Minnesota Sports Forum

I don't think Hill's minutes is beside the point at all, as far as your rainy day analogy these non minutes were in winning time at the end of the season and playoff games it's not like I cherry picked some random stretch of games in the middle of the season. I'm still trying to see how making our core watch a horrible bench play improves their defense when they're getting lit up themselves. What are Towns and Wiggins going to learn watching our bench play extended minutes when they are terrible, how does that improve their defensive rotations? It reminds of those who think that a young NFL rookie QB can learn so much from a scrub placeholder who starts while they sit on the bench the whole year, luckily teams have gotten away from that in recent years and have realized players need to play ESPECIALLY when there isn't anyone good in front/behind them.

The problem with this team as Thibs constructed it was that he made the assumption as did his predecessors that our collection of bigs could cover the 4 spot even though none of them is a natural 4. It is still our weakest position and unless we want to philosophically move Zach out of the starting lineup they better do something about our gaping hole there. G is a backup center and Belly is a tenth man. We could reorient the roster to play small ball or we do what we should have done last summer and get a real 4.

BloopOracle wrote:I don't think Hill's minutes is beside the point at all, as far as your rainy day analogy these non minutes were in winning time at the end of the season and playoff games it's not like I cherry picked some random stretch of games in the middle of the season. I'm still trying to see how making our core watch a horrible bench play improves their defense when they're getting lit up themselves. What are Towns and Wiggins going to learn watching our bench play extended minutes when they are terrible, how does that improve their defensive rotations? It reminds of those who think that a young NFL rookie QB can learn so much from a scrub placeholder who starts while they sit on the bench the whole year, luckily teams have gotten away from that in recent years and have realized players need to play ESPECIALLY when there isn't anyone good in front/behind them.

What's yo be gained? Keeping the starters reasonably fresh late in games and at the end of the season. After a good stretch of nice defense following the all star break the Wolves defense collapsed. I think part of that was fatigue from too many minutes over the entire season up to that point.

thedoper wrote:The problem with this team as Thibs constructed it was that he made the assumption as did his predecessors that our collection of bigs could cover the 4 spot even though none of them is a natural 4. It is still our weakest position and unless we want to philosophically move Zach out of the starting lineup they better do something about our gaping hole there. G is a backup center and Belly is a tenth man. We could reorient the roster to play small ball or we do what we should have done last summer and get a real 4.

We are on the same wavelength Doper about the PF spot. Another thing the last few coaches have said is various wing players could play small ball PF and then...it ends up not happening much despite it making some sense especially with Bazz. I'm not sure playing Bazz or Wiggins or Rush as a small ball PF would have helped much but he hear about that possibility every year.

My main thing last offseason was that they needed to add a combo forward in the mold of Daunte Cunningham. They really only had one of those guys Belly and he was no sure thing to be even decent and I am a fan of his. My guy was Quincy Acy he would have cost the vet min and plays his butt off and all that type of stuff. he seems like a really well liked guy and a good dude. Whenthe Nets signed him for the rest of the season he bought $250 gift cards for all his former d-league team players and got some shoes for others in the organization. Wouls he have saved the season? Hell no but the Wolves have to add a PF/SF hybrid type to the roster maybe even 2 of them. Obviously having one that's more of at least a fringe starter would be nice. We will see what happens.

Replacing Bazz and Rush's minutes with guys who can play two ways and cutting about a minute off Wiggins playing time could do wonders for this team. I want an old defensive minded guy who won't cost us much but can dog the young guys to play defense. Tony Allen might be a perfect mentor and can still play. Sefalosha is another 30+ defensive minded guy. Hopefully we can get an old vet to put the dog in Wiggins. As far as bigs that might be cheap mentors--Bogut's health and age might allow us to get him cheap. Same with Tyson Chandler if he becomes available. Nene too. Get some cheap 30 something vets to mentor the young guys like KG did with KAT.

TeamRicky wrote:Replacing Bazz and Rush's minutes with guys who can play two ways and cutting about a minute off Wiggins playing time could do wonders for this team. I want an old defensive minded guy who won't cost us much but can dog the young guys to play defense. Tony Allen might be a perfect mentor and can still play. Sefalosha is another 30+ defensive minded guy. Hopefully we can get an old vet to put the dog in Wiggins. As far as bigs that might be cheap mentors--Bogut's health and age might allow us to get him cheap. Same with Tyson Chandler if he becomes available. Nene too. Get some cheap 30 something vets to mentor the vets like KG did with KAT.

Not to beat a dead horse, but this is exactly what Flip said about bringing back KG... But maybe that max contract extension will put a little dog in him!

60WinTim wrote:

TeamRicky wrote:Replacing Bazz and Rush's minutes with guys who can play two ways and cutting about a minute off Wiggins playing time could do wonders for this team. I want an old defensive minded guy who won't cost us much but can dog the young guys to play defense. Tony Allen might be a perfect mentor and can still play. Sefalosha is another 30+ defensive minded guy. Hopefully we can get an old vet to put the dog in Wiggins. As far as bigs that might be cheap mentors--Bogut's health and age might allow us to get him cheap. Same with Tyson Chandler if he becomes available. Nene too. Get some cheap 30 something vets to mentor the vets like KG did with KAT.

Not to beat a dead horse, but this is exactly what Flip said about bringing back KG... But maybe that max contract extension will put a little dog in him!

I thought that German Shepard that Wiggins adopted last year was gonna help him be the leader of the pack. What do you think Tim should he have gotten a cat?

monsterpile wrote:

60WinTim wrote:

TeamRicky wrote:Replacing Bazz and Rush's minutes with guys who can play two ways and cutting about a minute off Wiggins playing time could do wonders for this team. I want an old defensive minded guy who won't cost us much but can dog the young guys to play defense. Tony Allen might be a perfect mentor and can still play. Sefalosha is another 30+ defensive minded guy. Hopefully we can get an old vet to put the dog in Wiggins. As far as bigs that might be cheap mentors--Bogut's health and age might allow us to get him cheap. Same with Tyson Chandler if he becomes available. Nene too. Get some cheap 30 something vets to mentor the vets like KG did with KAT.

Not to beat a dead horse, but this is exactly what Flip said about bringing back KG... But maybe that max contract extension will put a little dog in him!

I thought that German Shepard that Wiggins adopted last year was gonna help him be the leader of the pack. What do you think Tim should he have gotten a cat?

Did you mean KAT?!? ;-)

BloopOracle wrote:I don't think Hill's minutes is beside the point at all, as far as your rainy day analogy these non minutes were in winning time at the end of the season and playoff games it's not like I cherry picked some random stretch of games in the middle of the season. I'm still trying to see how making our core watch a horrible bench play improves their defense when they're getting lit up themselves. What are Towns and Wiggins going to learn watching our bench play extended minutes when they are terrible, how does that improve their defensive rotations? It reminds of those who think that a young NFL rookie QB can learn so much from a scrub placeholder who starts while they sit on the bench the whole year, luckily teams have gotten away from that in recent years and have realized players need to play ESPECIALLY when there isn't anyone good in front/behind them.

The bench wasn't as bad as you think. Sure, things fell apart after Bjelly went down, but they generally held serve against other team's benches. And no one here is suggesting that Wiggins, etc. should play 30 MPG. We're talking about going from 37 or 38 MPG to 34 or 35 MPG.

By the way, those Bulls guys that Thibs worked so hard a few years ago? They haven't exactly aged well. Deng, Noah, and Rose are all a mess.

60WinTim wrote:

TeamRicky wrote:Replacing Bazz and Rush's minutes with guys who can play two ways and cutting about a minute off Wiggins playing time could do wonders for this team. I want an old defensive minded guy who won't cost us much but can dog the young guys to play defense. Tony Allen might be a perfect mentor and can still play. Sefalosha is another 30+ defensive minded guy. Hopefully we can get an old vet to put the dog in Wiggins. As far as bigs that might be cheap mentors--Bogut's health and age might allow us to get him cheap. Same with Tyson Chandler if he becomes available. Nene too. Get some cheap 30 something vets to mentor the vets like KG did with KAT.

Not to beat a dead horse, but this is exactly what Flip said about bringing back KG... But maybe that max contract extension will put a little dog in him!

Agreed. The value KG brought to the team was directly correlated to the amount of time he spent actually playing. The second he didn't play, our defense fell apart. So much for his mentoring.....these guys didn't learn a thing about defense from him.

However, unlike KG, I'm assuming we want to sign a guy that can actually play the whole season and isn't on a minutes restriction.