Minnesota Sports Forum

Q12543 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Just because the players are the same doesn't mean if you take the coach out of the equation that you automatically have the same or better production from last year. Ricky has played like pure and utter dog shit this year. How is that Thibs' fault? Ricky is playing within 1 MPG this year from last and yet his shooting percentages are dramatically down across the board and his do shit stats are down as well. We're giving 30 MPG's to a guy playing bad defense and averaging 6.1/6.7/3.9 on 33/25/72 splits. Compare that to last year's 10.1/8.6/4.3 on 37/33/85 with good defense and that is a major flip from good to bad. Offensively the other 4 are at/near or slightly better than what they did last year. We just have to call it what it is. In a strong PG league, ours is playing like garbage.

24/4 Conley
28/8/6 Westbrook
19/8/4. CP3
30/6/5. Kemba
29/3/2. Isaiah Thomas
34/6/8. Steph

Those are the real PG's that we've played this year and we lost every single one of those games (including another Memphis game Conley wasn't great in, but was still good). It's not all on Rubio, but some of you had him as the second most important player on this team
behind KAT coming into the year and he just hasn't been close to that guy. He's not playing well and it shows. We've only managed to overcome his deficit at the position once this year against PHX (Bledsoe went for 23/10/6) and PHX has been a bad team this year. The rest of the wins have been against mediocre to bad PG's. Ricky is supposed to be the leader of this team, but he's playing horribly and the leader can't be someone who can't put the team on their back on occasion and win you a game. But by all means, keep piling on Thibs while ignoring what's really going on. The starting PG he inherited isn't living up to what he showed last year. That's not on the coach.

I agree Rubio has played poorly, but I also think Thibs has taken the ball out of his hands by design, which in turn leads to fewer assists, FGAs, and FTAs. When a guy is sporting a 12% usage rate, it's just hard to get into any sort of rhythm.

Guess who has mostly soaked up that usage? Wiggins. Guess whose assist rate has flat-lined since his rookie year? Wiggins. Guess whose scoring efficiency is down this year? Wiggins. Guess who else's scoring efficiency is down this year? KAT. May be they aren't getting as many easy looks as before? And may be they aren't quite the play maker Rubio is?

I'm a pragmatist. It's clear to me that Thibs is phasing out Rubio - or the need for any type of ball dominant PG for that matter since it's a position we can't pay max $ to as long as these other guys are around. But in the meantime, we are suffering for it as these other guys just haven't figured out how to make others around them better yet.....or play defense.

Q12543 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I can handle some growing pains in hopes the product on the court eventually matures into a winner. We weren't exactly killing it when Rubio's usage rate was higher in previous years. I would hope the new coach would do some things differently.

I know hard core fans like us want to see tangible evidence that things are better. It's what we do on this message board as we drill down into every granular aspect of our performance in hopes of making some judgements. But it's just too early to blame Thibs or the players for that matter on what has transpired. Things are eventually going to shake out and some things will become obvious. We're just not there yet.

No it's not. We're 5-11. That's not theory - it's real. They are underperforming even the most pessimistic fans' expectations.

One can analyze and judge what has transpired to date, while holding out hope that things can still turn around in the future. I've even speculated that perhaps we take two steps backwards in order to take multiple steps forward.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Just because the players are the same doesn't mean if you take the coach out of the equation that you automatically have the same or better production from last year. Ricky has played like pure and utter dog shit this year. How is that Thibs' fault? Ricky is playing within 1 MPG this year from last and yet his shooting percentages are dramatically down across the board and his do shit stats are down as well. We're giving 30 MPG's to a guy playing bad defense and averaging 6.1/6.7/3.9 on 33/25/72 splits. Compare that to last year's 10.1/8.6/4.3 on 37/33/85 with good defense and that is a major flip from good to bad. Offensively the other 4 are at/near or slightly better than what they did last year. We just have to call it what it is. In a strong PG league, ours is playing like garbage.

24/4 Conley
28/8/6 Westbrook
19/8/4. CP3
30/6/5. Kemba
29/3/2. Isaiah Thomas
34/6/8. Steph

Those are the real PG's that we've played this year and we lost every single one of those games (including another Memphis game Conley wasn't great in, but was still good). It's not all on Rubio, but some of you had him as the second most important player on this team
behind KAT coming into the year and he just hasn't been close to that guy. He's not playing well and it shows. We've only managed to overcome his deficit at the position once this year against PHX (Bledsoe went for 23/10/6) and PHX has been a bad team this year. The rest of the wins have been against mediocre to bad PG's. Ricky is supposed to be the leader of this team, but he's playing horribly and the leader can't be someone who can't put the team on their back on occasion and win you a game. But by all means, keep piling on Thibs while ignoring what's really going on. The starting PG he inherited isn't living up to what he showed last year. That's not on the coach.

I agree Rubio has played poorly, but I also think Thibs has taken the ball out of his hands by design, which in turn leads to fewer assists, FGAs, and FTAs. When a guy is sporting a 12% usage rate, it's just hard to get into any sort of rhythm.

Guess who has mostly soaked up that usage? Wiggins. Guess whose assist rate has flat-lined since his rookie year? Wiggins. Guess whose scoring efficiency is down this year? Wiggins. Guess who else's scoring efficiency is down this year? KAT. May be they aren't getting as many easy looks as before? And may be they aren't quite the play maker Rubio is?

I'm a pragmatist. It's clear to me that Thibs is phasing out Rubio - or the need for any type of ball dominant PG for that matter since it's a position we can't pay max $ to as long as these other guys are around. But in the meantime, we are suffering for it as these other guys just haven't figured out how to make others around them better yet.....or play defense.

As a pragmatist... don't you dig Thibodeau's pragmatist approach?

That idea would indicate he's looking at the long game instead of a win-now approach (something I think everybody on this forum was worried about.)

I don't know what the problem is. Failing to connect with the young kids. Inattentive/inconsistent young players. Bad coaching. Bad luck. et al. But I would say Thibodeau is acting like a GM/coach who knows he has an extremely long leash right now. And that's not necessarily a bad thing for the team.

Sucks for us...

longstrangetrip wrote:Thanks (I think?) for the stats, q...I agree that they paint a very sad picture about our new coaching regime indeed. I also agree that it's not time to give up hope because we are only 20% done with the season, and Thibs may still turn this around. But leaving hope aside for a moment, the numbers are indisputable...the much maligned Sam Mitchell was much more successful in coaching the starters than Tom Thibodeau. I love the talent on this roster and am clinging to the hope that Thibs will change what he is doing, and the strong performance in the second half in Phoenix gives us some hope that he made some modifications to his approach. The fresh legs in the 4th quarter (first time we have seen that all year?) makes me think he may have softened up his practice the day before games...let's hope so. I've also seen him let the PG run the offense in 4th quarters instead of asking Wig to run the offense, albeit with the PG he has designated as 3rd string.

Two winnable home games this week for Thibs to show us he can make necessary adjustments...anything less than 2-0 will be very disappointing to me.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Just because the players are the same doesn't mean if you take the coach out of the equation that you automatically have the same or better production from last year. Ricky has played like pure and utter dog shit this year. How is that Thibs' fault? Ricky is playing within 1 MPG this year from last and yet his shooting percentages are dramatically down across the board and his do shit stats are down as well. We're giving 30 MPG's to a guy playing bad defense and averaging 6.1/6.7/3.9 on 33/25/72 splits. Compare that to last year's 10.1/8.6/4.3 on 37/33/85 with good defense and that is a major flip from good to bad. Offensively the other 4 are at/near or slightly better than what they did last year. We just have to call it what it is. In a strong PG league, ours is playing like garbage.

24/4 Conley
28/8/6 Westbrook
19/8/4. CP3
30/6/5. Kemba
29/3/2. Isaiah Thomas
34/6/8. Steph

Those are the real PG's that we've played this year and we lost every single one of those games (including another Memphis game Conley wasn't great in, but was still good). It's not all on Rubio, but some of you had him as the second most important player on this team
behind KAT coming into the year and he just hasn't been close to that guy. He's not playing well and it shows. We've only managed to overcome his deficit at the position once this year against PHX (Bledsoe went for 23/10/6) and PHX has been a bad team this year. The rest of the wins have been against mediocre to bad PG's. Ricky is supposed to be the leader of this team, but he's playing horribly and the leader can't be someone who can't put the team on their back on occasion and win you a game. But by all means, keep piling on Thibs while ignoring what's really going on. The starting PG he inherited isn't living up to what he showed last year. That's not on the coach.

I agree Rubio has played poorly, but I also think Thibs has taken the ball out of his hands by design, which in turn leads to fewer assists, FGAs, and FTAs. When a guy is sporting a 12% usage rate, it's just hard to get into any sort of rhythm.

Guess who has mostly soaked up that usage? Wiggins. Guess whose assist rate has flat-lined since his rookie year? Wiggins. Guess whose scoring efficiency is down this year? Wiggins. Guess who else's scoring efficiency is down this year? KAT. May be they aren't getting as many easy looks as before? And may be they aren't quite the play maker Rubio is?

I'm a pragmatist. It's clear to me that Thibs is phasing out Rubio - or the need for any type of ball dominant PG for that matter since it's a position we can't pay max $ to as long as these other guys are around. But in the meantime, we are suffering for it as these other guys just haven't figured out how to make others around them better yet.....or play defense.

As a pragmatist... don't you dig Thibodeau's pragmatist approach?

That idea would indicate he's looking at the long game instead of a win-now approach (something I think everybody on this forum was worried about.)

I don't know what the problem is. Failing to connect with the young kids. Inattentive/inconsistent young players. Bad coaching. Bad luck. et al. But I would say Thibodeau is acting like a GM/coach who knows he has an extremely long leash right now. And that's not necessarily a bad thing for the team.

Sucks for us...

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I can handle some growing pains in hopes the product on the court eventually matures into a winner. We weren't exactly killing it when Rubio's usage rate was higher in previous years. I would hope the new coach would do some things differently.

I know hard core fans like us want to see tangible evidence that things are better. It's what we do on this message board as we drill down into every granular aspect of our performance in hopes of making some judgements. But it's just too early to blame Thibs or the players for that matter on what has transpired. Things are eventually going to shake out and some things will become obvious. We're just not there yet.

No it's not. We're 5-11. That's not theory - it's real. They are underperforming even the most pessimistic fans' expectations.

One can analyze and judge what has transpired to date, while holding out hope that things can still turn around in the future. I've even speculated that perhaps we take two steps backwards in order to take multiple steps forward.

You misunderstood my point. What I'm saying is you can't accurately judge where the fault lies for the poor start. Is it solely the coaching? Is it solely the players? Is it some combination of the two? Or is it just the natural result of a regime change that is going to take some time to flush out. You argued with me before the season that the team would be as good at the beginning of the season as they would be in the 2nd half. I knew that wasn't going to be the case, so I'm not particularly shocked at the struggles to date. Sure there are reasons for 5-11, just don't think you or anybody else knows exactly what they are yet.

Q12543 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I can handle some growing pains in hopes the product on the court eventually matures into a winner. We weren't exactly killing it when Rubio's usage rate was higher in previous years. I would hope the new coach would do some things differently.

I know hard core fans like us want to see tangible evidence that things are better. It's what we do on this message board as we drill down into every granular aspect of our performance in hopes of making some judgements. But it's just too early to blame Thibs or the players for that matter on what has transpired. Things are eventually going to shake out and some things will become obvious. We're just not there yet.

No it's not. We're 5-11. That's not theory - it's real. They are underperforming even the most pessimistic fans' expectations.

One can analyze and judge what has transpired to date, while holding out hope that things can still turn around in the future. I've even speculated that perhaps we take two steps backwards in order to take multiple steps forward.

You misunderstood my point. What I'm saying is you can't accurately judge where the fault lies for the poor start. Is it solely the coaching? Is it solely the players? Is it some combination of the two? Or is it just the natural result of a regime change that is going to take some time to flush out. You argued with me before the season that the team would be as good at the beginning of the season as they would be in the 2nd half. I knew that wasn't going to be the case, so I'm not particularly shocked at the struggles to date. Sure there are reasons for 5-11, just don't think you or anybody else knows exactly what they are yet.

No one can 100% accurately judge where fault lies, but we can certainly point to real data and then form theories around it.

In terms of the slow start, it's funny how this "adjustment phase" doesn't seem to apply to teams like Houston, Memphis, and L.A. They all seem to be doing just fine with a new coach! It feels like an easy excuse for something folks can't otherwise explain easily.

While it's still early, it isn't THAT early anymore. Those 11 losses count. We need to go 36-30 just to reach .500. We better turn things around pretty quickly!

Q12543 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I can handle some growing pains in hopes the product on the court eventually matures into a winner. We weren't exactly killing it when Rubio's usage rate was higher in previous years. I would hope the new coach would do some things differently.

I know hard core fans like us want to see tangible evidence that things are better. It's what we do on this message board as we drill down into every granular aspect of our performance in hopes of making some judgements. But it's just too early to blame Thibs or the players for that matter on what has transpired. Things are eventually going to shake out and some things will become obvious. We're just not there yet.

No it's not. We're 5-11. That's not theory - it's real. They are underperforming even the most pessimistic fans' expectations.

One can analyze and judge what has transpired to date, while holding out hope that things can still turn around in the future. I've even speculated that perhaps we take two steps backwards in order to take multiple steps forward.

You misunderstood my point. What I'm saying is you can't accurately judge where the fault lies for the poor start. Is it solely the coaching? Is it solely the players? Is it some combination of the two? Or is it just the natural result of a regime change that is going to take some time to flush out. You argued with me before the season that the team would be as good at the beginning of the season as they would be in the 2nd half. I knew that wasn't going to be the case, so I'm not particularly shocked at the struggles to date. Sure there are reasons for 5-11, just don't think you or anybody else knows exactly what they are yet.

No one can 100% accurately judge where fault lies, but we can certainly point to real data and then form theories around it.

In terms of the slow start, it's funny how this "adjustment phase" doesn't seem to apply to teams like Houston, Memphis, and L.A. They all seem to be doing just fine with a new coach! It feels like an easy excuse for something folks can't otherwise explain easily.

While it's still early, it isn't THAT early anymore. Those 11 losses count. We need to go 36-30 just to reach .500. We better turn things around pretty quickly!

Camden wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I can handle some growing pains in hopes the product on the court eventually matures into a winner. We weren't exactly killing it when Rubio's usage rate was higher in previous years. I would hope the new coach would do some things differently.

I know hard core fans like us want to see tangible evidence that things are better. It's what we do on this message board as we drill down into every granular aspect of our performance in hopes of making some judgements. But it's just too early to blame Thibs or the players for that matter on what has transpired. Things are eventually going to shake out and some things will become obvious. We're just not there yet.

No it's not. We're 5-11. That's not theory - it's real. They are underperforming even the most pessimistic fans' expectations.

One can analyze and judge what has transpired to date, while holding out hope that things can still turn around in the future. I've even speculated that perhaps we take two steps backwards in order to take multiple steps forward.

You misunderstood my point. What I'm saying is you can't accurately judge where the fault lies for the poor start. Is it solely the coaching? Is it solely the players? Is it some combination of the two? Or is it just the natural result of a regime change that is going to take some time to flush out. You argued with me before the season that the team would be as good at the beginning of the season as they would be in the 2nd half. I knew that wasn't going to be the case, so I'm not particularly shocked at the struggles to date. Sure there are reasons for 5-11, just don't think you or anybody else knows exactly what they are yet.

No one can 100% accurately judge where fault lies, but we can certainly point to real data and then form theories around it.

In terms of the slow start, it's funny how this "adjustment phase" doesn't seem to apply to teams like Houston, Memphis, and L.A. They all seem to be doing just fine with a new coach! It feels like an easy excuse for something folks can't otherwise explain easily.

While it's still early, it isn't THAT early anymore. Those 11 losses count. We need to go 36-30 just to reach .500. We better turn things around pretty quickly!

It doesn't really apply, at least to me, because those three teams you listed all have multiple veteran players making the transition a lot easier. We have one veteran contributor (Ricky Rubio) and he has played poorly to this point. Basically, we're relying on guys with three years of NBA experience or less to acclimate to a nuanced system without many growing pains. That's tough.

Camden wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I can handle some growing pains in hopes the product on the court eventually matures into a winner. We weren't exactly killing it when Rubio's usage rate was higher in previous years. I would hope the new coach would do some things differently.

I know hard core fans like us want to see tangible evidence that things are better. It's what we do on this message board as we drill down into every granular aspect of our performance in hopes of making some judgements. But it's just too early to blame Thibs or the players for that matter on what has transpired. Things are eventually going to shake out and some things will become obvious. We're just not there yet.

No it's not. We're 5-11. That's not theory - it's real. They are underperforming even the most pessimistic fans' expectations.

One can analyze and judge what has transpired to date, while holding out hope that things can still turn around in the future. I've even speculated that perhaps we take two steps backwards in order to take multiple steps forward.

You misunderstood my point. What I'm saying is you can't accurately judge where the fault lies for the poor start. Is it solely the coaching? Is it solely the players? Is it some combination of the two? Or is it just the natural result of a regime change that is going to take some time to flush out. You argued with me before the season that the team would be as good at the beginning of the season as they would be in the 2nd half. I knew that wasn't going to be the case, so I'm not particularly shocked at the struggles to date. Sure there are reasons for 5-11, just don't think you or anybody else knows exactly what they are yet.

No one can 100% accurately judge where fault lies, but we can certainly point to real data and then form theories around it.

In terms of the slow start, it's funny how this "adjustment phase" doesn't seem to apply to teams like Houston, Memphis, and L.A. They all seem to be doing just fine with a new coach! It feels like an easy excuse for something folks can't otherwise explain easily.

While it's still early, it isn't THAT early anymore. Those 11 losses count. We need to go 36-30 just to reach .500. We better turn things around pretty quickly!

It doesn't really apply, at least to me, because those three teams you listed all have multiple veteran players making the transition a lot easier. We have one veteran contributor (Ricky Rubio) and he has played poorly to this point. Basically, we're relying on guys with three years of NBA experience or less to acclimate to a nuanced system without many growing pains. That's tough.