Minnesota Sports Forum

lipoli390 wrote:Rage -- I think you're right that.my overall assessment of the team may have been a slight overreaction as to the Wolves chances of getting the 7th or 8th seed. But I think we both agree generally that the 7th or 8th seed is probably our ceiling and that we lack a star player as well as speed/athleticism. And I agree the Wolves may have to consider trading Love before long unless something unexpected materializes -- i.e., Rubio develops a consistently good perimeter shot, and/or Shabazz emerges as a Lance Stephenson type, Deing emerges as an elite center.

Cam -- The Cavs offered us the first overall pick and Waiters for Love last summer. So I think your suggestion is very realistic. But we should wait until the end of the season before we consider dealing him. As of now, the Wolves would have a 2014 lottery pick. Depending on where we end up with our own pick and whether we finally have a good front office, keeping Love might still make sense.

If we land in the lottery and actually have our own pick, it might not be a terrible idea to blow everything up considering this draft class. It's like having a 2012 Toyota Camry, but wanting a brand new Camaro. If we're in the lottery and have a decent pick after the ping pong balls, I'd blow the team up. Trade Love for a top pick and hope we get Randle or Wiggins and then draft Gary Harris or someone else. See what the offers are for Pek and/or Martin. Hold on to Brewer OR Bud, but trade one of them.

***I don't think we'll be in the lottery. I still see us making the playoffs. All hypothetical right now.

Good analysis, Cam.

LOL "blow everything up"........guys......come on.....don't lose your grasp on reality here. Do you even refer to roster changes as "blowing everything up" when your last 9 seasons have been losing season?

If you grasp reality you recognize that this team is currently 12th in the West and that it has a terrible bench along with a troubling lack of speed, athleticism and defensive prowess in its starting lineup. And you also recognize this team does not appear to project as a championship contender or even a 1st round playoff winner over the longer term. Yet we have a several players who have substantial trade value individually -- especially Love and Ricky. So it is certainly reasonable to talk about a roster overhaul the end of this season or at least the idea of trading Love while his value is at it's peak.

But we still have to see how this season plays out. And there are some variables that could vastly improve this team's prospects -- Ricky improving his shot, Shabazz emerging as a really good NBA player, Dieng emerging as a top center, a free agent acquisition coup, or a great 2014 draft pick by Flip if we don't finish in the top 13 and lose the pick via the horrible Wes Johnson deal.

Lip, I was onboard until the last two!

Flip doesn't strike me as a particularly intelligent guy. He picked two guys that Adelman doesn't want to play in the last draft, and apparently isn't man enough to stand up to the coach. Coaches and GM's need to be on the same page, and I don't believe that is happening here. I think we tried to fill out this team too soon. We don't have that explosive player to finish games, and now I see no chance of finding him.

We are going to have to move Pek. He just isn't a good fit defensively, and I think that is a bigger problem on this team. I have seen no reason for Dieng to be getting at least ten to fifteen minutes per night. His blocks and rebounding can certainly make up for any mistakes he makes against the other second unit. It would give us a little athleticism on defense, and on the PnR he can't be any worse than Pek.

SJM - I agree with your assessment of Flip and I'm holding out hope he's smarter than you and I think. I also agree with you on Pek. If we're going to build around Love at PF, Pek doesn't fit well because it leaves us way too weak defensively on the inside - unless we have a long athletic shot -blocking SF like AK47. So short of trading Love, perhaps Flip should focus on trading Pekovic. The Knicks would love to have him.

Do you know that for a fact? I would love to move Pek for Chandler.

The lack of speed/athleticism and defensive prowess are connected. Offensively speed and athleticism aren't as important because you have the advantage of knowing where you're going, when you're going to cut, and where your teammates are going. But defensively if your team doesn't have speed and athleticism the problem is compounded because your opponent has the above advantages plus the advantage of being faster and more athletic.

The other issue I see defensively is we have zero presence inside. All the good defensive teams have someone down low who can either block shots or alter them when wings or guards get into the lane. This allows our perimeter defense to close out harder or press up that extra step to really challenge jump shots without worrying about their man easily getting to the rim.

I wouldn't put all my eggs in the draft basket, I've seen enough high picks not pan out, I would prefer getting at least one established player back. Now I'm sure you're wondering who this player is, well let me tell you, it is Serge Ibaka.

Guys you are going way too crazy, we got healthy core for first time in 3 seasons and you want to blow team up after few games, we got extremely tough schedule (we played like 6 B2Bs already) with no bench help with starters playing 40min per game, let things settle down and discuss where we are in late January

btw. Pek is not bad 1on1 defender, he just cannot bail out Loves horrible defense, but i don't think that there are many centers in league who could do that with any kind of offensive play .. If we trade Pek for D specialist C (Chandler,Asik) then all we have are jumpshots, we would get nowhere with that

Lip, It looks like you just figured out that Love is not particularly athletic. And, that we are building a team around 3 guys that are not considered "athletic" for their position. It is odd that anyone could have missed that fact over the course of the past 3 years, but hey, I guess everyone has different levels of understanding basketball.

The current Wolves team is 1 1/2 games behind were I expect them to finish the year at. Since there has been more turnover in our starting line-up than most .500 or better teams, I expected that it would take them a little while to learn how to play effectively together. Pek, Rubio, and Love haven't played together much' let alone Brewer and Martin.

So, they are right about where I thought that they would be, where a couple slight improvements will put them in playoffs as the 7th seed.

It is good that Martin and Brewer have exceed expectations like they have, or we would need more than slight improvements to our team.

The unfortunate aspect of those "slightly improvements" is that the biggest improvements to this team need to come from the 2 guys that the whole world has known that we are building around for the past 3 years (Love and Rubio). This team is built for them to be leaders. If they don't get the whole "leadership" thing down, then this team will have no leaders.

For those interested in a more current version of reality.