Minnesota Sports Forum

CoolBreeze44 wrote:The biggest element of intrigue for me is Edwards. He's our biggest hope for any real improvement and I can't wait to see what he looks like. I also hope McDaniels gets some run. Like Drew said, I don't have a lot of hope for Culver or Okogie for that matter. But it will be fun to see a game again.

Edwards is a big element of intrigue for me as well. But I think the biggest element of intrigue this season is Culver. Edwards strikes me as the key long term, but I can't see him making a breakthrough as a rookie. His playing time and role will likely be limited, he's very young and he has a lot to work on. As you know I was really unhappy with the Wolves decision to pick Culver. But I was actually pleasantly surprised by some of what I saw from his last season. Yes, his shooting was every bit as bad as I thought it would be. But I was impressed (and pleasantly surprised) by his athleticism, ball-handling and basketball IQ. The defense is there as well as the competitiveness and work ethic. So he has only one thing to fix and that's his shooting. It's a big fix because it was so bad. But if he fixes that one thing, he will be very good.

Good draft or Bad draft doesn't matter.

If the Wolves kept the #1 pick (didn't trade it)... and don't expect the guy to be a key contributor with a big role this season... what are we (Timberwolves) doing?!?!?!?

And why do we (fans) tolerate it?

Win games. That's the only goal. It's simple enough that about 22 - 25 other teams do it at a fairly consistent rate. Yet, the Wolves still can't figure it out?

Guys, yes Edwards is young. But he's the first overall pick in the draft. 90% of #1 picks have an immediate impact in the league. If he can't play a significant role on a team as bad as ours, he's a worse pick than we thought. He better play a ton and he better be good.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Guys, yes Edwards is young. But he's the first overall pick in the draft. 90% of #1 picks have an immediate impact in the league. If he can't play a significant role on a team as bad as ours, he's a worse pick than we thought. He better play a ton and he better be good.

Everybody knew this draft was weak at the top. That's why most of us wanted to trade back if there was a decent trade to be had. I think it's fair to set expectations for all the top picks in this draft based on our understanding of the players in this draft, not previous ones.

EDIT: I HOPE Edward is good. But I'm crossing my fingers like hell, and I'm not expecting much for awhile. I do think if these top guys end up panning out, it'll take some time to find out. I also think there's a fair chance one, two, or all three of them end up being pretty ho-hum in terms of actual impact. Maybe flashy, but not really impactful. Then again, there is potential in all three of these top guys.

I don't think we can draw a single conclusion from tonight.

A few players have only been in camp for a few days (Naz still hasn't cleared Covid protocol).

I'm going to guess we evaluate roster spots as much as anything. We won't get much from top 8.

Like others would like to see Culver and Edwards get good time tonight.

Well, there is a reason we tried to trade the pick. Because unlike other years, there was no clear-cut #1 guy and all three of the top prospects had some serious flaws/question marks.

The reality is we took the youngest of the group and even if Edwards plays a lot of minutes and scores a lot of points, he hasn't shown that he knows how to play winning basketball (yet) on either end of the court. That doesn't mean he won't in the future, but it may take a couple years...or never.

Edwards Continuum of possibilities:
Wade/Harden/DeRozan/Ja.Crawford/Waiters

He will probably look like Dion Waiters this season. Let's hope he moves up the ladder from there.

SameOldNudityDrew wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Guys, yes Edwards is young. But he's the first overall pick in the draft. 90% of #1 picks have an immediate impact in the league. If he can't play a significant role on a team as bad as ours, he's a worse pick than we thought. He better play a ton and he better be good.

Everybody knew this draft was weak at the top. That's why most of us wanted to trade back if there was a decent trade to be had. I think it's fair to set expectations for all the top picks in this draft based on our understanding of the players in this draft, not previous ones.

EDIT: I HOPE Edward is good. But I'm crossing my fingers like hell, and I'm not expecting much for awhile. I do think if these top guys end up panning out, it'll take some time to find out. I also think there's a fair chance one, two, or all three of them end up being pretty ho-hum in terms of actual impact. Maybe flashy, but not really impactful. Then again, there is potential in all three of these top guys.

I'm with you on the desire to trade back, but the fact is we didn't do it, instead opting to take Edwards. This is Rosas' decision and as a fan base we have a right to expect it to work. If we can't raise our expectations for this regime now, when is the right time?

I don't expect typical top pick production from Anthony Edwards as a rookie this year mainly because of the construction of this roster. This team is rather deep with playable wings -- Malik Beasley, Josh Okogie, Jarrett Culver, Jake Layman -- and already features two All-Stars. Edwards will not bear the responsibilities that most top picks usually have to right off the bat. If he proves capable and can do so on both ends of the court, then by all means give him more rope and see where the wall is with him this year, but I think it'll be a slower development with him considering his age, years invested into basketball, and the team that surrounds him.

Camden0916 wrote:I don't expect typical top pick production from Anthony Edwards as a rookie this year mainly because of the construction of this roster. This team is rather deep with playable wings -- Malik Beasley, Josh Okogie, Jarrett Culver, Jake Layman -- and already features two All-Stars. Edwards will not bear the responsibilities that most top picks usually have to right off the bat. If he proves capable and can do so on both ends of the court, then by all means give him more rope and see where the wall is with him this year, but I think it'll be a slower development with him considering his age, years invested into basketball, and the team that surrounds him.

Yes all those things and the time he gets to prep for the season with his new franchise might be measured in days instead of weeks or months like other rookies in other years. There is a possiblity this rookie class has some sort of benefit from working on their game in a sort of massive extended off-season but I'll remain skeptical about that and generally expect less.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Good draft or Bad draft doesn't matter.

If the Wolves kept the #1 pick (didn't trade it)... and don't expect the guy to be a key contributor with a big role this season... what are we (Timberwolves) doing?!?!?!?

And why do we (fans) tolerate it?

Win games. That's the only goal. It's simple enough that about 22 - 25 other teams do it at a fairly consistent rate. Yet, the Wolves still can't figure it out?

Were they supposed to take the Shane Battier of this draft or something? What's wrong with having some sort of realistic expectations for a very young rookie that seems less likely to be prepared for this season than a typical rookie? I'm not saying Edwards should have zero expectations (especially with his athletic gifts) but I'm tempering them. Do you want Edwards to work for his minutes or hand them to him? I get your frustration with this franchise though no doubt. Utah didn't have a problem taking Kanger with the 3rd pick and had a stacked frontcourt for a while. He started 2 games his first 2 years. Yes he didn't turn out to be a really good player either (hell of a lot better than Derrick Williams) but it's not like nobody else has taken a high pick at a spot where they had other options. Raptors toilet Jonas V 2 picks later and had to wait for a year. Was that a bad move? Well maybe when you see a couple other guys that were picked in the lottery but he is a better later than the 3 guys picked right after him and boy did Brandon Knight look like he was gonna be pretty good for a bit there and so did Biyombo after a nice few games including the playoffs...

I wanted to trade down as bad as you did but another way to look at it is we got that value we wanted by trading down with 17 and 33 to get Rubio (legit starting level player) and still had 2 more picks. I know you don't like what they do with those picks but the Wolves still did improve the team in a way that will help the team NOW during the draft.