Time to clear the way for Jaylen Nowell

[Q-is-here]

Cam, here is your thread on moving on from Beasley! I started this one before the DLO thread!

[Lipoli390]

Cam, here is your thread on moving on from Beasley! I started this one before the DLO thread!

That's right, Q. You started this before the thread about trading DLO. You're such a Beasley hater. :)

[JasonIsDaMan [enjin:7981157]]

Uh, how about MIN starts the season with Nowell as the fifth or sixth wing option and see what happens. They'll be injuries and blowouts (hopefully only in one direction) and we'll get opportunities to see if he builds on an encouraging '21/'22. Can we agree on that? Please?

[Monster]

Uh, how about MIN starts the season with Nowell as the fifth or sixth wing option and see what happens. They'll be injuries and blowouts (hopefully only in one direction) and we'll get opportunities to see if he builds on an encouraging '21/'22. Can we agree on that? Please?

No

[JasonIsDaMan [enjin:7981157]]

Uh, how about MIN starts the season with Nowell as the fifth or sixth wing option and see what happens. They'll be injuries and blowouts (hopefully only in one direction) and we'll get opportunities to see if he builds on an encouraging '21/'22. Can we agree on that? Please?

No

lol. Oh well, I guess I'll be the Lone-Wolf on this controversial take. It's worked for me before.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Chris Finch on Jaylen Nowell:

"One of our goals this year is to increase his role."

"It's up to us to provide the opportunity. We can't stand in the way of his path."

[Q-is-here]

Chris Finch on Jaylen Nowell:

"One of our goals this year is to increase his role."

"It's up to us to provide the opportunity. We can't stand in the way of his path."

43% of Jaylen's shots were assisted. 65% of Beasley's shots were assisted. Therein lies the key difference between these two guys, both of whom struggle on defense. One can create a shot for himself and others and the other needs quite a bit of help and doesn't create many shots for others.

[kekgeek]

Chris Finch on Jaylen Nowell:

"One of our goals this year is to increase his role."

"It's up to us to provide the opportunity. We can't stand in the way of his path."

43% of Jaylen's shots were assisted. 65% of Beasley's shots were assisted. Therein lies the key difference between these two guys, both of whom struggle on defense. One can create a shot for himself and others and the other needs quite a bit of help and doesn't create many shots for others.

Im cool with giving more minutes with Nowell, the Wolves have an elite offense when Nowell was on the floor (With the eye test and stats back it up), the thing is Nowell is so bad at defense he needs to get better at that. Maybe he becomes like Jordan Poole where he can't stop anything but can score a ton, what will be alright. I want to say though I do like Beasley as a player he can legit space the floor and defenses have to be aware of him at all times what probably helps people like Kat and Ant score. Also Beasley hopefully won't be spending his offseason in jail this summer.

[Q-is-here]

Chris Finch on Jaylen Nowell:

"One of our goals this year is to increase his role."

"It's up to us to provide the opportunity. We can't stand in the way of his path."

43% of Jaylen's shots were assisted. 65% of Beasley's shots were assisted. Therein lies the key difference between these two guys, both of whom struggle on defense. One can create a shot for himself and others and the other needs quite a bit of help and doesn't create many shots for others.

Im cool with giving more minutes with Nowell, the Wolves have an elite offense when Nowell was on the floor (With the eye test and stats back it up), the thing is Nowell is so bad at defense he needs to get better at that. Maybe he becomes like Jordan Poole where he can't stop anything but can score a ton, what will be alright. I want to say though I do like Beasley as a player he can legit space the floor and defenses have to be aware of him at all times what probably helps people like Kat and Ant score. Also Beasley hopefully won't be spending his offseason in jail this summer.

I still have some hope for Nowell defensively, but yeah, if he becomes Poole 2.0 then his offense really needs to be good. The good news is that he's a 6th man and not someone we need to lean on a lot for defense. The better news is that the guy he'd be coming in for a lot (Ant) actually is developing into a 2-way player, which is one of the great developments of last season (still has a lot of work to do in terms of off ball awareness though - like DON'T LOSE TRACK OF DESMOND BANE EVER AGAIN!)

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Both Nowell and Beasley are good offensive players. It's nice to have two pretty good offensive players coming off the bench at the 1-2-3 position. It feels like it's been a while since we've had that.

No doubt Nowell is a better shot creator, which is more valuable because he can initiate offense at times. He always give you a second ball handler (or a third, if he's out there with Ant and a PG). Good point on that Q. He's clearly able to score at all three levels, shoot well, and dish the ball to the open shooting. It does indicate that he could be a breakout candidate if he gets more playing time.

At the same time Beasley's volume of 3s was really impressive last year, and, as people mentioned, was really important for helping us stretch the floor. So I'd hesitate to trade him just to get more time for Nowell.

The problem, as people have pointed out, is that they're not great defenders. And we really need at least one of those guys to be able to play both ways.

Just off the top of my head, here's the roster next year, assuming we keep Prince and Minott is on a two-way. Okogie is sure to pick up his QO, and I do like having him around as injury insurance and to give us a bit more defense (please, please please, Josh, just work on your 3 pointer and get it up to at least 32%). Jaden, by the way, is another guy who needs to work on his 3. I love his defense, and he can do more on offensive than Okogie obviously. But we really need him to be able to stretch the floor a bit as well. He's got a decent FT%, so it should be possible.

Beverley/McLaughlin/Bolmaro
DLO/Beasley/Nowell/Okogie
Ant/Prince/Moore/Minott
Vando/McDaniels
KAT/Naz/Kessler

There's some flexibility in that roster and some guys with multiple skills on offense. And while it does still seem to have too many one-way guys, there are some guys who can play two-ways too. I do wish we had more of a star-level forward to start between Ant and KAT, but the depth of that team is not too bad, assuming Prince can play the 4 for stretches. Lots of interesting lineup combos Finch could try, including with Nowell on the floor.