FNG wrote:The "fire Saunders now" crowd might not sit well with our franchise player. Interesting that KAT credited the coaching staff for his defensive resurgence.
This is why I am worried, when do results in terms of wins and loses matter. He is the worst active coach in terms of winning %. His players didn't run his end of the game play. The Wolves just had to bench Beasley for not showing up to shoot around on time. The 2nd time a player has been punished.
The Wolves have more issues then Saunders but why on earth does he get every benefit of the doubt. He has an All NBA player and the Wolves will be a bottom 3 team in both full years he has coached.
FNG wrote:The "fire Saunders now" crowd might not sit well with our franchise player. Interesting that KAT credited the coaching staff for his defensive resurgence.
Why was the final play of regulation designed for a 19-year old rookie who was shooting 3-14 from the field prior to that possession? In what world is that a good decision? I could maybe understand it if Edwards had been rolling, but he wasn't. The lack of execution is one thing, but Edwards should have never had the ball in his hands to begin with. I'm sorry if some of you don't understand that.
The game should have been won in regulation. It was a great game up until we blew the 5 point lead at the end. Good teams close out games like that and poor ones often don't. Progress is being made. We are clearly not as inept as we were earlier in the year. It's not good enough obviously but you don't go from pathetic to .500 overnight. Eventually we will hold on and win games like this, and then we will have more to build on. That's the good news, the bad news is our ceiling is capped by some less than shrewd moves by Rosas.
Camden wrote:Why was the final play of regulation designed for a 19-year old rookie who was shooting 3-14 from the field prior to that possession? In what world is that a good decision? I could maybe understand it if Edwards had been rolling, but he wasn't. The lack of execution is one thing, but Edwards should have never had the ball in his hands to begin with. I'm sorry if some of you don't understand that.
You're asking this of fans of an organization that has the richest history of handing the keys to the castle to one young player after another... whether they truly earned it or not.
And to be fair... Saunders did make Edwards look him in the eye before the final play and promise that he'd do his very best. What more do you want for chrissakes?!?!
Camden wrote:Why was the final play of regulation designed for a 19-year old rookie who was shooting 3-14 from the field prior to that possession? In what world is that a good decision? I could maybe understand it if Edwards had been rolling, but he wasn't. The lack of execution is one thing, but Edwards should have never had the ball in his hands to begin with. I'm sorry if some of you don't understand that.
Your other choices are Rubio, JMac, Beasley or Nowell. Out of those guys I like the Ant selection because he has the best combination of getting his own look or facilitating.
Camden wrote:Why was the final play of regulation designed for a 19-year old rookie who was shooting 3-14 from the field prior to that possession? In what world is that a good decision? I could maybe understand it if Edwards had been rolling, but he wasn't. The lack of execution is one thing, but Edwards should have never had the ball in his hands to begin with. I'm sorry if some of you don't understand that.
You're asking this of fans of an organization that has the richest history of handing the keys to the castle to one young player after another... whether they truly earned it or not.
And to be fair... Saunders did make Edwards look him in the eye before the final play and promise that he'd do his very best. What more do you want for chrissakes?!?!
To be more accurate Ant took the keys. He could have passed to someone else like KAT but he took the shot himself. If DLO was in I imagine he would have taken the shot.
Camden wrote:Why was the final play of regulation designed for a 19-year old rookie who was shooting 3-14 from the field prior to that possession? In what world is that a good decision? I could maybe understand it if Edwards had been rolling, but he wasn't. The lack of execution is one thing, but Edwards should have never had the ball in his hands to begin with. I'm sorry if some of you don't understand that.
You're asking this of fans of an organization that has the richest history of handing the keys to the castle to one young player after another... whether they truly earned it or not.
And to be fair... Saunders did make Edwards look him in the eye before the final play and promise that he'd do his very best. What more do you want for chrissakes?!?!
To be more accurate Ant took the keys. He could have passed to someone else like KAT but he took the shot himself. If DLO was in I imagine he would have taken the shot.
Sure. And that might be a fundamental problem with every re-re-re-rebuild the Wolves have had.
You listed 5 players in your previous post... none of them were the team's best player. From Garnett to Jefferson to Love to Towns... all bigs who can't just grab the ball and go to work.
I guess we all should be all-in on the Edwards hype... the promise of his type is much needed around these parts.
It's amazing how dependent upon Edwards we've already become as a team, even though he is clearly not ready yet. Yes, he has the requisite stones and swagger, but he does not have the skill, consistency, or decision making chops yet. It takes countless reps to get to that point and for some young players it just never comes. Even the other night when he caught fire late against the Lakers, he ended up missing some wide open guys and eventually he cooled off. And ultimately we lost the game.
It absolutely requires some creativity and schemes to get a big the ball in crunch time; it's just harder than a ball handling guard or wing. But it isn't THAT hard and Saunders ultimately needs to make sure it happens.
So I went to NBA.com today and looked at NBA clutch stats since Ryan Saunders took over because it seems like Kat never gets the ball in clutch situations.
So here was the criteria I put in. Tied or Wolves trailed by 3 or less, under 10 seconds left to go in the game. So pretty much the last possession of the game in a one possession game.
Ryan Saunders after Thibs got fired: 9 games of this scenario, Kat had 0 FGA.
Ryan Saunders 2nd year: 8 games of this scenario, Kat had 2 FGA (Missed both, 1 was a 3)
Ryan Saunders this year: 2 games of this scenario when Kat plays 0 FGA
So in the Ryan Saunders era there have been 19 games where the wolves have been trailing by 3 or less with 10 seconds left. Kat has 2 shot attempts and 0 FTA in those 19 games. There is something wrong with that.
Wolves need to find a way to get the ball into your best players hands when the game is on the line. I don't want to hear about Kat is a big man. Embiid for this season and last has played in 15 games with this criteria. He has gotten 4 FGA and gotten to the line once. So in the 33% of the games they have put the ball in Embiid hands compared to Towns 10.5%. Jokic had 14 games last year and got the shot 3 times (made all 3) and this year he has 8 games and has gotten 2 shots. (Murray gets most of the end of the game shots with the Nuggets) So in 22 games Jokic has gotten the ball 5 times 22.7% of the time the ball goes to Jokic.
Kat who doesn't have as much talent around him has gotten the ball 2 times out of 19. 2!!! Arguably the best offesnive big man ever gets the ball 10% of the time when the game is on the line under Saunders. We need to be able to get him the ball in crunch time. For some context in the Thibs era. The year before Thibs was fired he got the ball 2 out of the 5 games. (Fouled on both). The Jimmy Era, Kat got the ball 4 out of the 14 times. In Thibs 1st year it was not good it was it was only 2 of the 18 games Kat got the ball. In the Thibs era Kat got the ball in 8 out of the 37 games, so 22%.
Im not doing this to compare Thibs and Ryan, we just need to find a way to get Kat the ball more then 10% of the time when the game is on the line. Especially when the Wolves are not super talented around him. 2 out of 19 games is not good enough and needs to be corrected!
