Minnesota Sports Forum

Camden wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

Camden wrote:An efficient 20 PPG scorer that's in the way. I've seen it all.

You play defense 50% of the time. How efficient is his D? Or doesn't that matter? How efficient is he when he's out with one of his many ailments? Does he do anything besides score? I think you only see what you want to see.

I said he's not a perfect player by any means, but to say he's in the way or ignore the value he brings to a team is ludicrous, especially on a team that needs guys that can score.

You took that out of context and made a big deal out of it. Do we really have to make sure that every phrase in a post can't be isolated and exploited? I hope not.

Q12543 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:Q what are reasonable expectations for Lavine? The guy is a 19 year old rookie starting at PG on a young NBA team. You are right he should turn that corner more but to me I think he needs to pick his spots and not make to many mistakes. I continue to be impressed at what he is able to do at the NBA level considering my expectations. I'm not saying long term he is a PG but he looked ok doing that in his 2nd NBA game ever and starting which could mean he will be a terrific asset as a SG with that skill available. Of course he just played against the team with maybe the worst combination of PGs in the league in Miami (all solid guys but which guy is talented enough to be a legit starter) so let's see what happens against some legit starting PGs. I'm interested to see more. Its the upside of Rubio sidelined.

Monster, My expectation of LaVine right now is to not be a total screw-up on the floor. And so far on that front he has met my expectations and in fact shows very good poise.

My concern with LaVine-as-PG is that he doesn't do basic things I would expect of a guy that has played PG at a high level all his life, like keeping his dribble alive until he knows exactly what he's going to do with the ball and finding ways to get into the paint. But may be he gets there eventually (?).

The good news is that the experience at PG can help him become a better SG eventually if that ends up being his long-term position. Right now, other than Kevin Martin, we have a bunch of small forwards that are forced to play SG. Flip could really use another SG that can handle the ball and create for others. LaVine may eventually grow into that kind of player.

Excellent post I think we are pretty much on the same page then.

The thought about Flip allowing young guys to screw up like Lavine I think is pretty legit. Its obvious he is letting Wiggins fail some but I also think Wiggins is going enough on both ends of the floor and playing hard to deserve minutes. I like Flip's approach to the young guys so far. Its fun to here him bring up stuff about what happened to KG when he was young etc. I bet that gets young guy's attention too.

I'll dial back on the Martin discussion, but I think Cam and I get pretty frustrated becasue for months we have heard basically about how nearly worthless Martin is from both fans and media. He isn't worth his contract nobody would take him etc. I think I've said my stance on that plenty so I'll just move along but I just wanted to mention its more than just a few days of people getting high and low on him. People have their stances on him and I respect that. Anyway hopefully he gets is going this next stretch. Ideally Bazz or someone steps up and looks really legit. Martin needs to play less minutes anyway to hopefully keep him from getting hurt.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:It's not Martin's ability that is the problem. It's his attitude and lack of mental toughness that bothers me. If he wasn't in the way we might be able to try Bazz at the 3 and Wiggins at the 2. It would make us really long and improve our rebounding greatly.

This summarizes my thoughts about Martin also, and it explains why there will be fluctuating opinions about him from game to game. This year's team seems to work so much harder than last year's...I really like the work ethic of guys like Muhammad, Young, Brewer, and Rubio, among others. But Martin's effort seems inconsistent to some of us, and that should be talked about. I started a separate thread about Martin in which I mentioned how different he looked on the court this year, in a good way. A couple local sportswriters noticed it too. As I said before, I had no problem with Martin missing the game winner against Orlando...to me it was more meaningful that he wanted that shot, worked hard to get it, and Williams got him the ball. But against Miami I saw a lot of the circa 2013-4 Martin. And I think Flip saw it too, and that's why he gave him fewer minutes. I liked that about Flip last game. He benched Martin in favor of guys who were working harder, but then put him back in there late in the game when we needed his shooting...and sure enough, Kevin hit a couple big threes, including one that pulled us within 4. I thought Flip sent Kevin a clear message...work hard, or I'll put in someone who will. I hope Kevin heard him, because if he is working hard, he is likely to be our best scorer.

Flip also could have been trying to keep Martin's minutes in check for health reasons. He's been logging heavy minutes already this year, and that Miami game was the second half of a B2B. When we have the depth that we do, Flip should be managing his minutes as so.