Minnesota Sports Forum

60WinTim wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:How about this guys? Just hold on to most of your 10 point leads. Better depth will certainly help with that, but we're not a complete lost cause right now. Last nights game was a microcosm of our entire season. Get off to a good start, build a lead, tire in the 2nd half, lose to a deeper team. Seems fixable to me.

That deeper team only played 8 players last night...

I think the difference is that one team had a guy who could go out and "win" a game when the starters didn't have it. Crabbe's 8 three pointers seemed to be a big part of the win.

The Wolves have more of the placeholders types... designed to hold the fort so to speak. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. But it does put a lot of pressure on the starters to "win" it.

I'm a strong proponent of every bench needing a guy who could explode for a big game and turn a loss into a win. I know many believe Shabazz Muhammad is that guy. I think he's a poor man's version of it and simply isn't good enough. Outside of him, the Wolves simply don't have anybody who can do anything remotely close to what Crabbe did.

60WinTim wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:How about this guys? Just hold on to most of your 10 point leads. Better depth will certainly help with that, but we're not a complete lost cause right now. Last nights game was a microcosm of our entire season. Get off to a good start, build a lead, tire in the 2nd half, lose to a deeper team. Seems fixable to me.

That deeper team only played 8 players last night...

Crabbe by himself provided more depth than the whole group we put out there.

Crabbe is a solid player. That contract though. Mother of God. Yuck.

Q12543 wrote:

thedoper wrote:I have been racking my brain to think of why Thibs basically signed no one he intended on playing this year. My suspicion is the conversation went like this:

Thibs: Mr. Taylor I think we have a good young roster but we are going to need a real veteran presence to round out this team.

Taylor: Will I have to pay luxury tax in the future?

Thibs: Maybe

Taylor: no way ever

Thibs: If we are serious about winning we need it.


Taylor: Prove it.

Thibs: ok I will roll out the exact same roster as last year and play all of these kids 40 minutes a night.

And here we are. Yes the kids didn't make the quantum leap we all hoped for under a strong system coach.

Bottom line we don't have depth. Utah made the leap with a few key vets. We're in the exact same position. Exciting and frustrating all at the same time. We need a top level vet to somehow see how close we are and sign up for this circus.

Utah made the leap because in the middle of the 2014-15 season, they promoted the 22-year old Rudy Gobert to their full time starting Center and they immediately became one of the best defenses in the league. Their calling card has been defense ever since and he is the main reason.

That being said, I agree with your conclusion: We need to try and go for a big-time vet that we can add to the starting lineup.

I'm not implying that we are stylistically the same team as Utah, more that we are at a similar crossroads that they were at after the 15-16 season. Gobert is a DPOY candidate, we clearly dont have that particular asset on this team. But even after Utah's defensive improvement from 14-15 to 15-16 they still missed the playoffs. This year they added Hill in spite of the looming contract situation for Hayward and they are firmly in the mix and I hope they make noise this playoffs. Like them, I think we could easily be one key addition away from taking this team to the next level.

I'm curious to see if Utah is similarly averse to the luxury tax because they can be good for a long time if they manage to keep the band together.

thedoper wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

thedoper wrote:I have been racking my brain to think of why Thibs basically signed no one he intended on playing this year. My suspicion is the conversation went like this:

Thibs: Mr. Taylor I think we have a good young roster but we are going to need a real veteran presence to round out this team.

Taylor: Will I have to pay luxury tax in the future?

Thibs: Maybe

Taylor: no way ever

Thibs: If we are serious about winning we need it.


Taylor: Prove it.

Thibs: ok I will roll out the exact same roster as last year and play all of these kids 40 minutes a night.

And here we are. Yes the kids didn't make the quantum leap we all hoped for under a strong system coach.

Bottom line we don't have depth. Utah made the leap with a few key vets. We're in the exact same position. Exciting and frustrating all at the same time. We need a top level vet to somehow see how close we are and sign up for this circus.

Utah made the leap because in the middle of the 2014-15 season, they promoted the 22-year old Rudy Gobert to their full time starting Center and they immediately became one of the best defenses in the league. Their calling card has been defense ever since and he is the main reason.

That being said, I agree with your conclusion: We need to try and go for a big-time vet that we can add to the starting lineup.

I'm not implying that we are stylistically the same team as Utah, more that we are at a similar crossroads that they were at after the 15-16 season. Gobert is a DPOY candidate, we clearly dont have that particular asset on this team. But even after Utah's defensive improvement from 14-15 to 15-16 they still missed the playoffs. This year they added Hill in spite of the looming contract situation for Hayward and they are firmly in the mix and I hope they make noise this playoffs. Like them, I think we could easily be one key addition away from taking this team to the next level.

I'm curious to see if Utah is similarly averse to the luxury tax because they can be good for a long time if they manage to keep the band together.

Lol I'm hoping that missing piece for us is actually from Utah. Derrick Favors. He's the big body versatile big we need starting next Towns. Before his role was reduced this year he was a solid 16/8/1.5 blocks the previous two years. He's still young, but he's been in the league a while now and he actually has a frame that can compete with some of the bigger bodies in the league that Towns and Dieng do not.

Edit: I thought his free agency was this summer but apparently it's next summer. I could see them trading him though to have the money to keep Gordon.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

60WinTim wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:How about this guys? Just hold on to most of your 10 point leads. Better depth will certainly help with that, but we're not a complete lost cause right now. Last nights game was a microcosm of our entire season. Get off to a good start, build a lead, tire in the 2nd half, lose to a deeper team. Seems fixable to me.

That deeper team only played 8 players last night...

I think the difference is that one team had a guy who could go out and "win" a game when the starters didn't have it. Crabbe's 8 three pointers seemed to be a big part of the win.

The Wolves have more of the placeholders types... designed to hold the fort so to speak. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. But it does put a lot of pressure on the starters to "win" it.

I'm a strong proponent of every bench needing a guy who could explode for a big game and turn a loss into a win. I know many believe Shabazz Muhammad is that guy. I think he's a poor man's version of it and simply isn't good enough. Outside of him, the Wolves simply don't have anybody who can do anything remotely close to what Crabbe did.

Agree with this. Our bench is not designed to go out and win games. But it's amazing how the Cole Aldrich-Brandon Rush-Jordan Hill types don't have a problem providing solid rotation minutes when there is a strong starting unit. Then they come to the Wolves and ppppfffffffftttttt...now suddenly they suck and we don't get quality play.

The bottom-line is our starters just aren't good enough yet:

KAT - Top 2 or 3 Center offensively; terrible on defense, must get better.
Wiggins - Volume scorer, needs to get better in multiple areas.
Rubio - Solid starting PG, can't put a team on his back and never will.
Dieng - Glue guy
LaVine - Good outside shooter; terrible defender
Rush - Floor spacer that occasionally makes a nice hustle play. Doesn't do much else

I think we need to keep riding KAT and Wiggins and just hope and pray Thibs can turn these guys into better all-around players with more experience. But we need to go spend some serious money and/or make a big trade to shore up the starting forward positions (assuming Wig is a starting SG). Then LaVine and Dieng should be our first two guys off the bench next year.

It seems like everyone forgot that the Wolves were reported by plenty of people that they offered Paul a bunch of money for a 2 year deal. They didn't plan to just punt FA they just didn't get the guys they wanted for the price they wanted and moved on. I do think the one thing they miscalculated was signing Aldrich and Hill and it turns out they needed a more mobile PF instead for depth but at the time both guys were nice value signings and most of us wanted bigger players that could at least rebound.

On a serious note for comparing this season to last...

Last year, the Wolves were sitting at 20-45 and proceeded to go on a 9-8 "tear" to finish the season. The Wolves were relatively injury free, and LaVine and Wiggins were red-hot over those final 17 games.

This year, the Wolves were playing pretty well when Zach went down. After a couple of losses, they continued to play pretty well until Belly went down. Before Belly's injury they were 28-38 -- about the same time as last years team was 20-45. That's a pretty decent improvement, despite losing Zach.

Of course, the Wolves have gone down the toilet since Belly went down. Rubio and Towns have been playing very well, but Wiggins failed to join the party, and the bench has not been good.

My perspective is we made some progress this year, but have been derailed by injuries and depth. Next year will be boosted with coaching continuity, and roster changes to address our weaknesses. Our poor finish to the season has many people down about our future, compared to the positive outlook we had at the end of last year.

So with all this in mind, this year has not been as terrible as it feels right now, and the Wolves should have a decent shot at the playoffs next year.

60WinTim wrote:On a serious note for comparing this season to last...

Last year, the Wolves were sitting at 20-45 and proceeded to go on a 9-8 "tear" to finish the season. The Wolves were relatively injury free, and LaVine and Wiggins were red-hot over those final 17 games.

This year, the Wolves were playing pretty well when Zach went down. After a couple of losses, they continued to play pretty well until Belly went down. Before Belly's injury they were 28-38 -- about the same time as last years team was 20-45. That's a pretty decent improvement, despite losing Zach.

Of course, the Wolves have gone down the toilet since Belly went down. Rubio and Towns have been playing very well, but Wiggins failed to join the party, and the bench has not been good.

My perspective is we made some progress this year, but have been derailed by injuries and depth. Next year will be boosted with coaching continuity, and roster changes to address our weaknesses. Our poor finish to the season has many people down about our future, compared to the positive outlook we had at the end of last year.

So with all this in mind, this year has not been as terrible as it feels right now, and the Wolves should have a decent shot at the playoffs next year.

Good points to consider Tim.