Tre Jones would have been my first choice. Of course, we don’t know whether he was available for what we gave up. If so and we chose Ayo instead, then I think that was a mistake. But I still like the deal and likely Ayo.

Yeah Tre has been playing very well this season, he is also I think making around 8 mill so a nice value guy, plus a year or two more on his deal. Versus CW and Ayo being FA's. I can see why Chicago was letting the others go. Cheaper and solid play.

I think Rapsuperstar was onto something in the other thread in looking back on NAW's transformation into an elite POA defender when he joined the Wolves. I just don't know if Ayo has the juice to defend at that level, regardless of how hard he tries.

If you go back and look at elite bench perimeter defenders like GPII, Alex Caruso*, and NAW throughout his tenure with Minnesota it's pretty enlightening to see how they positively impacted games. Lots of green on their net rating and net on/off rating numbers!

(*If you have the time, go check out Alex Caruso's net rating and net on/off rating stuff....it looks like Jokic's! Absolutely incredible what a game-changing defender he is).