Minnesota Sports Forum

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Not sure if Dudley can play the 4. Maybe in certain matchups? Dunno.

In any case, I want nothing to do with Rudez. He does nothing for me. I made a comment about S. Novak earlier today. The same thing applies to Rudez.

I think we might be shocked at what Marvin Williams might get...

I believe Dudley played small ball 4 last year. That makes sense. He has plenty of size to do that and he played a lot of his college career as a big. Like I said before he is sort of gives you some of the same stuff Deng would but obviously at a much lower level but also price tag.

If we are talking about Novak (I kinda agree with Abe on his takes on him etc) is rather have just kept Rudez. His 3 point shooting is less proven but he looks like he could at least defense at some decent level at PF or SF since he did it for the pacers as a rookie.

lipoli390 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Brightside provided my list of 3-point shooting FAs we should pursue. Pehaps Steve Novak as well. He'd be very cheap. Afflalo would bring defense and pretty good 3-point shooting at SG.

The more I think about it, the more I wish we had drafted Buddy. Adding his 3-point shooting prowess on a rookie scale contract would have been the perfect fit for this team. It would have also given us more leeway in selecting from among the available FAs without absolutely having to sign a top notch 3-point shooter. And we wouldn't have had to ensure the nauseating Ricky/Dunn debate. :).

We would have had a Lavine/Buddy debate just the same as the Ricky/Dunn debate because Lavine and Buddy are worse fits playing together than Ricky and Dunn. Buddy wasn't a perfect fit by far. A shooter who fits the roster is what matters and right now that guy would have to be a combo wing which Buddy is a pure 2.

Good point, Kahns.

Yep Kahns that's true. I think more where Lip was coming from is now looking at the roster and now at the FA crop of shooters (and how much they may cost) it's easy to think...man we could have added a possible elite shooter in the draft. It's also easy to say that when many of us had those 3 guards so equally rated sometimes flipping back and forth nearly on the hour which guy we wanted more but most of us would be happy with any of them if they were the pick. One of the things the Wolves have also struggled with the past however many years is adding 3 point shooting so yeah it would have been nice to get some guys that looked like they may be elite there considering the Wolves problem in that area.

On the other hand it's pretty clear from what I have heard and read that Dunn was the guy Thibs and Layden wanted most out of those guys so they weren't passing him up for one of those other guys. Hopefully Dunn's solid 3 point shooting in college has some solid carry over into the NBA level. He brings some other key factors to the team that have been needed for quite a while perimeter defense, attacking the basket, higher level PG potential talent etc.

monsterpile wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Not sure if Dudley can play the 4. Maybe in certain matchups? Dunno.

In any case, I want nothing to do with Rudez. He does nothing for me. I made a comment about S. Novak earlier today. The same thing applies to Rudez.

I think we might be shocked at what Marvin Williams might get...

I believe Dudley played small ball 4 last year. That makes sense. He has plenty of size to do that and he played a lot of his college career as a big. Like I said before he is sort of gives you some of the same stuff Deng would but obviously at a much lower level but also price tag.

If we are talking about Novak (I kinda agree with Abe on his takes on him etc) is rather have just kept Rudez. His 3 point shooting is less proven but he looks like he could at least defense at some decent level at PF or SF since he did it for the pacers as a rookie.

He wasn't good at his PF minutes. His SF minutes were the bottom end of average. He averaged less than a minute/game at C and SG.

Best case scenario for MIN is WSH spends all their money and MIN gets Hildalgo and Alan Anderson for reasonable contracts. Alan Anderson would be a real coop. The Wild gets chances constantly to sign local players. The Twins and Vikings gets their chances and usually take advantage. The Wolves hardly ever do. I think they should take advantage.

I know some guys have bigger dreams, but if MIN went to camp with Hildalgo, Anderson, Bogut, and Iggy, along with ridding themselves of Payne, to go with the 10 guys still under contract showing improvement and Dunn playing well, tell me, that team couldn't contend for a 5th seed and maybe steal a series?

I like marvin williams as a combo forward for us. ideally off the bench for wiggins and dieng. He was looking at a big payday before the playoffs but his disaster of a performance during the playoffs may make him worth a lot less.

I listened to eolfson's latesst podcast and I'll post some of what he said here even though it will not just be about shooters. It's Wolfson so it's FWIW but I think he isn't completely clueless so some of this is at least interesting.

Guys they like (can't remember everyone he said)

Ryan Anderson
Noah (said he doesn't se them getting into a bidding war for him)
Deng (said they would front load the contract as much as possible and it would take 3 years 50 million to get him)
DJ Augustine
Mindaugas Kuzminskas (Says Layden likes this guy)

Below is a breakdown of him and it doesn't seem that exciting but i thought the provided video clip made him look more interesting. International FAs are a route I think is very worthy of looking into (Spurs where Layden spent the last few years have done we'll there) so I like the idea they may be considering that avenue of adding to the team.

http://euroleagueadventures.com/on-the-kusp-kuzminskas-and-the-nba/

monsterpile wrote:I listened to eolfson's latesst podcast and I'll post some of what he said here even though it will not just be about shooters. It's Wolfson so it's FWIW but I think he isn't completely clueless so some of this is at least interesting.

Guys they like (can't remember everyone he said)

Ryan Anderson
Noah (said he doesn't se them getting into a bidding war for him)
Deng (said they would front load the contract as much as possible and it would take 3 years 50 million to get him)
DJ Augustine
Mindaugas Kuzminskas (Says Layden likes this guy)

Below is a breakdown of him and it doesn't seem that exciting but i thought the provided video clip made him look more interesting. International FAs are a route I think is very worthy of looking into (Spurs where Layden spent the last few years have done we'll there) so I like the idea they may be considering that avenue of adding to the team.

http://euroleagueadventures.com/on-the-kusp-kuzminskas-and-the-nba/

The Augustine addition (if true) doesn't bode well for a Rubio-Dunn pairing. And it might very well reveal the type of PG Thibodeau prefers... sorry Ricky and Tyus.

He certainly fits the D. Rose/A. Brooks/N. Robinson type that Thibodeau has used in the past. Heck, Augustin was his playoff PG of choice in the 2014 playoffs.

By the way, here's Augustin's vaunted playoff history:

2010: 29.4% fg
2013: 38.0% fg
2014: 29.2% fg (on 14+ fga per game!)

Even in his "best" playoff run, he was terrible. He was a HUGE part of the losing effort for Indiana in the 2013 playoffs. He was rendered more and more useless by Miami's switching D in the ECF finals. He couldn't get any traction or even any shots. For a gunning PG... he took only 9 shots in 99 minutes. And he had a whopping 4 assists. I know there's noise in +/- stats... but this cannot be ignored. And the eye test confirmed it...

- 12 in 14 min in Game 2
- 14 in 13 min in Game 3
- 9 in 17 min in Game 4
- 8 in 18 min in Game 5
- 8 in 10 min in Game 6
- 15 in 9 min in Game 7

- 66 in 81 minutes. Ouch.

[Note: I do think Augustin has a place though. Just think JJ Barea. That's basically his role in the NBA... he can post nice stats when playing in a pinch. But can he do it when it matters? Or for a good team?]

Augustin can hit a three and actually protects the ball pretty well, but he is also undersized and I've never thought of him as a good defender. Plus, to Abe's point, he hasn't exactly stepped up at playoff time. I'd rather see what our younger undersized PG can do before bringing in a guy like Augustin.

Great breakdown Abe.

I don't know that the idea of adding Augustine needs to be read too much into which I explain a bit below.

If Augustine comes as cheap as he had the last few years I think he would qualify as a guy that falls into the need for shooting category. I have a felling Thibs is gonna create some competition for some spots. He wouldn't be relying on Tyua and Funn who have a combined 1 year of NBA experience to help as guards if he added Augustine if the price was right. He has played minutes off the ball in his career as well. In addition he would be a guy that would likely be easy to offload at the trade deadline or be an asset.

monsterpile wrote:I listened to eolfson's latesst podcast and I'll post some of what he said here even though it will not just be about shooters. It's Wolfson so it's FWIW but I think he isn't completely clueless so some of this is at least interesting.

Guys they like (can't remember everyone he said)

Ryan Anderson
Noah (said he doesn't se them getting into a bidding war for him)
Deng (said they would front load the contract as much as possible and it would take 3 years 50 million to get him)
DJ Augustine
Mindaugas Kuzminskas (Says Layden likes this guy)

Below is a breakdown of him and it doesn't seem that exciting but i thought the provided video clip made him look more interesting. International FAs are a route I think is very worthy of looking into (Spurs where Layden spent the last few years have done we'll there) so I like the idea they may be considering that avenue of adding to the team.

http://euroleagueadventures.com/on-the-kusp-kuzminskas-and-the-nba/

Yes, it is good idea to offer three year 50 million contract to Deng so that his contract would be like 22, 16,5 and 11,5 million. Then he should not be impossible to trade even if his game would start declining. Also his contract should not then affect our possibility to sign own free agents without entering luxury tax territory.

I like the idea of Jared Dudley. Would make Bazz expendable too.

Will throw another name out there - Anthony Tolliver. Hoopshype reported today that he was interested in coming back.