Kat expected to play vs Lakers GDT

[AbeVigodaLive]

Yeah. I'm piling on. Russell was THAT bad. Here's the team vet star player holding himself accountable:

"I think we don't know how much a back-to-back plays into another team's favor," Russell said. "As a young team, it's our first back-to-back. I would say as a group we didn't approach it the right way as far as being prepared. Just look at it, learn from it, off to the next one."

I get that quotes are often meaningless. But... can you imagine another player making $27+M per season... a 5 -year vet... saying something like that after what has to be one of the worst games of his career... where his lazy effort was off the charts?

So either he still doesn't know how back-to-backs work.
Or... he's throwing his teammates under the bus for not being prepared or knowing what B2Bs are like.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Yawn... The whole team sucked last night. You can go down the entire roster and be unhappy with each player's individual performance. D'Angelo Russell deserves appropriate blame, but at the end of the day it's one bad game. There are likely going to be more throughout the season. They happen. The Wolves need to turn their attention to Tuesday's game against the Clippers and look to bounce back with a much better outing.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Yawn... The whole team sucked last night. You can go down the entire roster and be unhappy with each player's individual performance. D'Angelo Russell deserves appropriate blame, but at the end of the day it's one bad game. There are likely going to be more throughout the season. They happen. The Wolves need to turn their attention to Tuesday's game against the Clippers and look to bounce back with a much better outing.

Meh. I disagree. A lot, actually.

Mailing in the 3rd game of the season is a bad sign.
Mailing in the 3rd game of the season and not taking ownership of it and blaming it on youth and scheduling is a worse sign.

The Wolves are a loser franchise. We all know that. It's not something we can really measure or quantify. But there's a stench. We know it. And players know it, too.

We can chalk it up to "just a bad performance" like we've done many many many other times and trick ourselves into thinking it's ok. Or, we can at least acknowledge the ridiculousness of a $27M player playing like that... not holding himself accountable... and not being held accountable by fans either. I get that it's the NBA. It's a crazy season. It's the holidays. The star player went down. It's not possible to play your best every night. Or even play with unabashed enthusiasm and effort every night. All cool. I get it. The effort last night transcended all of that though. I'm not exaggerating how poor Russell's EFFORT was.

At least nobody had to pay to watch it. So at least there's that.




[Note: We all know it's a star's league. So why would we expect the same from the Wolves star player that we expect from a rookie in his 3rd game... or from Hernangomez... or Naz Reid? The Wolves need transcendent star players to get close to the playoffs.]

[FNG]

I don't think anyone is disputing that almost every Wolf stunk up the joint last night, camden. And yes it was just one (very bad) game for D-Lo on the back end of a double header and against a far superior team. I get all that. But I think the concerns about Russell go much deeper than just last night. After 3 games he finds himself ranked 366th out of 383 NBA players in plus/minus, and while there are some very good players around him who happen to just play for very bad teams this year, it's telling to see him also in the company of other perennial negative players like Zach Lavine and Andrew Wiggins. How typical Wolfian it is that one of our max players has only had one season in his career in which he has finished with a plus number...and that was only a plus .3 in his all-star year. Homework assignment for the board: find another max player in the NBA with a negative career +/-...warning, don't spend too much time on this one. (And I would prefer not to be bombarded with comments about how messy +/- is...ultimately the purpose of the game is to outscore your opponent.)

D-Lo is going to win some games for us, and because I'm a Wolves' fan and he is one of our two cornerstone players, I'm cheering for him to improve. But poor shot selection and indifferent defense are a recipe for a negative +/-, no matter how good a scorer you are. Some of this is on Ryan- forcing D-Lo to play out of position at PG is remindful of what Flip did with LaVine. For god's sake, Ryan, play him at SG! But Ryan can't be blamed for D-Lo being too lazy to close out on a corner three. We fans deserve to demand more from a player as gifted as Russell.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

All hail the great plus-minus statistic. All hail the great plus-minus gods. Why, oh why, must there be other statistics out there when we have the almighty plus-minus? I can do all things through plus-minus which strengthens me. The holy grail of numbers and basketball, if you will.

[D-Mac [enjin:19736340]]

I wouldn't single out DLO because the entire team was trash in many ways. I'm not defending DLO, he was just a piece of the crappy performance. Can you even name one Wolves player and say, hey he had a good game? Wether they couldn't make shots, couldn't defend, couldn't make a layup, couldn't play with energy after partying in LA and a playing a back to back. (speculation)

There might be a person who two on here who were just waiting for DLO to have a poor game to support their ego driven argument.

I guess our only saving grace is that Wiggins is playing far worse then DLO thus far. So the trade is looking OK.

Oh and LeBron is decent and so are the Lakers, maybe they should have won. lol

How is it an "ego driven argument" when we say the guy is bad? If you're talking about me or others, I want the guy to do well, I don't care about my ego. He sucks and when he has a decent game (Utah) I think that is actually proving to be the exception (with the norm being lazy, subpar performances). I don't see how your ego statement is any different on one side of this argument than it is on the other. Yeah, absolutely the whole team was terrible last night, but with the max contract comes the expectation to bring it every night and lead.

Someone said they might have actually preferred Wiggins last night... yep, at least he could hide in the corner instead of dominating the ball with his laziness.

[TheFuture]

I stopped halfway through the third quarter. That was some of the ugliest basketball I have ever seen. DLo quit on the team and was absolutely lazy. That is not what you want from your 2nd "star".

Camden just look at his loose passes and offensive fouls. He was terrible. When he is supposedly the guy to carry our team.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

We're a young team with basically no training camp who just lost their best player for the game that day. Of course they looked unorganized and terrible. Literally the centerpiece on both sides of the floor was gone with zero time to prepare for that reality. This isn't a team that's been together for years with an established system that they can just fall back into. This year was built completely around Towns and he was out. We're probably going to lose every single game he doesn't play because he is the the foundation on both ends of the floor. It's one game without our franchise player. I wouldn't read into it further than that. It'd be a different story if this were March or April but it's game 3 with no prep time against the defending champs who just won the title a month or two ago and kept their core team in tact around the best player in the world. Even with Towns they were gonna smoke us because they have the momentum and the team play that we don't yet.

[TheFuture]

We're a young team with basically no training camp who just lost their best player for the game that day. Of course they looked unorganized and terrible. Literally the centerpiece on both sides of the floor was gone with zero time to prepare for that reality. This isn't a team that's been together for years with an established system that they can just fall back into. This year was built completely around Towns and he was out. We're probably going to lose every single game he doesn't play because he is the the foundation on both ends of the floor. It's one game without our franchise player. I wouldn't read into it further than that. It'd be a different story if this were March or April but it's game 3 with no prep time against the defending champs who just won the title a month or two ago and kept their core team in tact around the best player in the world. Even with Towns they were gonna smoke us because they have the momentum and the team play that we don't yet.

These excuses are getting dumb. There is no excuse for what was on the court.

[Wolvesfan21]

WF21- I'm a bit of a Rubio bobo, but I would say he had a good game. 9-4-4 and no turnovers in 18 minutes, and only a -9 in a 36-point loss is a good game IMO. Also all four PFs at least were nor embarrassing for the first time all season, albeit primarily in garbage time. And while Naz played his worst game of the season, he again showed he is a reliable center off the bench backing up KAT.

Saunders needs to slap Edwards upside the head in the locker room after his performance. His shot selection was so poor he must have thought he was back at Georgia- 6-21 ain't gonna cut it.

But to continue beating the dead horse that is already lying bloodied on the ground, there are no words to describe D-Lo tonight. I've accepted the fact that he is going to be a minus player on the court- he's not going to change what he has been his entire career- because his ability to score in bunches will win some games for us. But there is no excuse for his abysmal performance tonight- no effort and lazy play at both ends of the court. This is how awful he was tonight- there were times I actually would have preferred to see Wiggins out there.

You're not going to win any games with one max player out hurt and the other playing like a guy who looks like he should be coming off the bench in the G League. Let's hope they both return to the court soon, or this is going to be tough to watch.

I'll give you that, Rubio was the best of the worst. It's good to get beatdown though too, they might have been feeling themselves a bit too much after starting 2-0. I don't think anyone thought we would win anyways, especially without KAT. I was actually hoping KAT would go off for 30 to give the team a chance before I heard he was ruled out.

As far as DLO, I don't have too high of expectations for him overall. He plays above his skill level too much. Taking too many tough shots and contested midrange jumpers. I would hope he would work to improve his assist game more, versus jacking up tough shots. Still early in the season. We'll see how it progresses as guys get use to playing with each other more. More team game, less one on one.

Anyways, a good time to get beatdown. Hopefully the entire team will bring it versus the Clippers. They need to in order to have a chance.

At this point, after 5 seasons in the League, I wouldn't expect DLO to change. He'll always take way too many bad contested shots and he'll always have lots of stretches where he's lazy with the ball. He doesn't have any truly elite skills, so there's not upside for him to capture down the road. He's just another bad max contract. Is he as bad as Wiggins? No, he's better. But that low bar doesn't provide any solace. Russell is still way overpaid for what he provides. I'd feel a little better if we had simply swapped Wiggins straight up along with our 2nd round pick for DLO. But we gave up what will likely be a lottery pick next year along with what will likely be a pretty high second round pick in what's expected to be talent-filled draft.

DLO will have some good games and he'll probably win a game or two with some big shots at the end of the game. Actually, Wiggins did that a few times two. DLO will come through in that regard more than Wiggins. But as our starting PG, Russell controls the fate of this team far more than Wiggins. And he's simply not enough of a net positive to justify his central role as our #2 max cornerstone player, especially in light of what we gave up to get him.

You are probably right. Though the one season he had where is was a net positive plus minus the team was also in the playoffs. Does DLO give up when the team sucks and simply play half assed? Will he play more energized if the team is winning and competing? I think that is my hope. The better the team is the more engaged he is.

I think it's only natural for guys to "get lazy" or play half assed when the team is bad. But then others simply don't allow that to happen either, those are true superstars. The LeBrons or Jordans.

Hopefully DLO will eventually become the number 3-4 option as far as scoring. Culver and Edwards could surpass him, though I have much more hope for Edwards. Culver struggles finishing around the rim too much, doesn't draw fouls. Edwards seems to have much better body and ball control on the drive.

Though he is still youngish, I would say he can get better over the next 4-5 years, skill wise, basketball IQ wise. So we'll see. A guy that continues to get better in his mid twenties I can think of is Harden. I think LeBron got a little better, Jordan as well. Guys do it if they want it bad enough.