Minnesota Sports Forum

Q12543 wrote:The thing he has going for him offensively vs. Klay is his speed, quickness, and verticality. He might eventually come close to matching Klay's outside shooting prowess. Now add onto that elite change of pace moves, cross overs, and speed in transition. Great stuff, however.....

I sometimes think elite athleticism hurts as much as helps these guys. Look at how damn good Klay is at moving without the ball. He took 11 dribbles en route to 60 points. That is probably one of the most impressive things about him. Not only is he an elite shooter (something I think LaVine is quickly becoming), but he is elite at moving without the ball. That is a skill unto itself. JJ Redick is another master. So is Steph Curry. When you don't have elite speed or verticality, you end up learning how to use off-ball screens more effectively and make timely cuts. LaVine and Wiggins are still miles away from being more efficient in this regard and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact they could always just out jump people.

Lavine is being used as a guy moving without the ball. He is making lots of hard cuts going from one side of the floor to the other. He hasn't arrived in that regard but there are soem encouraging signs both just watching him and the stats. His percentage of catch and shot shots has gone up compare to his pull ups. Shouldn't that be a surprise though. We should remember this is the first year he has spent as a SG only. So that shoudl be consideed when it comes to where he is at in terms of off bal game which all things considered I think is pretty good for where he is at. One thing I have seen as a big improvement was Sam talked about how Lavine had the habit of always having to dribble the ball before doing anything which caused problems. Sometimes he still puts it on the floor right away, but he seems to be more comfortable just catching and shooting or surveying things before putting the ball on the floor to do something.

I think your point is valid about guys moving without the ball but to me the bigger part of the reason those guys are so good at all the stuff you mentioned isn't really because they aren't super athletic its more about just how good of a shooter those guys are. How many super athletic guys are also good shooters? It just doesn't happen that often. Lavine COULD be the whole package and his conversion rate on his drives is really good this year as well.

Update on our Starting 5 after last night:

As a reminder, here is last year's numbers for our starting 5-man unit that we ended the season with:
Offensive Rating - 113.5
Defensive Rating - 109.6
Net Rating - +3.9

Here are the numbers as of December 9th:
Offensive Rating - 102
Defensive Rating - 112.4
Net Rating - -10.4

Here are the numbers as of today:
Offensive Rating - 107.9
Defensive Rating - 110.2
Net Rating - -2.3

Improvement! Especially on offense. Defense still sucks, but at least it is trending in the right direction. Again, this is just our starting 5, not the entire team. As a team our offensive rating is 106.8 and defensive rating is 108.2.

By the way, our starting 5 have played more minutes as a unit than any other 5-man combination in the league....by 100 minutes! We have been tremendously fortunate with good health. Hopefully that continuity pays off.

Updated Net Rating by Player (main rotation guys):

Nemanja Bjelica +1.2
Gorgui Dieng +.2
Muhammed +.2
Aldrich -1.1
Wiggins -1.4
KAT -2.6
LaVine -2.9
Dunn -3.2
Rubio -3.5

These numbers have been gradually tightening closer to each other. Earlier in the year, our bench players were much more positive and our starters much more negative.

Thanks for taking the time to update this, Q. I appreciate the was you present it, a comparison of today to the depths of earlier in the year to the joy of last year. In this case, numbers tell the story we mostly all are seeing on the court, and it's great to see the improvement...albeit still a huge regression from the Mitchell-led Wolves. But improvement nonetheless, and that's very good news.

It's just shameful that our starters are playing so many more minutes than other teams...there's no excuse for this when the reserves have been performing as well as (and sometimes better than) the starters throughout the year. They're not pretty at all, but they're gritty and they produce...let them play, Thibs! Yes, we have been fortunate with injuries so far...but I think we are playing with fire, and there are negative implications many nights for having tired stars at crunch time. that's how you lose leads. I have no problems with a coach that is so severely an outlier...if it works. But if you're 11-22, a smart coach has to look at how different his coaching approach is to the league norm and conclude on whether he truly is the smartest guy in the room.

Here is an update on the lineup numbers for our starting 5-man unit of Rubio-LaVine-Wiggins-Dieng-KAT:

Last Season:
Offensive Rating - 113.5
Defensive Rating - 109.6
Net Rating - +3.9

Thru December 9th:
Offensive Rating - 102
Defensive Rating - 112.4
Net Rating - -10.4

Thru December 31
Offensive Rating - 107.9
Defensive Rating - 110.2
Net Rating - -2.3

Thru January 24
Offensive Rating - 107.2
Defensive Rating - 109.3
Net Rating - -2.1

Ever so slowly, the defense is improving. Offensively, this unit is still well below last year's version.

Updated Net Rating* by Player (main rotation guys):

Gorgui Dieng + 1.0
Muhammed +.5
Wiggins -.9
Towns - 1.6
Dunn -2.1
Bjelica -2.1
Rubio -2.3
Aldrich -2.3
LaVine -3.6

Muhammed is the only player to consistently sport a positive net rating all season. One might look at this and ask how we can have an average margin of victory of only -1 point per game. Well, two of our spot bench players have been fantastic in limited action:

Tyus Jones +5.8
Brandon Rush +4.3


*Net rating is a noisy stat and something that has to be looked at over long periods of time.

Q12543 wrote:Here is an update on the lineup numbers for our starting 5-man unit of Rubio-LaVine-Wiggins-Dieng-KAT:

Last Season:
Offensive Rating - 113.5
Defensive Rating - 109.6
Net Rating - +3.9

Thru December 9th:
Offensive Rating - 102
Defensive Rating - 112.4
Net Rating - -10.4

Thru December 31
Offensive Rating - 107.9
Defensive Rating - 110.2
Net Rating - -2.3

Thru January 24
Offensive Rating - 107.2
Defensive Rating - 109.3
Net Rating - -2.1

Ever so slowly, the defense is improving. Offensively, this unit is still well below last year's version.

The defensive improvement is more impressive considering I assume scoring is still up this year. That doesn't make the offensive rating look better though!

monsterpile wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Here is an update on the lineup numbers for our starting 5-man unit of Rubio-LaVine-Wiggins-Dieng-KAT:

Last Season:
Offensive Rating - 113.5
Defensive Rating - 109.6
Net Rating - +3.9

Thru December 9th:
Offensive Rating - 102
Defensive Rating - 112.4
Net Rating - -10.4

Thru December 31
Offensive Rating - 107.9
Defensive Rating - 110.2
Net Rating - -2.3

Thru January 24
Offensive Rating - 107.2
Defensive Rating - 109.3
Net Rating - -2.1

Ever so slowly, the defense is improving. Offensively, this unit is still well below last year's version.

The defensive improvement is more impressive considering I assume scoring is still up this year. That doesn't make the offensive rating look better though!

Good to see the defensive numbers inch ahead of last year's numbers as most of us expected they would, although the offensive numbers continue to lag. I've been out of town for a couple weeks and leaving again tomorrow morning so my knowledge of the wolves play is based on box scores only, but my sense is that Thibs is making the adjustments some of us were asking for. While still a huge outlier, he is beginning to use his bench more...we even had more bench minutes than our opponent for one of the few times this year in the Houston win. He seems to be coaching KAT to play more in the style he was so successful in last year. And while Ricky's results are not always as good as last night's stellar performance, there is some evidence that thibs is allowing Ricky to paly like Ricky a little more. If Thibs continues to make the adjustments he needed to make to his approach, I think this team will make the playoffs...they just seem deeper and more talented than the teams they are battling with.

longstrangetrip wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Here is an update on the lineup numbers for our starting 5-man unit of Rubio-LaVine-Wiggins-Dieng-KAT:

Last Season:
Offensive Rating - 113.5
Defensive Rating - 109.6
Net Rating - +3.9

Thru December 9th:
Offensive Rating - 102
Defensive Rating - 112.4
Net Rating - -10.4

Thru December 31
Offensive Rating - 107.9
Defensive Rating - 110.2
Net Rating - -2.3

Thru January 24
Offensive Rating - 107.2
Defensive Rating - 109.3
Net Rating - -2.1

Ever so slowly, the defense is improving. Offensively, this unit is still well below last year's version.

The defensive improvement is more impressive considering I assume scoring is still up this year. That doesn't make the offensive rating look better though!

Good to see the defensive numbers inch ahead of last year's numbers as most of us expected they would, although the offensive numbers continue to lag. I've been out of town for a couple weeks and leaving again tomorrow morning so my knowledge of the wolves play is based on box scores only, but my sense is that Thibs is making the adjustments some of us were asking for. While still a huge outlier, he is beginning to use his bench more...we even had more bench minutes than our opponent for one of the few times this year in the Houston win. He seems to be coaching KAT to play more in the style he was so successful in last year. And while Ricky's results are not always as good as last night's stellar performance, there is some evidence that thibs is allowing Ricky to paly like Ricky a little more. If Thibs continues to make the adjustments he needed to make to his approach, I think this team will make the playoffs...they just seem deeper and more talented than the teams they are battling with.

I don't think many adjustments have been made really just players finally stepping up.

Towns has played like an MVP these last 2 weeks, ya he is cutting out some of the 3's but he is not trying to win the game by himself anymore, he is making the correct basketball play.

Thibs is still using ricky like he has all year but he is knocking down his shots at the moment and the rest of the team is also. Ricky is a damn good player when his shot is falling and it hadn't been for most of the year.

Shabazz has been the main x factor. He is playing out of his mind. He is shooting an unrealistic but ridiculous 3pt % (like 52% since Christmas). That is huge for the wolves.

Players are stepping up when called. Tyus has been great at running offense. Rush when he started played great all around basketball and he shot was finally falling. Dunn started a big game and almost had a triple double.

The wolves are not doing much difference in the offensive sense but they are now making the shots they were not earlier in the year and the hero ball has lessened.

Now the players might finally be getting this defense wolves are 8th in the NBA in defense in the last 21 games and the wolves are 11-10. Things are starting to mesh well now for this super young team with this new coach and I think we probably underestimated the time it was going to take for the players to get it but I love what I have scene these last 21 games and hopefully it continues.

Q12543 wrote:Here is an update on the lineup numbers for our starting 5-man unit of Rubio-LaVine-Wiggins-Dieng-KAT:

Last Season:
Offensive Rating - 113.5
Defensive Rating - 109.6
Net Rating - +3.9

Thru December 9th:
Offensive Rating - 102
Defensive Rating - 112.4
Net Rating - -10.4

Thru December 31
Offensive Rating - 107.9
Defensive Rating - 110.2
Net Rating - -2.3

Thru January 24
Offensive Rating - 107.2
Defensive Rating - 109.3
Net Rating - -2.1

Ever so slowly, the defense is improving. Offensively, this unit is still well below last year's version.

If we look only numbers after December 13th starting from Chicago win, we see how dramatically starting five has improved after pretty horrible start.

Offensive Rating - 111.1
Defensive Rating - 106.4
Net Rating - +4.7