Minnesota Sports Forum

Camden0916 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Slow your roll everybody. He's playing out of his mind and we're still a .500 team. He has to both keep up this level of play and we have to start winning more games or frankly it doesn't matter. He can't be called elite until he starts winning us games because frankly that's what all elite players do.

Slow your roll, khans. The "youngblood" starting five, including Rubio, is beating opposing teams' starting fives night after night. Our bench is putrid and the head coach isn't necessarily helping things. We're still collecting losses, but again, it's not something Rubio's directly contributing to.

I think you're the only one calling him elite. I can't recall a single poster or media pundit that made that claim. Why you keep bringing it up is beyond me.

Well said, Cam!

kekgeek1 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Slow your roll everybody. He's playing out of his mind and we're still a .500 team. He has to both keep up this level of play and we have to start winning more games or frankly it doesn't matter. He can't be called elite until he starts winning us games because frankly that's what all elite players do.

Since Lavine was inserted into the starting lineup the Wolves starters have the biggest point differential in the NBA for any starting unit including the Warriors.

Hard to argue with that - Outstanding

Any other teams have a starting unit all under 25? A GOOD starting unit?

Camden wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Slow your roll everybody. He's playing out of his mind and we're still a .500 team. He has to both keep up this level of play and we have to start winning more games or frankly it doesn't matter. He can't be called elite until he starts winning us games because frankly that's what all elite players do.

Slow your roll, khans. The "youngblood" starting five, including Rubio, is beating opposing teams' starting fives night after night. Our bench is putrid and the head coach isn't necessarily helping things. We're still collecting losses, but again, it's not something Rubio's directly contributing to.

I think you're the only one calling him elite. I can't recall a single poster or media pundit that made that claim. Why you keep bringing it up is beyond me.

There is actually one version of the starting lineup that did better than the youngblood one: The oldblood one. KG-Prince-KAT-Wiggins-Rubio had a better point differential than the youngblood one. And it's for the exact opposite reason - defense.

So the Rubio-KAT-Wiggins trio has been the constant in both cases. Insert Dieng and LaVine and we become a run-and-gun offensive powerhouse. Insert KG and Prince and we're a grind-it-out defensive juggernaut. It's actually kind of weird how by simply changing out two guys we get completely different results...both good, but for very different reasons.

It's also funny how Khans is moving the goal posts on his view of Ricky. Now if we don't have a winning record, we can't call him elite. Gasp! We can't call him elite, oh no! Do we have permission to call him "good", "solid", or may be even "very good"? Because those are generally the things many of us have been calling him all along.

BizarroJerry wrote:Any other teams have a starting unit all under 25? A GOOD starting unit?

Rubio is 25 and Dieng is 26, but yeah, considering the fact these two are by far the oldest players in our starting lineup, it's pretty impressive stuff. Offensively they have been excellent at complementing the "big three" scorers.

Now, about that defense.....

Safe to say our depth leaves a little to be desired?

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Safe to say our depth leaves a little to be desired?

Yup, that's where things fall apart. Although it seems like a more solve-able problem than landing stars in the draft or via trade, which requires a lot of moxie and luck. Flip The GM seemed to get that part mostly right.

Q12543 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Safe to say our depth leaves a little to be desired?

Yup, that's where things fall apart. Although it seems like a more solve-able problem than landing stars in the draft or via trade, which requires a lot of moxie and luck. Flip The GM seemed to get that part mostly right.

No question

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Safe to say our depth leaves a little to be desired?

Yeah, a little D from the starters would be great come playoff time! On the other hand if they had a 2nd unit that could keep pace with other second units they'd be a playoff team just by virtue of outgunning everybody.

Q12543 wrote:

Camden wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Slow your roll everybody. He's playing out of his mind and we're still a .500 team. He has to both keep up this level of play and we have to start winning more games or frankly it doesn't matter. He can't be called elite until he starts winning us games because frankly that's what all elite players do.

Slow your roll, khans. The "youngblood" starting five, including Rubio, is beating opposing teams' starting fives night after night. Our bench is putrid and the head coach isn't necessarily helping things. We're still collecting losses, but again, it's not something Rubio's directly contributing to.

I think you're the only one calling him elite. I can't recall a single poster or media pundit that made that claim. Why you keep bringing it up is beyond me.

There is actually one version of the starting lineup that did better than the youngblood one: The oldblood one. KG-Prince-KAT-Wiggins-Rubio had a better point differential than the youngblood one. And it's for the exact opposite reason - defense.

So the Rubio-KAT-Wiggins trio has been the constant in both cases. Insert Dieng and LaVine and we become a run-and-gun offensive powerhouse. Insert KG and Prince and we're a grind-it-out defensive juggernaut. It's actually kind of weird how by simply changing out two guys we get completely different results...both good, but for very different reasons.

It's also funny how Khans is moving the goal posts on his view of Ricky. Now if we don't have a winning record, we can't call him elite. Gasp! We can't call him elite, oh no! Do we have permission to call him "good", "solid", or may be even "very good"? Because those are generally the things many of us have been calling him all along.

Interesting how Sam was able to have 2 different types of starting lineups succeed by those metrics but he is considered completely clueless.

The past 25 games was a part (or maybe led) a team of a roster of (for most of that time) guys with less than 3 years of experience (4 of them 21 years or younger) and Prince to a record of 11-14. There should be some credit to go around and Ricky should get some of that because that's all things considering pretty good. It wasn't just beating up on mediocre or bad teams either. Of course they lost to some bad teams also and that's why this team isn't actually good yet.