Q12543 wrote:I guess what I don't understand is why Culver wasn't in there instead of Edwards. We need wins and Culver is the better decision maker, defender, and rebounder than Edwards. DLO, Beasley, and KAT are enough firepower offensively during OT.
Yeah, I like culver in there too, but not in place of edwards. Edwards along with kat is our future and he needs to be in there. He's proving that he can be a major shot creator and this guy is just oozing with talent... I love watching him play and I love that he's out there! Love watching vando play too! I think vando is a great compliment to kat and if he can be out there as the 4, then I don't hate the system nearly as much. As this season goes on I want edwards to start taking over as our lead guard. I see a lot of Donovan mitchell with shades of wade/harden. My ideal starting lineup going forward is edwards, Beasley, culver, vando, kat. I think this is plenty of ball handling with Rubio, Jmac and Nowell mixed in off the bench. I'd look to move on from dlo. He's played better recently, but I don't like our ceiling with him as the lead guard, and I think he loses a lot of his value if he's not your lead guard.
Its clear that rosas has done a terrible
job with the roster. We are
in no botter shape in his 2nd year than we are in his 1st season. An agrgument can be made thatnwenare worst off now than we were last season.
Towns remains the only diffefence maker. No towns and we are not even competitive in most games. Rosas swap wiggins for dlo. Both cant carry the team without towns. We actually won a few games lst year with towns out and wig carrying the offense. We lost both our picks for next year as well in that deal.
We traded for rubio and his 17m and resign juancho for 7m. Rubio doesnt look like a nba starter anymore and juacho sucks. Beasley is okay but we all agree that he is 6th man at best and he makes 15m a year. Edwards is our only hope as a needle mover for the franchise.
Are we better off with towns/dlo/edwards or a towns/wiggins/ball and both picks next year?
I like edwards and his potential. I take him over wiggins no doubt but I think thats a fair question to ask ourselves. Im pretty sure we take ball if wig is still here and we dont have dlo.
Rosas did Towns a disservice with the frontcourt he assembled. Its an embarrasment as none of them would be a rotation guy on a winning team. Naz has potential but his ceiling maybe a backup on a bad team. Juancho is a joke. Davis is done. Layman cant play pf, cant rebound and cant defend bigs. Vany tries and makes you root for him. But he wont crack the rotation of a winning team.
Yeah, I don't really see a difference between Wiggins and dlo. They're both vastly overpaid inefficient players. That was a bad deal. I like Rubio but I agree that was a bad trade also. Jauncho was terrible. In fairness though, I think either rosas or someone in the organization has a decent eye for a young talent. I think we picked the right guy at #1 and jmac, Noelle, naz, vando and mcdaniels are all solid adds in my opinion. Even though we're losing and we're sick of losing, I'm also trying to be objective and I think it's been a mixed bag overall.
kekgeek1 wrote:How Karl-Anthony Towns described his decision to play tonight:
"It was like 26 or 27 minutes left before tip and the actual words I said was 'Fuck it'. I just put my jersey on and said it's time to go play. Obviously, it wasn't the best decision for my personal health at all."
There's a word for this... it's called leadership. I love seeing this from kat. The team will keep him out if they feel that it's too risky.
worldK wrote:Its clear that rosas has done a terrible
job with the roster. We are
in no botter shape in his 2nd year than we are in his 1st season. An agrgument can be made thatnwenare worst off now than we were last season.
Towns remains the only diffefence maker. No towns and we are not even competitive in most games. Rosas swap wiggins for dlo. Both cant carry the team without towns. We actually won a few games lst year with towns out and wig carrying the offense. We lost both our picks for next year as well in that deal.
We traded for rubio and his 17m and resign juancho for 7m. Rubio doesnt look like a nba starter anymore and juacho sucks. Beasley is okay but we all agree that he is 6th man at best and he makes 15m a year. Edwards is our only hope as a needle mover for the franchise.
Are we better off with towns/dlo/edwards or a towns/wiggins/ball and both picks next year?
I like edwards and his potential. I take him over wiggins no doubt but I think thats a fair question to ask ourselves. Im pretty sure we take ball if wig is still here and we dont have dlo.
Rosas did Towns a disservice with the frontcourt he assembled. Its an embarrasment as none of them would be a rotation guy on a winning team. Naz has potential but his ceiling maybe a backup on a bad team. Juancho is a joke. Davis is done. Layman cant play pf, cant rebound and cant defend bigs. Vany tries and makes you root for him. But he wont crack the rotation of a winning team.
With hindsight being 20/20, my answer is.....I still don't know if we got the raw deal of the DLO/Wiggins trade. It's increasingly looking like it though. More time is needed. But yeah, Ball is the real deal. He was like 4th or 5th on my very loosely put together mock draft board, so it's very humbling to see what he is doing in Charlotte. The Draftexpress guys know their shit.
I think you are underestimating Naz and Vanderbilt. Go look at their per 36 minute and advanced stat lines. Combine that with their age and it's hard not to feel like these guys could absolutely be factors on a winning team, either as a role-playing starter or really strong backup. No, I don't think either could be stars, that's for sure. But I think you have their ceilings too low here.
I watched the game late last night, and while disappointed in the outcome, found a lot of things to get excited about. We lost in OT to a team playing as well as any in the league right now...heck, they just finished sweeping the two LA teams this week easier than they beat us. And we played them dead even with our best player rusty and playing one-handed.
There's no question that this team looks much better with KAT back in the lineup. I worried about his mental state coming into this season, but he actually seems to be much improved on defense...he finally looks like the rim-protector many of us anticipated after his year at Kentucky. And his unique combination of efficient 3-point shooting, post moves and improving and promising passing makes him a force on the offensive side of the court. We can only hope that his wrist continues to heal and he can remain on the court.
I think we win last night easily if D-Lo has a normal shooting game. 7-22 shooting, 1-6 on threes, and 1-3 from the line is not what we need from a max player. D-Lo had a nice game the previous game, but we need that from him consistently if we are going to compete. We know his defense is going to be terrible every night...has there ever been a guard who closes out on threes worse than him? So he needs to be exceptional on the offensive every night to justify his place on this team. He wasn't last night.
Q said it in another thread- our PG's are both having their worst career years, and that is holding us back. Ricky was fine last night (8-5-8 on efficient shooting), but statistically he is having his worst season except for perhaps his injury-marred 2014-5. He has said himself that he needs to be better. Maybe his pre-season Covid is a factor, because he does seem to be getting back more to normal. But we need a better Ricky, and a much better and more consistent D-Lo.
Juancho is much maligned in this forum, but he's another guy who seems to be finding his stride and performing adequately at PF- he's my choice to start next to KAT. He's going to consistently get us double digit rebounds on a per 36 basis and he is showing the past few games that his 40% 3-point shooting as a starter last season was not a mirage. I wish he was better defensively, but I'll take the rebounding and 3-point shooting for 20+ minutes a game- especially with the emergence of Vando as a high-energy option off the bench.
Beasley was terrible defensively last night, but unlike D-Lo, his exceptional offense more than made up for his poor defense. I still hold my breath when D-Lo and Beasley play so many minutes together, and know they both have to be making shots to offset what they give up. Last night, only one was.
Ryan made some good substitutions at times last night, but I agree with the board that Edwards was not the best choice at the end of the game with the more reliable Culver on the bench. I will add that Edwards had a nice game, but end of game wasn't the right time for him.
So, we're 2-7 with some terrible losses with KAT out. But I like this team with KAT healthy, especially with the emergence of some of our young players. If we can keep the big guy healthy, and if our PGs can at least progress to their norms, this team will compete for the playoffs.
Since "the system" emphasizes threes (and I like this). we should talk about the 3-point shooting last night:
Ruseell: 1-6 or 17%
Wolves (other than Russell): 14-24 or 58%
I see this team with more 3-point potential than any Wolves team I have seen, but we need Russell to avoid nights like this. Unfortunately, we know D-Lo is going to give up more open 3-point looks than any other Wolves defender, so he simply has to outscore his man for us to win. He didn't last night.
Some good analysis in your post. I can see Juancho MAYBE coming around on the offensive end. But he's a terrible defender - always has been and certainly was terrible last night on that end of the court. On the offensive end, at best, he'll be streaky game to game with really good games followed by bad games and no consistently to count on. I don't see him ever becoming anything close to a starting caliber NBA PF. But he's even worse on the Wolves roster because he fails to complement KAT.
Yes, KAT makes an enormous difference. His presence on the court transforms this team from G-League caliber to a team that can at least compete most nights against most teams. But therein lies the problem. No NBA team should be that dependent on one player.
Yes, the Wolves would have won if DLO's shooting had matched his career averages. But the problem wiht DLO is that you can't count on him from game to game or even quarter to quarter - except that you can typically count on him to play poor defensive the vast majority of most minutes in most games. And even on the offensive end, he's not elite and definitely not very good at breaking down and disrupting the opposing team's defense because he's really pretty darn slow. To make matters worse, he slows the offensive pace and stifles ball movement on a team that's supposedly predicated on "space, pace and ball movement" according to Rosas. The fact that he makes max money and cost the Wolves what will be a high lottery pick AND high second round pick simply adds toxic frosting to an already inedible cake.
I still see some light at the end of the tunnel in Edwards, Vanderbilt, Naz Reid, Okogie, Culver and Nowell. But it's a long and still uncertain two-year tunnel with a number of questions along the way:
1. Will Edwards refine his game, make better decisions and substantial raise his field goal and three-point percentages, which current match his terribly inefficient college numbers?
2. How good can Vanderbilt be and how fast will he develop? Will Naz Reid continue to develop into what could be a borderline all-star? Seriously, that possibility shouldn't be out of the question given how highly regarded he was coming out of high school.
3. Will Culver develop into a consistently good (if not great) perimeter and free-throw shooter? And will he continue to improve his already improving handle? If he does those things, he can be really good.
4. Will Okogie continue to develop his handle, body control and perimeter shot? I've noticed that most tend to talk about Okogie largely as a finished product. I think that's a mistake. We need to remember he's barely 22 years old and would be an NBA rookie if he had stayed in college 4 years. He has a combination of both elite athleticism and freakish length, which is pretty rare. He also has a motor and work ethic that are off the charts. No one should sleep on his still considerable upside and attributes that will help him reach that upside.
5. Will Nowell get more of an opportunity to play and develop? He has performed exceptionally well at every level he's played at, including 2 years in college and a full season in the G-League. He looked really good in limited pre-season minutes this year. He's been a really good 3-point shooter and highly efficient scorer throughout his college and G-League career and looks like a really good ballhandler and a guy who knows how to play. When you're as bad as the Wolves were last season and again so far this season, there's not excuse for not giving him some meaningful minutes when one of your other wings, in this case Okogie, is out.
So there is hope. But honestly I'm not optimistic even over the long term. This is a broken organization, and as we've seen, broken organizations make a lot of really bad decisions especially when their backs are against the wall. I expect Rosas to get increasingly desperate this season and fritter away the team's young talent in a big move that will flop, leaving us stranded on the edge of the playoffs this season and ultimately falling flat over the long haul.
Lipoli, I definitely understand your concerns about Juancho on the defensive end. His footwork seems so clumsy to me that I admit I'm surprised when we are actually successful defensively when he is on the court. Like last night for example. I watched the first 8 minutes closely (I fast forwarded much of the rest of the game) and was actually rather impressed with his team defense. The only defenders I'm comfortable with in the starting lineup last night were KAT and Culver, and yet they had only given up 15 points when D-Lo and Juancho were subbed out with 4 minutes left in the quarter and the Wolves led 19-15.
I want to see a true big man starting next to KAT (I love Culver, but Ryan does him a disservice when he moves him to PF), and I see no better option than Juancho on the roster right now (I don't see either Naz or Davis as viable starting options). We only need to look at his stats when he started the last 14 games of the season last year next to Naz to see that he can be more than adequate as a rebounder and 3-point shooter. Now, my dream is for Vando to be starting next to KAT by mid-season with Juancho coming off the bench as a 3-point option, but as much as I love his energy, I'm not ready to have him in my starting lineup yet.
