Minnesota Sports Forum

lipoli390 wrote:

FNG wrote:

Q-was-here wrote:

TheSP wrote:My biggest issue, even more than the number of picks, is Gobert is 30. His game relies upon athleticism, which for a guy his size and age suggests to me that he's not going to be close to the player he is today by year 3. I'll be plenty happy if he is still close to his current level by the end of the contract, I just don't believe it'll happen.

Really? I think his game relies on his sheer size and instincts. Not sure I'd consider him really reliant on speed, agility, vertical leap, etc. I am somewhat uncomfortable with the length left on his contract. That's where things get a bit eye-watering when combined with KAT's deal and Ant's future deal.

This is where I am, Q. I always marveled at the economy of movement Tim Duncan employed in his game, and look at how effective he was (especially on defense) all the way to 39. I see a similar style in Gobert, and don't think he will be playing much differently at the end of his contract. I hope I'm right.

I think most of us would agree that Gobert is a future hall of famer. I think an offensive unicorn like KAT will be too. And then there's Ant...I think most of us at least see HOF potential in him. Well-coached teams with 3 future HOFers win championships. And add a promising young player like Jaden to the mix, plus a PG like DLo (or whatever he still may bring back in a trade. Simmons? Irving?), and the excitement level builds a little higher. IF they stay healthy. For the first time since the early 2000s, I'm allowing myself to dream about a Wolves NBA championship in the next 5 years.

Next 4 years, FNG. Gobert's contract only runs for 4 years. :)

You're ignoring the extension for Gobert my sources tell me TC is already working on ;)

FNG wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

FNG wrote:

Q-was-here wrote:

TheSP wrote:My biggest issue, even more than the number of picks, is Gobert is 30. His game relies upon athleticism, which for a guy his size and age suggests to me that he's not going to be close to the player he is today by year 3. I'll be plenty happy if he is still close to his current level by the end of the contract, I just don't believe it'll happen.

Really? I think his game relies on his sheer size and instincts. Not sure I'd consider him really reliant on speed, agility, vertical leap, etc. I am somewhat uncomfortable with the length left on his contract. That's where things get a bit eye-watering when combined with KAT's deal and Ant's future deal.

This is where I am, Q. I always marveled at the economy of movement Tim Duncan employed in his game, and look at how effective he was (especially on defense) all the way to 39. I see a similar style in Gobert, and don't think he will be playing much differently at the end of his contract. I hope I'm right.

I think most of us would agree that Gobert is a future hall of famer. I think an offensive unicorn like KAT will be too. And then there's Ant...I think most of us at least see HOF potential in him. Well-coached teams with 3 future HOFers win championships. And add a promising young player like Jaden to the mix, plus a PG like DLo (or whatever he still may bring back in a trade. Simmons? Irving?), and the excitement level builds a little higher. IF they stay healthy. For the first time since the early 2000s, I'm allowing myself to dream about a Wolves NBA championship in the next 5 years.

Next 4 years, FNG. Gobert's contract only runs for 4 years. :)

You're ignoring the extension for Gobert my sources tell me TC is already working on ;)

Lol. Is this some sort of secret deal like the one with Joe Smith?

Camden wrote:In the short-term, I think everyone should love this trade. Rudy Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Edwards, and (presumably) D'Angelo Russell is a very strong core -- one that should lead to multiple 50-60 win seasons. Their starting five, including Jaden McDaniels, presents a potential top-10 offense as well as a top-10 defense, if not better. I'm fully expecting the Timberwolves to be one of the league's elite teams this upcoming season. I haven't been able to say that in a very long time.

If we focus on the long-term, the outlook is less attractive. Gobert and Towns will account for approximately 70-percent of Minnesota's salary cap in a couple years with a certain max contract on the way for Edwards on top of that. It will be extremely difficult to field a contending team with those financial commitments anchoring the books. Furthermore, the Timberwolves will have less first-round picks and flexibility at their disposal to either add cost-controlled talent in the draft or trade for additional win-now parts that may become necessary. Minnesota is also guaranteed to exceed the luxury tax threshold in just a few seasons, which also results in lesser taxpayer exceptions able to be used.

To conclude, there's a number of reasons to be legitimately excited about the next couple of years for Timberwolves basketball. However, Tim Connelly is going to have to be creative in how he continues to add talent to this roster as the years go by. He'll likely have to hit on multiple second-round picks and/or become a savvy dealmaker in various future trades. The financial constraints are so grand that Connelly will need to be near-perfect as a decision-maker to fully maximize this championship window. This deal is as much of a bet on Connelly as it is on Gobert and the rest of Minnesota's roster.

That's a good analysis, Cam. But I can't love a trade in the short run that I so thoroughly dislike over the long haul.

And I'm probably in the minority believing this trade isn't quite the holy grail the Wolves front office obviously considers it to be in the short run. I don't think Ant and McDaniels are ready yet to produce at a championship contender level and I'm not sure McDaniels will ever become close the player many of us believe he can be. Hence the peril of short cuts. Beverley's moxie, perimeter defense and 3-point threat will be sorely missed. Meanwhile, the chemistry and continuity of the team will be significantly disrupted. While Rudy is a great defensive player who can also contribute on the offensive end, he's not Shaq or Tim Duncan.

Nevertheless, I won't dispute that the deal probably makes this team substantially better right away. But I don't think it makes us good enough for long enough to justify the enormous long-term downside. And again, my main point is that this move was not only rash but entirely unnecessary. And that what gets me. There's a rhythm to everything. Our core was developing physically and psychologically - learning how to play together and how to win. Success is always the product of a series of incremental steps. This deal skips steps and shoots too far too fast. The Wolves were not in a position where they needed to shoot for the moon. I think this deal will quite quickly come back to haunt the franchise.

Note: You indicated correctly that Connelly will have to be very skilled piloting this team with its now extremely limited draft resources and financial flexibility going forward. I'll just note that the Wolves don't have any 2nd-round picks in 2024, 2025 and 2027. They have only one 2nd-round pick in each of 2023 and 2026. The 2023 pick is the Knicks' pick and the 2026 pick is the least favorable of the Heat, Spurs and Pacers. Two thoughts. First, our 2nd-round draft resources are also severely constrained. Second, our limited 2nd-round picks won't reflect the performance of the team. In other words, if we have any bad seasons, our 2nd-round picks won't be commensurate with our poor performance - i.e., no draft benefit to help offset bad seasons.

The long term prospects of this team will still have the opportunity to trade KAT, Gobert or DLo. Building at team with 3to 4 max slots gives us a ton more options then if we were totally maxed out on 2 players. This success of this trade is dependent on Gobert, if he stays a highly impactful player we are good.

thedoper wrote:The long term prospects of this team will still have the opportunity to trade KAT, Gobert or DLo. Building at team with 3to 4 max slots gives us a ton more options then if we were totally maxed out on 2 players. This success of this trade is dependent on Gobert, if he stays a highly impactful player we are good.

I agree, doper, and whether Gobert remain impactful depends largely on whether he can stay on the court. I just found this article from last December which looked at his injury history, and their analysis is that "Over the past four seasons, only one player has started more NBA games than Rudy Gobert: Denver MVP Nikola Jokic."

https://www.sltrib.com/sports/jazz/2021/12/13/utah-jazz-center-rudy/

Let's try to direct this discussion toward Rudy in the playoffs, since that's been the point of criticism against him in the last couple years, and since at this point, we all have to expect we should be competitive in the playoffs now.

Defense
Toward that end, here's a video breakdown by Ben Taylor, AKA "Thinking Basketball." If you don't know his stuff, check out his YouTube page. The guy is smart as hell. Even the comments that people write under his videos are pretty informative! So here's the video breakdown regarding the defensive end specifically, prompted mostly by Utah's loss to Dallas in this past postseason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTrUdGRUvA

Overall, it does look like Rudy's defense statistically does take a step back in the playoffs, but maybe not as much as some critics have claimed. I think maybe the most constructive information is that in order for him to stay effective on the floor when teams go small and stretch the floor, our perimeter defenders can't be turnstiles. That seems obvious, but it's really apparent how bad the Utah perimeter defenders were in this video. Toward that end, Jaden's continued development and Ant's ability to really step up his perimeter defense will be crucial for us to mitigate defensive problems that opponents could give us by going "5 out" in the playoffs. And Kyle Anderson is a sneaky-good perimeter defender, actually.

So what do you guys think about building a better defense against teams when they do that against us in the playoffs? In part, I wonder whether concerns about this with Rudy have been overblown in part because the Clippers and Dallas were perfectly poised to do this to Utah. I'd add that Denver can do that really well too. Memphis could do it with JJJ as a big shooter. Golden State might actually have some problems since Draymond doesn't really shoot 3s any more. Not sure what's happening with Ayton. Still, this is a potential problem we will need to solve. So what do you guys think? How will we best defend against teams putting 5 shooters on the floor to try to force Rudy off the floor?


Offense
Others have mentioned the key will also be our ability to take advantage offensively when teams go small against Rudy, therefore forcing them to put a traditional big back out there, which will make it harder for teams to go "5 out" against us. Of course, mitigating the damage those small-ball "5 out" lineups can do against us will make this less crucial, but it will still be important.

Toward that end, I can think of two possible solutions, one of which is kind of obvious.

First, Rudy is a big lob threat. He's not really a good low-post scorer in the traditional Embiid-sense, so he can't take advantage of smaller guys that way. But I have to think on pick and rolls against smaller guys, Utah should have been able to punish teams more. I don't understand why Utah wasn't able to take great advantage of pick-and-roll lobs when opponents have gone small. I know in the first year, Conley didn't do it much because he'd never had a big man like that in Memphis, though he did get better at that last year. And Mitchell, I'd need to see the stats on, but I definitely got the sense that he wasn't that great at getting Rudy the ball in those situations. For us, I think DLO and Ant really need to start working on running a lot of pick and rolls with Gobert to get that chemistry down in anticipation for the playoffs.

Second, I think this is where having KAT and Gobert could be turned to our advantage offensively. If opponents go small to get 5 shooters out there, that means not only will they have to put a smaller guy on Gobert defensively but also probably on KAT. That will make it harder for opponents to go to all-shooting lineups but still have the length defensively to deal with both KAT and Rudy. Dallas could put a guy like Kleber on Rudy defensively and survive because Utah's next biggest guy was Royce O'Neal. But we'll have two 7 footers, so an opponent would have to likely put their longest defender on KAT for defensive purposes rather than on Gobert. Unless you're talking about Jokic, that probably means KAT would have a smaller defender on him on the perimeter, which should make it easier for him to just shoot over them. And that means Rudy could have an even smaller defender on him than he's had to deal with in the past. I have to think that will give us a bit more opportunity to take advantage on the offensive end. Plus, Kyle Anderson is long as hell and can pass pretty well. (He's also really a good perimeter defender, though you wouldn't think it to look at him). I can imagine in addition to pick and rolls from DLO and Ant, we can try to run a bit of offense through Anderson whose length might allow him to just pass right over a team going small against us. KAT's not a bad passer either, when he's careful. And while Rudy isn't really a low-post scorer in the tradition sense, KAT can do that, and if a team goes small against us, it might be a chance for him to try to do that a bit as well as just shooting over his defender more easily.

In other words, I think there are two reasons why we may be more successful at punishing teams that go small against us in the playoffs than Utah was, and one additional reason for hope. First, because I think our perimeter defense should be better than Utah's was. Second, because KAT gives us more length to punish teams that go small against us, and we just generally have a good amount of length that would potentially cascade offensive advantages down the line if teams go small against us. And finally, DLO is a nifty passer and Ant doesn't have the chemistry baggage that Mitchell had with Gobert, so there are a couple signs we could get some real lobs against small opponents. Plus KAT and SloMo should also be able to hit Rudy for some nice lob passes as well.


It all remains to be seen if we can actually do all of this. But to the extent that Rudy has had playoff issues, they don't seem to have been entirely his fault, and there's reason to think we should be better than Utah was at preventing them from sinking us. *fingers crossed*

lipoli390 wrote:

Camden wrote:In the short-term, I think everyone should love this trade. Rudy Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Edwards, and (presumably) D'Angelo Russell is a very strong core -- one that should lead to multiple 50-60 win seasons. Their starting five, including Jaden McDaniels, presents a potential top-10 offense as well as a top-10 defense, if not better. I'm fully expecting the Timberwolves to be one of the league's elite teams this upcoming season. I haven't been able to say that in a very long time.

If we focus on the long-term, the outlook is less attractive. Gobert and Towns will account for approximately 70-percent of Minnesota's salary cap in a couple years with a certain max contract on the way for Edwards on top of that. It will be extremely difficult to field a contending team with those financial commitments anchoring the books. Furthermore, the Timberwolves will have less first-round picks and flexibility at their disposal to either add cost-controlled talent in the draft or trade for additional win-now parts that may become necessary. Minnesota is also guaranteed to exceed the luxury tax threshold in just a few seasons, which also results in lesser taxpayer exceptions able to be used.

To conclude, there's a number of reasons to be legitimately excited about the next couple of years for Timberwolves basketball. However, Tim Connelly is going to have to be creative in how he continues to add talent to this roster as the years go by. He'll likely have to hit on multiple second-round picks and/or become a savvy dealmaker in various future trades. The financial constraints are so grand that Connelly will need to be near-perfect as a decision-maker to fully maximize this championship window. This deal is as much of a bet on Connelly as it is on Gobert and the rest of Minnesota's roster.

That's a good analysis, Cam. But I can't love a trade in the short run that I so thoroughly dislike over the long haul.

And I'm probably in the minority believing this trade isn't quite the holy grail the Wolves front office obviously considers it to be in the short run. I don't think Ant and McDaniels are ready yet to produce at a championship contender level and I'm not sure McDaniels will ever become close the player many of us believe he can be. Hence the peril of short cuts. Beverley's moxie, perimeter defense and 3-point threat will be sorely missed. Meanwhile, the chemistry and continuity of the team will be significantly disrupted. While Rudy is a great defensive player who can also contribute on the offensive end, he's not Shaq or Tim Duncan.

Nevertheless, I won't dispute that the deal probably makes this team substantially better right away. But I don't think it makes us good enough for long enough to justify the enormous long-term downside. And again, my main point is that this move was not only rash but entirely unnecessary. And that what gets me. There's a rhythm to everything. Our core was developing physically and psychologically - learning how to play together and how to win. Success is always the product of a series of incremental steps. This deal skips steps and shoots too far too fast. The Wolves were not in a position where they needed to shoot for the moon. I think this deal will quite quickly come back to haunt the franchise.

Note: You indicated correctly that Connelly will have to be very skilled piloting this team with its now extremely limited draft resources and financial flexibility going forward. I'll just note that the Wolves don't have any 2nd-round picks in 2024, 2025 and 2027. They have only one 2nd-round pick in each of 2023 and 2026. The 2023 pick is the Knicks' pick and the 2026 pick is the least favorable of the Heat, Spurs and Pacers. Two thoughts. First, our 2nd-round draft resources are also severely constrained. Second, our limited 2nd-round picks won't reflect the performance of the team. In other words, if we have any bad seasons, our 2nd-round picks won't be commensurate with our poor performance - i.e., no draft benefit to help offset bad seasons.

On the other hand Lip if the Wolves are good those seasons those 2nd round picks are basically worth VERY little and this is coming from a guy who loves any draft pick. Fortunately there are legit ways to add to your roster outside of the draft.

Fantastic post, Drew! Lots to unpack and think about. I'm still pondering. I think you've correctly identified both the risks and potential advantages Gobert gives us relative to teams that choose to put 5 smaller, quick scorers on the floor.

Your post trigger a lot of thoughts in my head. One thought it triggered was the importance of DLO. I think the Gobert deal makes DLO much more important to the Wolves than he was before the deal. DLO has his detractors and I've never been a fan of his game. But I don't think anyone can deny that DLO is an excellent pick-and-roll player. In fact, I think that's by far the strongest part of his game and so far with the Wolves I believe that part of his game has been underutilized. The one impressive offensive aspect to Gobert's game, in my view, is his pick-and-roll play - both setting picks and finishing.

I was among those interested in dealing DLO this summer, although I couldn't think of a deal that made sense. And I was inclined to say we should let him walk next summer unless he'd agree to a contract at $20M per year or less. I think the Gobert deal makes retaining DLO long term more of a priority for the Wolves. I'm still not sure how high I think the Wolves should go to keep him. And the size of Gobert's contract makes keeping DLO more problematic financially. But it's another way in which the Gobert deal has dramatically changed the calculus for the Wolves going forward.

SameOldNudityDrew wrote:Let's try to direct this discussion toward Rudy in the playoffs, since that's been the point of criticism against him in the last couple years, and since at this point, we all have to expect we should be competitive in the playoffs now.

Defense
Toward that end, here's a video breakdown by Ben Taylor, AKA "Thinking Basketball." If you don't know his stuff, check out his YouTube page. The guy is smart as hell. Even the comments that people write under his videos are pretty informative! So here's the video breakdown regarding the defensive end specifically, prompted mostly by Utah's loss to Dallas in this past postseason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTrUdGRUvA

Overall, it does look like Rudy's defense statistically does take a step back in the playoffs, but maybe not as much as some critics have claimed. I think maybe the most constructive information is that in order for him to stay effective on the floor when teams go small and stretch the floor, our perimeter defenders can't be turnstiles. That seems obvious, but it's really apparent how bad the Utah perimeter defenders were in this video. Toward that end, Jaden's continued development and Ant's ability to really step up his perimeter defense will be crucial for us to mitigate defensive problems that opponents could give us by going "5 out" in the playoffs. And Kyle Anderson is a sneaky-good perimeter defender, actually.

So what do you guys think about building a better defense against teams when they do that against us in the playoffs? In part, I wonder whether concerns about this with Rudy have been overblown in part because the Clippers and Dallas were perfectly poised to do this to Utah. I'd add that Denver can do that really well too. Memphis could do it with JJJ as a big shooter. Golden State might actually have some problems since Draymond doesn't really shoot 3s any more. Not sure what's happening with Ayton. Still, this is a potential problem we will need to solve. So what do you guys think? How will we best defend against teams putting 5 shooters on the floor to try to force Rudy off the floor?


Offense
Others have mentioned the key will also be our ability to take advantage offensively when teams go small against Rudy, therefore forcing them to put a traditional big back out there, which will make it harder for teams to go "5 out" against us. Of course, mitigating the damage those small-ball "5 out" lineups can do against us will make this less crucial, but it will still be important.

Toward that end, I can think of two possible solutions, one of which is kind of obvious.

First, Rudy is a big lob threat. He's not really a good low-post scorer in the traditional Embiid-sense, so he can't take advantage of smaller guys that way. But I have to think on pick and rolls against smaller guys, Utah should have been able to punish teams more. I don't understand why Utah wasn't able to take great advantage of pick-and-roll lobs when opponents have gone small. I know in the first year, Conley didn't do it much because he'd never had a big man like that in Memphis, though he did get better at that last year. And Mitchell, I'd need to see the stats on, but I definitely got the sense that he wasn't that great at getting Rudy the ball in those situations. For us, I think DLO and Ant really need to start working on running a lot of pick and rolls with Gobert to get that chemistry down in anticipation for the playoffs.

Second, I think this is where having KAT and Gobert could be turned to our advantage offensively. If opponents go small to get 5 shooters out there, that means not only will they have to put a smaller guy on Gobert defensively but also probably on KAT. That will make it harder for opponents to go to all-shooting lineups but still have the length defensively to deal with both KAT and Rudy. Dallas could put a guy like Kleber on Rudy defensively and survive because Utah's next biggest guy was Royce O'Neal. But we'll have two 7 footers, so an opponent would have to likely put their longest defender on KAT for defensive purposes rather than on Gobert. Unless you're talking about Jokic, that probably means KAT would have a smaller defender on him on the perimeter, which should make it easier for him to just shoot over them. And that means Rudy could have an even smaller defender on him than he's had to deal with in the past. I have to think that will give us a bit more opportunity to take advantage on the offensive end. Plus, Kyle Anderson is long as hell and can pass pretty well. (He's also really a good perimeter defender, though you wouldn't think it to look at him). I can imagine in addition to pick and rolls from DLO and Ant, we can try to run a bit of offense through Anderson whose length might allow him to just pass right over a team going small against us. KAT's not a bad passer either, when he's careful. And while Rudy isn't really a low-post scorer in the tradition sense, KAT can do that, and if a team goes small against us, it might be a chance for him to try to do that a bit as well as just shooting over his defender more easily.

In other words, I think there are two reasons why we may be more successful at punishing teams that go small against us in the playoffs than Utah was, and one additional reason for hope. First, because I think our perimeter defense should be better than Utah's was. Second, because KAT gives us more length to punish teams that go small against us, and we just generally have a good amount of length that would potentially cascade offensive advantages down the line if teams go small against us. And finally, DLO is a nifty passer and Ant doesn't have the chemistry baggage that Mitchell had with Gobert, so there are a couple signs we could get some real lobs against small opponents. Plus KAT and SloMo should also be able to hit Rudy for some nice lob passes as well.


It all remains to be seen if we can actually do all of this. But to the extent that Rudy has had playoff issues, they don't seem to have been entirely his fault, and there's reason to think we should be better than Utah was at preventing them from sinking us. *fingers crossed*

This is an excellent breakdown and covers some of what i was going to post after reading a couple well thought out comments from a Utah on the Gobert article by Jon K on the Athletic. You already covered a few points he made so ai will add to it.

On defense he pointed out just how small the Jazz were overall which hurt their D. Royce o'Newl is a good player but he is actually pretty undersized. Just look at their roster and guys that play and basically they play nobody over 6'8". In glee was one of the bigger players of the last few years and he got hurt and traded. Meanwhile the Wolves have MCDaniels at SF who is bigger than anyone Utah played outside of center. Edwards is a pretty big shooting guard and Russell is as big as Mitchell. I'm starting to wonder how bad Mitchell really was on defense. Let's be honest early in his career Bogdonovic head not considered a good defender. I think that was changing a bit before he got to Utah but i would hope that Towns with his size could play in the neighborhood of similar D while offering more much more scoring, rebounding and shot blocking.

On offense the Wolves have 2 big time scorers. The Jazz had 1. Part of the issue in the playoffs is being able to score. In the regular season they were a very good offensive team but did that fall off in the playoffs? I didn't pay attention (didn't care) but I would be interested to look at it more. It seems to me Mitchell would have been the high level guy and teams could try and take him away. He suggested Russell will be the best passer Gobert has played with since Rubio. I could see that. I love mike Conely but he is more of a game manager than a guy that really makes plays for guys. Even if Conely and Russell and closer to even McLaughlin is a pretty good passer. Ingles was their other guy that averaged 5 assists per game a couple seasons.

Take it FWIW this fan absolutely praised Gobert as a person and said he likely will get along well with the Wolves. He said Gobert is highly competitive and expects the best out of his teammates and works incredibly hard and keeps himself in top shape. If Mitchell really did struggle on defense...I think we may know what the problem may have been on that roster and Gobert wasn't exactly the issue.

Also Jon K replied to a comment about moving Naz and said that the Wolves really like him and think the Gobert trade will help him. I could see him being more of a viable PF option playing sole minutes next to Gobert than Towns. I think one key to this trade is if the Wolves get more out of a guy like Naz than they would have otherwise that may help make up for trading away some of the value in the deal. That could be especially true if Naz had little trade value around the league which might be true but it would surprise me just a little. McLaughlin might be another guy they get more value from if he really is up to the task of being a good NBA backup PG which ai think he is That could make up for some of the loss of a guy like Beverly. In this article Jon K also insinuated that the wolves may feel like this deal may be good for Russell too. We will see.

Some really good thoughts, Monster. I particularly like your thought about Naz moving to PF for minutes alongside Gobert. I agree that Gobert could bring out the best in Naz. I'll have to read that article. Interesting that the Wolves are high on Naz.