Minnesota Sports Forum

thedoper wrote:Based on Taj last year and rose in limited time with us, I'm willing to give any of Thibs former Bulls a chance on a good contract. He has a way with his guys. No one here or anywhere I remember thought the Taj deal was a great deal. I remember a few here being ok or happy with it but everyone thought we could have done better. Last year I thought no one played to the value of their contract more than Taj. I expect the same from Rose. We're going to be getting more than vet min contributions from him, and I highly doubt we had better options for that price.

Some good points, Doper. Thibs seems to get the most out of are the players his former Bulls players. In fact, those seem to be the only players he gets the most out of. And I think you're probably right that Thibodeau didn't have better options at that price, unless he wanted to bring back Aaron Brooks. :)

Fair point on "Thibs guys" outperforming our expectations. He may indeed be the Rose whisperer, but color me skeptical. The data just doesn't support a positive contributor.

Q - your argument would hold more water if the Wolves "wasted" money on Rose. But assuming the Wolves spend a sizable chunk of money on one player, they will still would need to sign 3 more players at the vet minimum to get to 14 players. So we spent one of those on Rose. I am just not having a problem with that...

Q12543 wrote:Fair point on "Thibs guys" outperforming our expectations. He may indeed be the Rose whisperer, but color me skeptical. The data just doesn't support a positive contributor.

If I were objectively judging the debate, I'd give Q the win. Ultimately, players are what their career stats tell us they are if they've been in the League for more than 5 years. Taj clearly he a career year last season and I think a big part of that was playing next to KAT. He's never played next to another big as talented and productive as KAT. I suspect Taj will regress towards his mean next season however. I think the energy, tenacity and dribble penetration we saw from Rose last season are things we can expect to see again from him. But the three-point shooting was a statistical anomaly in my view. And unfortunately, going down with an ankle injury inhis 2nd or 3rd game with us last season was another reality we'll likely see again from a guy who has proved to be extremely brittle over his career.

lipoli390 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Fair point on "Thibs guys" outperforming our expectations. He may indeed be the Rose whisperer, but color me skeptical. The data just doesn't support a positive contributor.

If I were objectively judging the debate, I'd give Q the win. Ultimately, players are what their career stats tell us they are if they've been in the League for more than 5 years. Taj clearly he a career year last season and I think a big part of that was playing next to KAT. He's never played next to another big as talented and productive as KAT. I suspect Taj will regress towards his mean next season however. I think the energy, tenacity and dribble penetration we saw from Rose last season are things we can expect to see again from him. But the three-point shooting was a statistical anomaly in my view. And unfortunately, going down with an ankle injury inhis 2nd or 3rd game with us last season was another reality we'll likely see again from a guy who has proved to be extremely brittle over his career.

I'll give the win to Q too on a pure stats analysis of whether Rose a plus basketball player at this point in his career. But that's not really the issue with a vet min player as I see it. Vet min players are always going to be a mystery in what they provide the team with ample risk involved. I think from what we saw in the 20 games he gave Thibs last year, Rose is as good of a risk as any of our other vet min options would have been. If we gain from the money we spent on Crawford last year with a guy on a minimum contract, we are moving in the right direction. What they do with the rest of the money (or trade options) is really going to be what defines our improvement. Getting too invested in who we give a minimum contract might be a bit overblown. But at least we know this minimum contract guy is going to play so we will have lots more minutes to judge his value.

thedoper wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Fair point on "Thibs guys" outperforming our expectations. He may indeed be the Rose whisperer, but color me skeptical. The data just doesn't support a positive contributor.

If I were objectively judging the debate, I'd give Q the win. Ultimately, players are what their career stats tell us they are if they've been in the League for more than 5 years. Taj clearly he a career year last season and I think a big part of that was playing next to KAT. He's never played next to another big as talented and productive as KAT. I suspect Taj will regress towards his mean next season however. I think the energy, tenacity and dribble penetration we saw from Rose last season are things we can expect to see again from him. But the three-point shooting was a statistical anomaly in my view. And unfortunately, going down with an ankle injury inhis 2nd or 3rd game with us last season was another reality we'll likely see again from a guy who has proved to be extremely brittle over his career.

I'll give the win to Q too on a pure stats analysis of whether Rose a plus basketball player at this point in his career. But that's not really the issue with a vet min player as I see it. Vet min players are always going to be a mystery in what they provide the team with ample risk involved. I think from what we saw in the 20 games he gave Thibs last year, Rose is as good of a risk as any of our other vet min options would have been. If we gain from the money we spent on Crawford last year with a guy on a minimum contract, we are moving in the right direction. What they do with the rest of the money (or trade options) is really going to be what defines our improvement. Getting too invested in who we give a minimum contract might be a bit overblown. But at least we know this minimum contract guy is going to play so we will have lots more minutes to judge his value.

I think you're probably right about overblowing the importance of these few minimum contracts. But the problem is there isn't much that can be done with the rest of the money. We either re-sign Belly or we try to sign on of the League's remaining FAs for around $6 million per year. I'm not thrilled with who's still out there and I get the sense that Thibs intends to offer whatever salary room we have to re-sign Belly. So moving forward, the only significant changes to our roster from last season will be the absence of Crawford, Aaron Brooks and Cole Aldrich along with the addition of our two rookies - Okogie and KBD. None of that moves the needle significantly forward if at all in my view. That means, barring a significant trade, climbing up the standings in an improving Western Conference will require improvement from Gorgui, KAT (defensively) and especially Wiggins. It will also require significantly more playing time for Tyus.

Lip maybe you can rest easy knowing your source didnt seem to have things right. Remember part of the reason for dealing Dieng away was to sign Rose to more than the vet min?

My one prediction for FA was Rose would sign with the Wolves for the vet min. I'm quitting while I'm ahead!!!

monsterpile wrote:Lip maybe you can rest easy knowing your source didnt seem to have things right. Remember part of the reason for dealing Dieng away was to sign Rose to more than the vet min?

My one prediction for FA was Rose would sign with the Wolves for the vet min. I'm quitting while I'm ahead!!!

Lol. Very wise, Monster. You retire undefeated as a free agent prognosticator this summer. That's something you'll always have and can pass along to your grandchildren. :)

Signing Rose to a vet minimum wouldn't be an issue if the coach viewed the player accurately. In Thibs' mind, he probably thinks he got over managing to sign a former MVP to a vet minimum deal. The problem is that the old Derrick Rose is dead and gone, but Thibs won't let that go, so we're gonna run him out there with these unrealistic expectations that could come to the detriment of guys like Jones and Okogie.


Rose being the main guy off the bench might be a role too large for him at this stage of his career, but here we are.

Jones/Rose/Bates-Diop/Okogie/Dieng as our bench, right now, it sucks. I'm gonna be honest. Josh Okogie has to a) play and b) be the bench version of Donovan Mitchell for this team to look respectable off the bench. Otherwise, it's gonna be the starters playing 40 minutes a night for no reason at all.

WildWolf2813 wrote:Signing Rose to a vet minimum wouldn't be an issue if the coach viewed the player accurately. In Thibs' mind, he probably thinks he got over managing to sign a former MVP to a vet minimum deal. The problem is that the old Derrick Rose is dead and gone, but Thibs won't let that go, so we're gonna run him out there with these unrealistic expectations that could come to the detriment of guys like Jones and Okogie.


Rose being the main guy off the bench might be a role too large for him at this stage of his career, but here we are.

Jones/Rose/Bates-Diop/Okogie/Dieng as our bench, right now, it sucks. I'm gonna be honest. Josh Okogie has to a) play and b) be the bench version of Donovan Mitchell for this team to look respectable off the bench. Otherwise, it's gonna be the starters playing 40 minutes a night for no reason at all.

In my honest opinion I don't think thibs views Rose like a MVP anymore. He didn't trade Rubio for him. Didn't sign him last offseason. Didn't pay him more then the min this offseason. I hated the signing last year but the thing I liked with thibs when rose played bad he benched him last year. (Of course this can all change this year.)