Minnesota Sports Forum

lipoli390 wrote:Tonight's game and the Denver game a few nights ago are reminders that this team probably should sign Pat Beverley.

I don't know that we go there, but the thought crossed my mind tonight, too!

60WinTim wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Tonight's game and the Denver game a few nights ago are reminders that this team probably should sign Pat Beverley.

I don't know that we go there, but the thought crossed my mind tonight, too!

I sounds like the Wolves front office isn't interested in pursuing Pat Bev. I hope those reports are wrong. This team needs a spark, especially on the defensive end. Pat would provide that spike. Probably still not enough to get the Wolves into the top 6 in the final standings, but it might be enough to avoid the lottery.

lipoli390 wrote:

60WinTim wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Tonight's game and the Denver game a few nights ago are reminders that this team probably should sign Pat Beverley.

I don't know that we go there, but the thought crossed my mind tonight, too!

I sounds like the Wolves front office isn't interested in pursuing Pat Bev. I hope those reports are wrong. This team needs a spark, especially on the defensive end. Pat would provide that spike. Probably still not enough to get the Wolves into the top 6 in the final standings, but it might be enough to avoid the lottery.

For what it's worth, Patrick Beverley openly questioned Rudy Gobert's reputation as one of the best defenders in the league last year on J.J. Redick's podcast. Said he doesn't guard the best players in the league and runs from challenges. He didn't sound like a Gobert fan in general, actually. That might mean something or it might not, but I wouldn't expect Tim Connelly and this front office to bring Beverley in. Gobert is the star of this team. Say no to bullying. All of that.

How much pick-and-roll did Minnesota play tonight? Thoughts?

I would replace Austin Rivers with Pat Bev immediately

BloopOracle wrote:I would replace Austin Rivers with Pat Bev immediately

So would I. But after reading Cam's post, I don't think TC would sign Beverley. The risk of hurting Rudy's feelings would be too great. No booing. No criticism.

Camden wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

60WinTim wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Tonight's game and the Denver game a few nights ago are reminders that this team probably should sign Pat Beverley.

I don't know that we go there, but the thought crossed my mind tonight, too!

I sounds like the Wolves front office isn't interested in pursuing Pat Bev. I hope those reports are wrong. This team needs a spark, especially on the defensive end. Pat would provide that spike. Probably still not enough to get the Wolves into the top 6 in the final standings, but it might be enough to avoid the lottery.

For what it's worth, Patrick Beverley openly questioned Rudy Gobert's reputation as one of the best defenders in the league last year on J.J. Redick's podcast. Said he doesn't guard the best players in the league and runs from challenges. He didn't sound like a Gobert fan in general, actually. That might mean something or it might not, but I wouldn't expect Tim Connelly and this front office to bring Beverley in. Gobert is the star of this team. Say no to bullying. All of that.

Well, it's certainly true that Rudy rarely guards the best offensive players in the League since there are only two centers in the NBA who could arguably be put in that category. So Pat Bev has a point. I was surprised when I found out yesterday that the top offensive NBA centers perform to their career averages against Rudy. As much as I hate watching Rudy on the offensive end, I've always considered him an excellent defender. I would have expected him to hold to keep the top offensive centers below their career averages. He's held Embiid several points under his career scoring average, but not Jokic. And Embiid rebounds just as well against Embiid as he does against everyone else on average.

Rudy is a system player - a niche guy who can make a difference defensively with the right players and system around him. The question is whether Tim Connelly is dumb enough to completely overhaul this team to fit Rudy. I sure hope not, but I'm beginning to wonder. DLO apparently didn't like playing with Rudy. I suspect Ant has a similar view. I remember Ant earlier in the season saying, "the smaller we are the better I play." That comment clearly reflects frustration with Rudy. We now know that Donovan Mitchell was frustrated by Rudy. This team plays with so much more speed, ball movement, passion and pure joy in the games Rudy doesn't play. They also win more of those games. Connelly and his front office cohorts made a huge mistake trading such a boat load of assets for Rudy Gobert. They have to stop compounding their mistake by trying to make that trade work. It hasn't and it won't.

After a nice start, a very disappointing game. Memphis is very good of course, but we were not good at all tonight. I guess we're not going to win many games when Nowell is by far our best player. It's only their first game together this season, but there was nothing I saw to make me fell good about the Conley/Gobert connection...this might have been Rudy's worst game of the season.

Only two things to fell good about tonight- the resurgence of Nowell, and the possibility of the return of a healthy KAT soon after the break.

It appears the new whipping boy has been uncovered. Look, Rudy is a good player, but clearly not worth the haul we gave up to get him. The question is now what do they do? First of all, hope he meshes with KAT and we go on a run. That would solve a lot of problems obviously. But if that doesn't happen, one of the two can't come back next year. And to save face it would probably have to be KAT that goes. If we could get enough draft picks to replenish the cabinet, it would be like trading KAT for Gobert. Not ideal, but not as bad as the deal looks today.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:It appears the new whipping boy has been uncovered. Look, Rudy is a good player, but clearly not worth the haul we gave up to get him. The question is now what do they do? First of all, hope he meshes with KAT and we go on a run. That would solve a lot of problems obviously. But if that doesn't happen, one of the two can't come back next year. And to save face it would probably have to be KAT that goes. If we could get enough draft picks to replenish the cabinet, it would be like trading KAT for Gobert. Not ideal, but not as bad as the deal looks today.

He's the #1 candidate, cool, but as an unabashed proponent of the deal, I'm still confident we are going to see a resurgence once KAT gets back and starts hitting 40% of his threes again.

But meanwhile, we saw almost no synergy between Rudy and Conley last night. It would be a stretch to conclude that they both have lost the magic they had together less than 12 months ago, so I'm going to chalk it up to rust. But we need a lot more from both of them than what we got last night.