Minnesota Sports Forum

northernhoops wrote:

Camden wrote:Hypothetically, would you rather sign Harrison Barnes OR Allen Crabbe AND Ryan Anderson? I'll take the latter.

Barnes easily. Highest FG% and 3PT% and only plus defender of the bunch. Also the most versatile of the bunch. Could see him playing minutes at SG-PF

I wouldn't count that Barnes would be the best three point shooter of that group. He plays currently with with couple of teammates with such a special skill set in Curry and Green that I suspect that he will not shoot that well from three point land in any other team.

During last three seasons, Barnes has shot pull up three pointers for example 7/32 that is just 22% accuracy. During same period he has shot catch and shoot three pointers 176/438 that is better than 40% accuracy. In Minnesota it would be sure that Barnes wouldn't get the same amount of catch and shoot opportunities and even the quality of those opportunities wouldn't be nearly as good as in Golden State.

I also think that Barnes might not be as good defender than people tend to think. He has benefit by playing with Iggy and Green whom both are true elite defensive players. So Barnes have been typically defending the forward who is lesser offensive threat and Green/Iggy have defended most of time other teams star players.

Of course he would still be clear upgrade over most of Wolves forwards but I wouldn't count that he would be that kind of elite 3&D wing people have been describing him. I have actually more confidence that he could develop to volume scorer than that his 3&D skills would be elite level if he would play for Wolves.

I am fastly cooling on Barnes. I might be more interested in overpaying for a pair of players on 2 year 20M contracts with team option on the second year. We could make a pretty list of players that might get 5M that would be good players to take a chance of and then just throw a big money short contract at them to get them here. Sell them on the role they will have here and how we need them. If they come in and prove they are worth the contract and more we have the opportunity to do a longer contract. I don't think our front office can do this. I don't think Flip was that great negotiating contracts either, but we really need a POBO sooner rather than later to let him/her figure out what this team has before making changes next year. I would rather do it now then do it in May and have them trying to figure it all out before the draft and FA.

The more that I think about it, on paper, a Rubio-Crabbe-Wiggins-Anderson-Towns starting five looks pretty exciting. Much better shooting than we've had in a long time. Only real weak spot defensively would be Anderson.

I doubt we're that active in free agency anyway, but it's still fun to think about.

Cam - I think it comes front office changes. If someone comes in to be POBO I would think we would have big changes. Someone would want to make their stamp on this team.

bleedspeed177 wrote:Cam - I think it comes front office changes. If someone comes in to be POBO I would think we would have big changes. Someone would want to make their stamp on this team.

Drafting a likely top 5 pick is a pretty big stamp right? :) it's going to be really interesting what some of the current players do to make a case for themselves the rest of the year (good or bad) who the Wolves are in position to draft AND who is in charge of running this franchise both in the front office and as coach.

Mikkeman wrote:

northernhoops wrote:

Camden wrote:Hypothetically, would you rather sign Harrison Barnes OR Allen Crabbe AND Ryan Anderson? I'll take the latter.

Barnes easily. Highest FG% and 3PT% and only plus defender of the bunch. Also the most versatile of the bunch. Could see him playing minutes at SG-PF

I wouldn't count that Barnes would be the best three point shooter of that group. He plays currently with with couple of teammates with such a special skill set in Curry and Green that I suspect that he will not shoot that well from three point land in any other team.

During last three seasons, Barnes has shot pull up three pointers for example 7/32 that is just 22% accuracy. During same period he has shot catch and shoot three pointers 176/438 that is better than 40% accuracy. In Minnesota it would be sure that Barnes wouldn't get the same amount of catch and shoot opportunities and even the quality of those opportunities wouldn't be nearly as good as in Golden State.

I also think that Barnes might not be as good defender than people tend to think. He has benefit by playing with Iggy and Green whom both are true elite defensive players. So Barnes have been typically defending the forward who is lesser offensive threat and Green/Iggy have defended most of time other teams star players.

Of course he would still be clear upgrade over most of Wolves forwards but I wouldn't count that he would be that kind of elite 3&D wing people have been describing him. I have actually more confidence that he could develop to volume scorer than that his 3&D skills would be elite level if he would play for Wolves.

Good points Mikkeman. You do wonder how much he benefits from the greatness of Curry, Green, Thompson, Iggy, etc. Golden State certainly didn't miss a beat when he was out injured.

But at some point, it feels like we need to throw a lot of money at an established vet that isn't 100 years old. Horford, Barnes, Batum - I like all those names and I'm OK with overpaying someone that is a known quantity and still in the peak portion of their career. The thing about Barnes is that he is still young enough that he may still have a little room for further improvement, whereas Horford and Batum have hit their ceiling (and in Horford's case, he may begin tailing off a bit soon).

Camden wrote:The more that I think about it, on paper, a Rubio-Crabbe-Wiggins-Anderson-Towns starting five looks pretty exciting. Much better shooting than we've had in a long time. Only real weak spot defensively would be Anderson.

I doubt we're that active in free agency anyway, but it's still fun to think about.

Camden wrote:The more that I think about it, on paper, a Rubio-Crabbe-Wiggins-Anderson-Towns starting five looks pretty exciting. Much better shooting than we've had in a long time. Only real weak spot defensively would be Anderson.

I doubt we're that active in free agency anyway, but it's still fun to think about.

What contracts would you give Anderson and Crabbe?

Camden wrote:The more that I think about it, on paper, a Rubio-Crabbe-Wiggins-Anderson-Towns starting five looks pretty exciting. Much better shooting than we've had in a long time. Only real weak spot defensively would be Anderson.

I doubt we're that active in free agency anyway, but it's still fun to think about.

That would be for sure offensively intriguing lineup. Towns, Anderson and Crabbe threesome might be good enough shooters that we could form at least very good offensive line-up even with Rubio and Wiggins in floor together. It would be nice to see how much more effective Wiggins would be when driving to rim if defenses couldn't cheat from other players and help as much as currently.

Personally I might still prefer trying to sign Batum instead of Crabbe/Anderson pair. I think that Crabbe/Anderson pair might not be that much upgrade over Lavine/Bjelica next year if Lavine continues developing and Bjelica gets more familiar with NBA game. Batum has such a nice feel of the game, moves the ball in offense, could be our second playmaker in floor and he could defend opponent best wing most of the nights.

I'll vote for Batum too, he looks more polished than Barnes. But I think he can be a lackadaisical Wes Johnson type, amirite?

No to Crabbe, Anderson.

Good 3D article.

https://theloveofhoops.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/finding-the-best-3-d-players/

Batum checks all of the boxes for what we need next to Wiggins, but my gut