Minnesota Sports Forum

I think the safe choice, and my personal preference, would be Martin and Wiggins. Then you bring Bazz and Prince off the bench. Balance of offense and defense with both units. Wiggins stays in a place that worked for him last year. What's that? LaVine you say? Ok, for now, I think he should start t at the 2 over Martin, but see the bottom of my post for an explanation.*

But let me actually try to wrap my head around Prince as the starting SF. I can see the logic behind starting Prince IF he is getting limited minutes.

1. It challenges Wiggins and Towns to carry the offense early. I think this can only help their development, and as much as Bazz, Tyus, Bjelica, and LaVine (to some extent) interest me, they just aren't as important to the franchise as Wiggins and Towns.

2. He does specialize in the corner three, which opens up the floor a bit.

3. Uh, ok, I guess that's it. So it is tough to make an argument in favor of starting Prince. But frankly, both he and KG aren't gonna get a lot of minutes this year, so if it just happens that it's with the first unit for a short stretch, I'm ok with that. I guess.

*As for LaVine . . . Honestly, having watched all these games, I don't think LaVine will reach his potential and will regularly be a net negative because of his weak defense. To me, frankly, LaVine looks more like a cross between Gerald Green and a very poor man's pre-Dallas Monta Ellis than Jamal Crawford. Yes, he was thrust into a tough situation last year, but by almost every advanced stat, he was also one of the absolute worst players in the league last year. In the modern NBA, that's just not going to cut it. I suspect that one day he'll be the hired gun a playoff team adds for an offensive sparkplug off the bench, but he's not the kind of guy I'd want to build around. Bad defense and bad decision making. I can live with one of those two in a player, but not both. This is why I REALLY dislike playing LaVine at the 1. Our offense is atrocious when he runs it, and we've got Tyus on the bench who actually can run the offense well, which is crucial for getting other guys involved and helping them develop. If we really want Wiggins, Bazz, Towns, and Dieng to develop, LaVine shouldn't play one minute at the point.

With all that in mind, I think starting LaVine at the 2 makes sense just to see how he develops during the first half of the year, and unless he starts to show better defense and decision making, I'd look to move him before the deadline. He's still young and athletic enough that somebody would certainly give up something worthwhile for him. And if he's the starting 2 guard, he'll probably put up some raw numbers that will keep his value up. The problem is, in today's NBA, so many teams rely on the kind of advanced stats that show how bad LaVine is, he might not actually be worth all that much either way.

Drew, Your explanation in point #1 is a good take. It does absolutely force Wiggins and Towns to essentially be the #1 and #2 options offensively. If that's how we see things play out in the future, than why not "protect" these guys with a bunch of unselfish, veteran defensive-types and let them focus on accelerating their offensive skills?

The only problem is that it flies in the face of Flip's philosophy of giving rookies/young players small responsibilities to start and then build from there. We're essentially asking Towns to anchor our defense in the middle AND create offense for us. That's a big ask, but I guess I don't have too much of a problem with it. It's definitely not going to win us a lot of games though.....

If you are going big go Wiggins and Bjelica. Size and ball handling. Having LaVine at PG is a mistake and I am not sure what it means if anything about Jones. It really will be interesting how Sam divides up minutes once the games count.

Q12543 wrote:Drew, Your explanation in point #1 is a good take. It does absolutely force Wiggins and Towns to essentially be the #1 and #2 options offensively. If that's how we see things play out in the future, than why not "protect" these guys with a bunch of unselfish, veteran defensive-types and let them focus on accelerating their offensive skills?

The only problem is that it flies in the face of Flip's philosophy of giving rookies/young players small responsibilities to start and then build from there. We're essentially asking Towns to anchor our defense in the middle AND create offense for us. That's a big ask, but I guess I don't have too much of a problem with it. It's definitely not going to win us a lot of games though.....

Idk Q it seems to fall in line with Flip's philosophy from what I have seen. We know what Wiggins did last year offensively. Towns offense has looked pretty good to me all things considered. On the Flip side Lavine hasn't looked up to the task in pretty much any way you look at it except I think some improvements in defense but the bar was generally low there. Bazz we know he can score but his defense is rough and he has some limitations as an offensive player. Sam talked after practice yesterday about Bazz playing within a flow of the offense not just getting looks via running plays. I think at some point a young guy will step up in game opportunity and practice and move into the starting lineup or take a bench role (Tyus) that forces things to shift around. The opportunity is there it's up to guys to do something with it.

Monster, Flip was forced to give Wiggins more responsibility than initially planned because of all the injuries. Rubio, Pek, and then Martin.....Wiggins originally was going to be our wing defender and 4th option offensively (don't forget we had Thad Young too).

Now some would argue that was the best thing for Wiggins' development and they might be right. On the other hand, he never really learned how to make an impact on the game without being spoon-fed the ball, so I can see both sides of the coin.

Either way, Towns and Wiggins will be given a ton of responsibility this season and it's hard to argue with that arrangement since they are the last two #1 picks.

Q12543 wrote:Monster, Flip was forced to give Wiggins more responsibility than initially planned because of all the injuries. Rubio, Pek, and then Martin.....Wiggins originally was going to be our wing defender and 4th option offensively (don't forget we had Thad Young too).

Now some would argue that was the best thing for Wiggins' development and they might be right. On the other hand, he never really learned how to make an impact on the game without being spoon-fed the ball, so I can see both sides of the coin.

Either way, Towns and Wiggins will be given a ton of responsibility this season and it's hard to argue with that arrangement since they are the last two #1 picks.

Yep all that is true but Wiggins was the starting SF to start the season and while early on people were disappointed with him to a certain extent he was doing fine as a starter. I guess you could have thrown Brewer in there but he was very good off the bench so that probably didn't make sense.

It sounds like This move also is about wanting Wiggins to do more with the ball in his hands creating for others. That makes some sense too. I know you have been one that has been skeptical about him being up to the task but we may find out what he has in that area.

IF Prince actually does start the season at SF the more I think about it I actually like it except Zach at PG but he will be playing with Martin which may help and honestly right now Zach playing at all at any position doesn't look great so I guess pick your poison. There is no way he plays backup PG all season with Miller and Tyus sitting around on the bench so something has to give good or bad. The opportunity is there for both.

One thing this tells the rest of the league is that we see Wiggins as a SG. It makes having LaVine here seem redundant. It really throws off the balance of the roster and should force Milt to make some moves to balance things out long term.

The Timberwolves just don't have a plan. And if they did have a plan, they've already thrown it away for a new plan about five (probably more) times. We're the most dysfunctional organization in the league and it continues to show.

Problem with starting Prince over Shabazz/Bjelica at SF is that if a teams SF starts the game off hot you have nobody on the bench to bring in to try and shut him down. I would rather go with Bjelica or Shabazz to start the game. Bjelica seems like the answer to me. Gives you size and a ball handler and when KG geos to the bench he can slide to PF and Shabazz could come off the bench or Wiggins could slide to SF and LaVine/Martin could come in the game.

Camden wrote:The Timberwolves just don't have a plan. And if they did have a plan, they've already thrown it away for a new plan about five (probably more) times. We're the most dysfunctional organization in the league and it continues to show.

They have a plan. It is just so genius that nobody understands it.