longstrangetrip wrote:Good thread idea, Brightside...I agree that the off-season decision making in this area is vital.
I take a different perspective and see defense as a higher priority than shooting. Our 3-point shooting is a mystery to me, and I think it may have more to do with offensive philosophy than shooting ability. I have pointed out before that during the last half of 2015-6, the Wolves ranked 3rd in 3-point accuracy. And yet despite having guys who can make shots at a high percentage, we ranked dead last in 3-point attempts last season! How can a team that has demonstrated such proficiency in making 3-pointers the previous season not make that shot the cornerstone of the offense in the following season?
I don't know who to blame for this, because the lack of three point attempts has been an issue for awhile. Could it be Rubio, since he directs the offense? I don't know. But I tend to put the blame in this area on the coaching staff. Flip and Sam were much maligned for designing their offense around the long 2, and we had a lot of hope that Thibs would change that. But his offense is as antiquated as his predecessors, and as a result we took 1.4 fewer threes than the second 3-avoiding team last year, despite making them at a respectable 35% rate. (As we all know, a 35% rate on threes is equal to a 52.5% rate on twos). Zach, Wig, Ricky, KAT, Rush, Jones and even Gorgui are all capable of hitting the open three, if they are just given the opportunity. (And Isaac will be a good 3-point shooter too if we are lucky enough to get him in the draft). But Thibs' offense is designed more to create one-on-one matchups or to stay in the PnR, and as a result we only took 21 threes per game last season. That's not a winning formula in today's NBA.
I want to see Thibs target a gritty defending SF in free agency. Someone like PJ Tucker instantly makes us a better defensive team, allows Wig to play SG, gives us a huge scoring and shooting option off the bench in Zach, adds some vital veteran leadership to the locker room, and gives us another guy who will hit the 3-point shot at better than the league average.
But even more importantly, I hope Thibs is looking at the stats and questioning why his team is dead last in 3-point attempts. And I hope he looks in the mirror rather than blaming it on personnel, because I see him as no better than Flip or Sam in emphasizing the three...and perhaps worse. He needs to be looking at how other teams create open threes in today's NBA, and be prepared to model his offense after the teams that are doing this successfully. If he does this, I'm convinced our offense will be instantly improved as we move away from the long 2 philosophy we have all grown tired of. It's the coach's responsibility to catch up to the rest of the league and make this happen.
Well LST if you were better able to look past your Thibs bias you might have a pretty easy time figuring out a few of your own questions. I'll try and help you out. :)
There is a big difference between guys that hit 3's at a high percentage and guys that also take them at volume. The Wolves simply have very few of those volume guys and Lavine missed over 30 games this year.
Your thoughts here forget to mention that the Wolves took over 4 3's per game more than last year were more efficient as an offense (which Q pointed out) and also hit a higher percentage of 3's than last year's team. The league simply moved the goal posts again on the Wolves when it came to 3 point attempts. Where the Wolves and Thibs good enough to keep up? No.
Let's be honest about this roster. The Wolves added Rush to this roster as a 3 point shooter. That's it. Let's remind ourselves that Martin played for this team for 30 games last year and that was early on so basically this team had very little if any help adding to the roster when it came to 3 point shooting. So what realistic improvement in that area can you ask for?
Compare that to the Bucks who increased their attempts from the bottom (lower than the Wolves) to the low 20's ranking with a large jump of 8 more 3 pointers attempted. Kidd is an offensive genius for such a big jump right? Probably not. Look at the guys they added to their roster.
Delly
Teletovic
Snell (dumped MCW who didn't take them)
Brogdon
Jason Terry
They even traded Miles Plumblee for Hawes in a mid season trade who took a few 3's.
Now a couple of guys that were on their team took and made 3's that these guys replaced but they combined for like 100 games played or something
Bayless
Vasquez
Mayo
In addition to upgrading their 3 point shooting on their roster by adding players they also were getting a lot more 3 point shootinf out of Parker when he was healthy. The Bucks are an example of a team with significantly more 3 point shooting on their roster this year than they had the previous year. They got a bit lucky with some guys exceeding expectations but they were clearly looking to surround some of their guys with more shooting.
The Rockets took 10 more 3's per game. Why? They wanted to but adding Ryan Anderson and Gordon plus those guys actually staying mostly healthy was a big factor in those numbers going up. You simply can't ignore the roster when talking about 3 point attempts.
So does Thibs need to try and find more ways to get the 3 into his offense? Sure he probably would tell you they absolutely need to get up and make more 3's. Is it just him being stubborn and not making that happen because of his offense? No but everyone would agree that for whatever reason there was a lot of ISO stuff. Sometimes that made sense to do. Sometimes more passing obviously makes more sense. However a lot of that is the roster and when Lavine went down it only got worse because of spacing.
The development of the 3 point shot for this team needs to continue not only from adding to the rosters like other NBA teams have done but also inprovement from within. Wiggins is the biggest highlight of the guys that improved because not only did he shoot a decent percentage but he increased his volume some. Most of the young players increased either in volume or percentage or both. We have a ways to go but there were some actual encouraging signs. Another vet volume shooter would be really nifty especially when you have a couple guards like Rubio and Dunn who are question marks now although they COULD end up being part of the solution instead of being part of the problem.
If you want more defense from a wing player that's fine with me I know you really value defense. To me we just need more depth and we just need to add some good players although we can't just add talent it does need to fit.
Edit:
I'm certainly not saying Thibs or his offense isn't part of the problem. LST and Kahns laid out some problems that are legit but I just see the roster especially once Lavine and then Belly out was pretty ill equipped to play the type of offensive game pretty much everyone and their mom and their cat would like to see from this team.