Shumway wrote:Khans, you seem adamant that Cleveland won the trade. Would you swap back now?
What I would prefer has no bearing on who actually won the trade. If I was a Cleveland fan I would rather have Love because he's gonna help me win a title more than Wiggins for a couple more years. As a MN fan I would build around Wiggins. But if we got to keep Towns, I would absolutely trade back because that's the kind of player we needed to pair up with Love to continue to be an elite offensive team with a good enough defense to get stops when needed. Love is locked up to a current cap max deal with a huge jump in the cap coming in the next two years to make a move to round out the wing defense. Imagine the team we had during Ricky's last full season with today's version of Bazz, Lavine, Dieng and Towns instead of JJ, Bud, DC and Shved as the bench. Those 30 point leads wouldn't disappear nearly as often.
Ricky/Lavine/Bazz/Love/Towns>Ricky/Lavine/Wiggins/NA/Towns for the next few years in my opinion.
Fair enough. I'd definitely be keeping Wiggins. I still feel like the basketball gods have finally turned in our favour by allowing us to receive Wiggins in the trade (and then to win the lottery this year). But I can respect different opinions.
I agree with you, Shumway. I don't look at this as merely Love vs. Wiggins for 2014-5, but if you do, their stats were fairly even and you can have an interesting discussion. And any argument that the Cavs won the trade because they won more games is absurd...they have LeBron.
No, I look at the trade by considering who do I want for the next 5-7 years...Love and Willy Cauley-Stein, or Wiggins and Towns. Because if we had a developed player like Love last year rather than a rookie, it's doubtful that Flip tanks for the first pick and we probably win 26 games and get the 6th or 7th. When you look at it this way, you have to conclude the Wolves won the trade. The Cavs got arguably slightly better for a couple years (if Love doesn't continue to have back and knee problems) by having Love over the raw Wiggins. But the Wolves got much better by having Wiggins/Towns over Love/WCS locked up for the next 5-7 years.
Q12543 wrote:
I think I mentioned this earlier in the thread......Wiggins played a long stretch of games in February and March - well after he broke through the initial rookie nerves - with Ricky and Kevin Martin. Granted, they aren't Kyrie and LeBron, but he certainly had a lot less pressure on him to be the focal point of the offense with these two starting next to him. Nothing changed. His efficiency did not go up at all. In fact, he shot 16% from 3 during that timeframe. His rebounding didn't go up. So to me that is solid evidence that it probably would have been a similar outcome in Cleveland.
Right. And almost every single part of Wiggins game improved with the exception of 3 pt shooting after All Star Break:
Mins - up
FGA - up
FG% - up
FTA - up
FT% - up
OR - up
DR - up
TRB - up
Ast - up
Blk - up
pts - up
Right, Volume stats tend to go up when one plays more minutes - that's hardly a revelation. And as for his FG%, the only reason it went up is because he took less 3's. Once he lost his 3-point shot, he pretty much abandoned it and took far less attemps, thus positively affecting his overall FG%. If you strip that out of his Field Goal attempts, his percentage on 2's is exactly the same as it was before the All-Star break - right around 44%.
The one thing he absolutely did better was generate fouls. I'm not sure he would have ever received the touches and opportunities to develop this while in Cleveland.
Q12543 wrote:
Right, Volume stats tend to go up when one plays more minutes - that's hardly a revelation. And as for his FG%, the only reason it went up is because he took less 3's. Once he lost his 3-point shot, he pretty much abandoned it and took far less attemps, thus positively affecting his overall FG%. If you strip that out of his Field Goal attempts, his percentage on 2's is exactly the same as it was before the All-Star break - right around 44%.
The one thing he absolutely did better was generate fouls. I'm not sure he would have ever received the touches and opportunities to develop this while in Cleveland.
Wiggins was a 12.8 PER pre-All Star Break and a 15.7 PER post - All Star break. It wasn't just about volume. He was more efficient. I realize that doesn't fit your agenda. But it is what it is. He got better as the year went on.
I am one of the biggest Love fans on this board. Having said that if we theoretically have the same roster except we have a Love locked up for 4-5 more years on the contract we have and could trade him for wiggins and some contract fillers that don't impact the team beyond this season I might even consider throwing in another asset if that's what it took to get Wiggins. Why?
Let's say we know what we know about both players based on what we have seen in the real u theoretical world. Love is a terrific player and can bring a lot to a team with his shooting scoring (gets to the line) rebounding passing getting junk points and general feel for the game. He isn't a good defender but if Mosgov is for real love will likely be good enough there. The real reason I would be willing to trade Love is his injury history which I was concerned about before last season and it didn't get better the past few months. I am also removing sentiment whether he is happy with the Wolves etc when considering this trade.
Wiggins I saw enough to feel really confident in the idea he is going to be a terrific 2-way player for this team for a long time. Some people will say it's too early to say that and maybe it is but I'll live with taking that stand. I think Wiggins absolutely has a shot to be a top 5 or better type talent.
Bottom line is I value Wiggins more than Love at this point. If I was the Cavs? I am not sure. Based on their roster the way it is comprised Love probably makes more sense for the next 2-3 years of for no other reason I value Shumpert a lot and think he is a nice fit there. As I said before whether the Cavs or the Wolves win the trade is based on a myriad of factors aside from just how each player plays and fits with the team they are on. I am THRILLED to have Wiggins and absolutely wish Love all the best.
khans2k5 wrote:
You keep missing my point. Wiggins' development is not the same as a third option in Cleveland as it is a number 1 option here. The guy you mention from mid-December to April for us is not the same guy Cleveland gets during that same time frame. He doesn't get the touches to develop his post game and get to the line more and more every month. Shumpert was a better fit for them as a defender and 3pt shooter than Wiggins would have been as a learning defender who hadn't developed a 3pt shot yet. Cleveland's problem in the finals wasn't defense. It was offense and Wiggins wouldn't have been able to develop the same offense throughout the year that he was able to develop as the guy on our team. So not only does he likely not have the same arsenal, but he has to try to beat Klay night in and night out to be a good enough #2 option for them to win anymore games than they did. It's just not happening.
We have no idea how Wiggins would have developed over there. I understand your point that more touches here may have helped him. But we don't know that. It's just as possible that playing with LeBron and Kyrie could have helped his game more vs. playing with Mo Williams and Chase Budinger. There certainly would have been less pressure on him. His efficiency probably goes up in that situation as he wouldn't be asked to do as much as he was here. And once again, I believe the reason the Cavs lost in the finals was because Kyrie went down - not because they missed Love's scoring. They blew past the Bulls and the Hawks by going 8-2 without Kevin Love's scoring. We see it differently. Let's move on.
Because the Bulls and Hawks were on the same level as the Warriors?
Shumway wrote:Khans, you seem adamant that Cleveland won the trade. Would you swap back now?
What I would prefer has no bearing on who actually won the trade. If I was a Cleveland fan I would rather have Love because he's gonna help me win a title more than Wiggins for a couple more years. As a MN fan I would build around Wiggins. But if we got to keep Towns, I would absolutely trade back because that's the kind of player we needed to pair up with Love to continue to be an elite offensive team with a good enough defense to get stops when needed. Love is locked up to a current cap max deal with a huge jump in the cap coming in the next two years to make a move to round out the wing defense. Imagine the team we had during Ricky's last full season with today's version of Bazz, Lavine, Dieng and Towns instead of JJ, Bud, DC and Shved as the bench. Those 30 point leads wouldn't disappear nearly as often.
Ricky/Lavine/Bazz/Love/Towns>Ricky/Lavine/Wiggins/NA/Towns for the next few years in my opinion.
Fair enough. I'd definitely be keeping Wiggins. I still feel like the basketball gods have finally turned in our favour by allowing us to receive Wiggins in the trade (and then to win the lottery this year). But I can respect different opinions.
I agree with you, Shumway. I don't look at this as merely Love vs. Wiggins for 2014-5, but if you do, their stats were fairly even and you can have an interesting discussion. And any argument that the Cavs won the trade because they won more games is absurd...they have LeBron.
No, I look at the trade by considering who do I want for the next 5-7 years...Love and Willy Cauley-Stein, or Wiggins and Towns. Because if we had a developed player like Love last year rather than a rookie, it's doubtful that Flip tanks for the first pick and we probably win 26 games and get the 6th or 7th. When you look at it this way, you have to conclude the Wolves won the trade. The Cavs got arguably slightly better for a couple years (if Love doesn't continue to have back and knee problems) by having Love over the raw Wiggins. But the Wolves got much better by having Wiggins/Towns over Love/WCS locked up for the next 5-7 years.
I dunno if it's really fair to say Wiggins and Towns vs Love and WCS. The fact the Wolves got lucky and got the number 1 pick had nothing to do with the Love trade. The Wolves could of easily of ended up with the 4th pick and had Wiggins and Porgzngis or hey if the injuries hadn't occurred and they stuck with the plan of trying to win and probably end up with Wiggins and WCS. All of a sudden it looks heavily towards the Cavs winning
Q12543 wrote:
Right, Volume stats tend to go up when one plays more minutes - that's hardly a revelation. And as for his FG%, the only reason it went up is because he took less 3's. Once he lost his 3-point shot, he pretty much abandoned it and took far less attemps, thus positively affecting his overall FG%. If you strip that out of his Field Goal attempts, his percentage on 2's is exactly the same as it was before the All-Star break - right around 44%.
The one thing he absolutely did better was generate fouls. I'm not sure he would have ever received the touches and opportunities to develop this while in Cleveland.
Wiggins was a 12.8 PER pre-All Star Break and a 15.7 PER post - All Star break. It wasn't just about volume. He was more efficient. I realize that doesn't fit your agenda. But it is what it is. He got better as the year went on.
First of all, I have no "agenda". There is such a thing as nuance, you know. It is possible for both teams to have benefited from the trade. It is possible for Wiggins to show tremendous upside as a rookie while at the same time being a fairly mediocre player. These things are possible and much more reflective of reality than binary judgements.
As for the stats, he was more efficient because he got to the free throw line a lot more. I agree with that statement, as I said earlier. But everything else got "better" mostly because he played more minutes. My point is that he would have been much lower on the totem pole in Cleveland and I'm not sure he would have the opportunity to display this aspect of his game. They would have needed him to be a rebounder, a ball hawk, a floor spacer. These are not things he did well last year, either pre-ASB or post-ASB.
I'm a big fan of Kevin Love the player. I also thought he was perfect for Cleveland heading into that situation. They may very well win a title with him, in fact they probably will.
Trades are supposed to work out for both teams, and in this case it would seem the likely outcome. Cleveland hasn't won a pro sports title in something like 60 years. If Love is part of a team that finally delivers a title you would have to consider it a good trade for Cleveland. If the Wolves can ride Wiggins and establish themselves as a perennial playoff participant, it would be a great trade for us. But I'm going to make this one point: If each team today had the chance to rescind the trade, the Wolves wouldn't and the Cavaliers would.
