Minnesota Sports Forum

I wish Zach was a little more aggressive in looking for his own shot

repplile wrote:I agree the wolves are looking like a pickup team. Anyone think that's partly on our assistant coaches? Isn't the idea of summer league for guys to work on things? Instead we're practicing making bad decisions, playing iso ball, and no defense. I don't see how establishing these kind of habits helps us down the road.

you might be onto something

Wow, that was a really bad game for us (against the Bulls).

The team looked like there is no coach on the bench, and without leadership ...

CJ McCollum score 28 points today. I watched the game. Watching CJ reminded me of why I wanted Flip to draft him last summer. Portland's young guys looked great and played well both individually and collectively.

Dieng's stat line looks horrible again. Shabazz is a chucker and still looks like a clod. There's no hope for Shved. As for coaching. Look at Sidney's career record as a head coach and that's all you'll need to know. Is he a good assistant coach? Who knows. But note there weren't any NBA or college teams clamoring for his services. Nor we're any teams clamoring for Flip's services as a front office exec.

Flip has surrounded himself with his old pals and family -- a group who won't challenge or out-shine him. He's been passive and shown absolutely no imagination thus far in his current role as President of Basketball Operations. The status of Love remains up in the air, Ricky's agent is pushing for a max contract and, except for LaVine, none of our younger players look like like they belong in the NBA -- not even Dieng so far in Summer League.

I still like the LaVine pick and Flip has proven to be a very good head coach in the past, although he hasn't been tested recently in that role. But I have a really bad feeling about where this franchise is headed. I see us spiraling downward over the next several years. Maybe after that Glen will do what he should have done years ago and hire someone like Kevin Pritchard to head our basketball department. Until then, I'll continue to hope for the best and hope that my prognostication ends up wrong.

Dieng is going to be fine. As for the rest of this group, who knows?

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Dieng is going to be fine. As for the rest of this group, who knows?

Cool - With his size and regular season experience, Dieng should be performing a lot better in Summer League thus far. He may turn out just fine as you suggest, but I can't help but wonder whether has a much lower ceiling than we thought.

Lip Dieng I think is just ok as you know Centers in SL often look like fish out of water. Dieng looks still raw, btu the guy can play. Thsi team seems to lack talent or a clue and thats not helping Dieng.

McBuckets is gonna get his shot off and be at least as good as Korver book it. I'll say this though when they started putting DJ Kennedy on him it for sure slowed him down. Kennedy showed something today.

Anyone hear why Shved didn't play? I hope its becasue he is in a trade or we are cutting him. Starks had some decent moments, btu he sucks too.

Who picked these guys? I'd say the talent isn't as good as last year no doubt. Other than Fesenko and Dieng the bigs seem super awful. Janning is actually decent. Is it coaching? I have to wonder I mean last year I loved how the team played this year they have bursts, but yuck alot of the time. Of course last year they had some guys that had been in the system for at least a while so that helped. Also the Wolves got blown out by Chicago in this game but so have everyone thats played them if you want encouragement. ugh

I thought Robinson showed more today than any of the other games. His stats don't look great, but I thought his D was pretty good and he was a little more aggressive looking for his shot. It was encouraging after a very forgettable couple games.

Shabazz. IDK he gets those shots, btu they weren't falling and the comment on him crashing the glass and leading to buckets on the other end I get it although some of the time he is playing PF so going for offensive rebounds is more understandable. Its a little mystifying that they are basically giving him a look at PF. Do they think he is the next Craig Smith or something? If Bazz had Smith's handle he woudl be really good, btu of course he doesn't anyway the shine is wearing of Bazz's early positive stuff. The good is he is playing hard, but I really don't know what he is going to be able to do at the next level.

Ok here is the good news and maybe the only thing that really matters other than Dieng. LaVine can play and looks like he could be a really nice player and maybe even a factor for the Wolves THIS YEAR. He has impressed me a ton and he was really looking to setup guys today. He has really used his athletic ability to get up and contest shots keep balls alive and he had 5 rebounds today. They coulda played him all 40 minutes in this game and it wouldn't have been enough. I haven't got this excited about a Wolves Summer league player in idk how long I can't even remember maybe Love even though he was out of shape because of his ability to rebound. Serious I am really blown away and I wasn't that excited about the pick. Maybe we finally nailed another draft pick. It would be nice.

Watched the game earlier today and we looked bad. Chicago's front line (McDermott, Bairstow, Thomas, and Wear) absolutely destroyed 'Bazz, Fesenko, Dieng, and whatever other scraps we threw out there. It was embarrassing. I think the biggest disappointment was the play of Shabazz and Dieng. These guys are second year pros and I would have expected more from them.

I did see Bazz do one good thing today. He actually went to his right and attempted finishing with his right hand. Believe it or not, this is the first time I have ever seen Bazz go right and not spin back to his left.

As for LaVine, his numbers don't look great, but you can definitely see the potential. It's all about how much time and work he decides to put in because he is clearly very gifted physically.

GRIII seemed to do what he did at Michigan a lot: Disappear.

LENGTHY SIDEBAR EDIT: Speaking of Bazz's inability to go right.....How the hell does that even happen!? How does a player get to this level at his age without ever learning to go the opposite direction and finish with the opposite hand? Same with LaVine. How the hell does he not learn to finish with his left hand? Unlike Bazz, at least he can drive the opposite way; he just always has to switch the ball over to his right-hand.

This is a total indictment of the U.S. basketball development system. Yes, we still produce the best players in the world, but can you imagine how damn good some of these guys would be if they came up through more of an academy system, like the best soccer players in the world do? Those kids grow up spending a ton of time on the "technical" part of their game, mastering the fundamentals at a pretty early age.

AAU gets the job done, but I just think about how much more beautiful the game would be if players came up through a system more similar to soccer. The ball movement, mid-range game, cutting, ability to use either hand at the rim, etc.

#24 Last seed in the Summer League Tourney that starts tomorrow, Gotta Love it

Q great commentary on USA basketball. I do think this country is going through a transitory period for the sport. College used to be the gateway to the next level but it isn't anymore. Increasingly guys go from college (or even HS to europe to transition to the NBA game) The Di"eague is expanding and its only a matter of time before every team will have its own dileague team it controls and then there will be an opportunity for a minor league type system. When that happens they will need to decide how many more player franchise can hold the rights to. In addition franchises really have no idea how to develop players to get them to the NBA level. Sure the dileague has been working on that but its far from the systems of baseball or hockey. Even the NFL has a few guys on a practice squad you can develop that's probably better than the dileague situation right now. Q's thoughts on soccer and academies is a good point but the bottom line is basketball in this country is changing hopefully it becomes for the better of everyone the players teams fans and the game.

I should clarify my comments on Dieng. I don't worry about him being a legit factor as a rotation player for the wolves next year but he isn't strong enough or polished enough to be considered a possible starter. I still like his upside (possibly a solid starter at C) but I think its at least another year away from happening. He looks sorta bad out there considering everone outside of him Bazz and maybe Fesenko suck at rebounding. LeVine might be the 4th best rebounder on the SL squaud which is pretty bad even though LaVine has impressed me in that area.