Minnesota Sports Forum

This is starting to turn into a surreal season

BloopOracle wrote:This is starting to turn into a surreal season

The fact that's it's March and we still give a shit I'll take that any year.

Most 3's made without attempting a two-point shot in NBA history, wow

The Wolves are now the highest scoring offense in the league at 114.7!

The Mavs are going to lose tonight, which means the Wolves will be 2.5 games back of them for a top-six seed. Minnesota plays Dallas on March 21st and 25th. Those will be HUGE games.

Update: The Wolves are 32-18 (.640) this year when both Karl-Anthony Towns and D'Angelo Russell suit up. They're 45-30 (.600) together since the trade that brought Russell to Minnesota.

Camden wrote:Josh Okogie's reminding everyone that he's still ass.

Hollinger will be crestfallen when he doesn't get the 4 years $52 mil he swore he'd get as a free agent.

Another laugher. What a fun team to watch.

- Beasley....what a turnaround. He's back to being in that 2nd tier of elite 3-pt shooters after Steph Curry. There might only be three or four other guys in the rest of the NBA that can do what Beasley did tonight.

- Malik is 25. His trade value is going up. It's good to have options!

- Good to see Ant back. He did an outstanding job guarding SGA. He has such a great combination of size, strength, quickness, and anticipation that he could truly become an elite two-way player. It's too bad his shot has gone missing for the last month, but he was really dialed in on defense tonight.

- Nowell wasn't much of a shot maker tonight, but he corralled 6 boards and dished out 7 assists with 0 turnovers in 27 minutes.

- McDaniels and Prince really had nice games as well.

Onwards and upwards!

Q-was-here wrote:Another laugher. What a fun team to watch.

- Beasley....what a turnaround. He's back to being in that 2nd tier of elite 3-pt shooters after Steph Curry. There might only be three or four other guys in the rest of the NBA that can do what Beasley did tonight.

- Malik is 25. His trade value is going up. It's good to have options!

- Good to see Ant back. He did an outstanding job guarding SGA. He has such a great combination of size, strength, quickness, and anticipation that he could truly become an elite two-way player. It's too bad his shot has gone missing for the last month, but he was really dialed in on defense tonight.

- Nowell wasn't much of a shot maker tonight, but he corralled 6 boards and dished out 7 assists with 0 turnovers in 27 minutes.

- McDaniels and Prince really had nice games as well.

Onwards and upwards!

I keep trying to come up with Beasley trades for the offseason and I haven't exactly found anything super exciting. I think to deal him and get enough value it will have to be for a much better player coming back. To me the question I have about Beasley is whether or not he can be a shot maker/scorer as a bench player. He hasn't been able to do that consistently for years. IF he can be a guy that can come in and make shots off the bench then...quite frankly why deal him? Good teams can use a guy like that. The Wolves are a good team. There needs to be opportunities for Nowell to play too but like you said Q it's nice to have options. Ideally Nowell would be able to move ahead of McLaughlin. And play some backup PG and a combo guard alongside another playmaking guard.

monsterpile wrote:

Q-was-here wrote:Another laugher. What a fun team to watch.

- Beasley....what a turnaround. He's back to being in that 2nd tier of elite 3-pt shooters after Steph Curry. There might only be three or four other guys in the rest of the NBA that can do what Beasley did tonight.

- Malik is 25. His trade value is going up. It's good to have options!

- Good to see Ant back. He did an outstanding job guarding SGA. He has such a great combination of size, strength, quickness, and anticipation that he could truly become an elite two-way player. It's too bad his shot has gone missing for the last month, but he was really dialed in on defense tonight.

- Nowell wasn't much of a shot maker tonight, but he corralled 6 boards and dished out 7 assists with 0 turnovers in 27 minutes.

- McDaniels and Prince really had nice games as well.

Onwards and upwards!

I keep trying to come up with Beasley trades for the offseason and I haven't exactly found anything super exciting. I think to deal him and get enough value it will have to be for a much better player coming back. To me the question I have about Beasley is whether or not he can be a shot maker/scorer as a bench player. He hasn't been able to do that consistently for years. IF he can be a guy that can come in and make shots off the bench then...quite frankly why deal him? Good teams can use a guy like that. The Wolves are a good team. There needs to be opportunities for Nowell to play too but like you said Q it's nice to have options. Ideally Nowell would be able to move ahead of McLaughlin. And play some backup PG and a combo guard alongside another playmaking guard.

The first half of this season was an anomaly for Beasley. Other than that stretch, he's been a very good three-point shooter throughout his career and an excellent three-point shooter since coming to the Wolves. Note that he's also a very good rebounder at his position. Tonight he garnered 5 rebounds in 29 minutes. When you consider his three-point shot making, rebounding, speed, athleticism and reasonable contract, it makes a lot of sense to keep him.

Right now, my thinking is to (1) keep Beasley; (2) re-sign Prince to a multi-year deal at less than his current annual salary of $13M; (3) let Layman go; and (4) use the full MLE to sign the best available big who can upgrade or physicality and rebounding. I'd probably also let Okogie go and release the cap hold on him. But all of this is a discussion for May or June. Right now, it's fun to think about the Wolves competing in a playoff series.