Around the League - '23-24 Season

[Q-is-here]

Denver loses last night and OKC gets crushed earlier today. We continue to hang onto first place by our fingernails through what's been an up and down stretch for the Wolves.

The injury situation this year is in the West is SO much different than two seasons ago, when the Wolves won 46 games:

- Kawhi Leonard is on track to play as many or more games since the 2016-17 season, 7 years ago.

- Anthony Davis most since 2017-18 season, 6 years ago.

- Kevin Durant most since 2018-19 season, 5 years ago.

- LeBron James most since 2019-20 season, 4 years ago.

- Zion Williams most since 2020-21 season, 3 years ago.


Yes, Memphis has had their season derailed by injuries, but that's about it. And then you have OKC, which has been ridiculously lucky with injuries this year. Even the Wolves have had some decent injury luck, but not even close to OKC. Glad they got crushed today! May be Holmgren is starting to hit a wall....

[Lipoli390]

Fair enough, Q. I do recall much discussion surrounding the pick, but I guess I never understood it (and I can be as wrong about certain things as anyone here ). Even though there were some concerns about Ant, at least we had a lot of video of him to analyze. With Wiseman, all we had was video of him dunking on 6'5" guys in AAU and his 7 games against poor teams in college...it was impossible to project how he would fair against real centers. I gotta think almost all GMs would have looked at him as a huge risk at #1. I'm happy we have Ant, but I just can't give Rosas much credit for picking him. But I'll admit some of his moves that I found disastrous color my impression of anything good he might have done.

I was so right... and so wrong... about that draft. I wasn't happy with Edwards nor McDaniels. But I knew Wiseman would be a bust and Haliburton would be good.

I guess my favorite thing about all of it was just how wrong Camden was about Wiseman. Overall a good poster who's missed here. But we're all wrong sometimes (obviously). It was always amusing how smug that guy was when he was right... and how much he fought to try to talk himself and others that he wasn't wrong when he was.

Abe, your post reminds me that I'm guilty of revisionist history here in saying picking Ant #1 was obvious. I was also a Haliburton fan (although I never dreamed he would be as good as he's turned out to be) and thought the Wolves should consider trading down to get him and another asset. While I thought Ant was the best player in the draft at the time, hindsight tells us that Haliburton and another asset that we would have gotten in giving up the #1 pick might have been better. For one thing, it would have made it less likely that we would have had to suffer through the DLo years (although DLo has been terrific the past couple weeks!).

Regardless, I'm not going to give Rosas much if any credit for choosing one of two options that I thought to be relatively easy to choose. Especially in light of his other disasters.

FNG - It’s time to concede. There were three players in the conversation for the top pick - Edwards, Ball and Wiseman. Moreover, there was a lot of chatter on this board and elsewhere that the best move would be to trade out of the top three for a lower pick and assets. I was among those who wanted to trade down for either Okongwu or Haliburton. I was clearly right about Okongwu. . Among other things, there were reports questioning Ant’s commitment to basketball, especially after he declared that football was his favorite sport. Admittedly, it wasn’t akin to picking Jokic in the second round or Desmond Bane at #30, but it was a savvy move and bit of a bold move and indisputably the right choice with 20/20 hindsight.

It’s also worth noting that Rosas drafted Jaden McDaniels at #28, which hindsight shows to have been a brilliant move. He signed Naz Reid and JMac as undrafted free agents and also acquired Vanderbilt, Pat Bev and Beasley - all of whom contributed to a 46-win season when Ant and Jaden were but shadows of their current selves. Yes, Rosas made some blunders early in his tenure, prompting yours truly to label him the village idiot. My characterization of him was over the top at the time and in retrospect couldn’t have been further from the truth looking back on the totality of his career here.

I don’t consider Rosas an elite NBA executive. But I think his tenure here and his recent tenure with the Knicks show him to be very good overall.

[BloopOracle]

Steph Curry with the game winning 3 against Phoenix! Need that home court advantage lead to continue to stretch.

[Monster]

I was so right... and so wrong... about that draft. I wasn't happy with Edwards nor McDaniels. But I knew Wiseman would be a bust and Haliburton would be good.

I guess my favorite thing about all of it was just how wrong Camden was about Wiseman. Overall a good poster who's missed here. But we're all wrong sometimes (obviously). It was always amusing how smug that guy was when he was right... and how much he fought to try to talk himself and others that he wasn't wrong when he was.

Abe, your post reminds me that I'm guilty of revisionist history here in saying picking Ant #1 was obvious. I was also a Haliburton fan (although I never dreamed he would be as good as he's turned out to be) and thought the Wolves should consider trading down to get him and another asset. While I thought Ant was the best player in the draft at the time, hindsight tells us that Haliburton and another asset that we would have gotten in giving up the #1 pick might have been better. For one thing, it would have made it less likely that we would have had to suffer through the DLo years (although DLo has been terrific the past couple weeks!).

Regardless, I'm not going to give Rosas much if any credit for choosing one of two options that I thought to be relatively easy to choose. Especially in light of his other disasters.

FNG - It’s time to concede. There were three players in the conversation for the top pick - Edwards, Ball and Wiseman. Moreover, there was a lot of chatter on this board and elsewhere that the best move would be to trade out of the top three for a lower pick and assets. I was among those who wanted to trade down for either Okongwu or Haliburton. I was clearly right about Okongwu. . Among other things, there were reports questioning Ant’s commitment to basketball, especially after he declared that football was his favorite sport. Admittedly, it wasn’t akin to picking Jokic in the second round or Desmond Bane at #30, but it was a savvy move and bit of a bold move and indisputably the right choice with 20/20 hindsight.

It’s also worth noting that Rosas drafted Jaden McDaniels at #28, which hindsight shows to have been a brilliant move. He signed Naz Reid and JMac as undrafted free agents and also acquired Vanderbilt, Pat Bev and Beasley - all of whom contributed to a 46-win season when Ant and Jaden were but shadows of their current selves. Yes, Rosas made some blunders early in his tenure, prompting yours truly to label him the village idiot. My characterization of him was over the top at the time and in retrospect couldn’t have been further from the truth looking back on the totality of his career here.

I don’t consider Rosas an elite NBA executive. But I think his tenure here and his recent tenure with the Knicks show him to be very good overall.

I think that draft is an example of how stupid NBA GMs can be. I get to some extent how Halliburton wasn’t a top 3 pick (I would have had him as one of the top 4 guys) but to drop THAT far!?!! Insane. Lip got me on the Okongwu train and yep we were so right on that guy! If an NBA team ever offers me a job I’ll demand they hire Lip also!!!

[Carlos Danger]

I happened to catch the end of the Lakers/Suns game while waiting for my news to start. I found myself fixated on DLO. He put up a familiar solid stat line (20 points, 7 assists). But also familiar was what appeared to be a lack of interest in playing any defense at all. IDK. Maybe it's just how he plays and/or I'm biased. But man, it reminded me of the defensive effort guys show during recent All Star games.

We had soooo many years of watching poor defense (not just DLO - plenty of similar guys). I am really finding the defense first Wolves much more enjoyable.

[Coolbreeze44]

I happened to catch the end of the Lakers/Suns game while waiting for my news to start. I found myself fixated on DLO. He put up a familiar solid stat line (20 points, 7 assists). But also familiar was what appeared to be a lack of interest in playing any defense at all. IDK. Maybe it's just how he plays and/or I'm biased. But man, it reminded me of the defensive effort guys show during recent All Star games.

We had soooo many years of watching poor defense (not just DLO - plenty of similar guys). I am really finding the defense first Wolves much more enjoyable.

He plays poor defense, but he is still able to point to where everyone else should be.

[TAFKASP]

I happened to catch the end of the Lakers/Suns game while waiting for my news to start. I found myself fixated on DLO. He put up a familiar solid stat line (20 points, 7 assists). But also familiar was what appeared to be a lack of interest in playing any defense at all. IDK. Maybe it's just how he plays and/or I'm biased. But man, it reminded me of the defensive effort guys show during recent All Star games.

We had soooo many years of watching poor defense (not just DLO - plenty of similar guys). I am really finding the defense first Wolves much more enjoyable.

He plays poor defense, but he is still able to point to where everyone else should be.

I cannot wait until he's retired and giving lectures on leadership! LOL

[Q-is-here]

For those of you tired of seeing OKC nipping at our heels all season, just a reminder that their top 7 players in minutes played have missed a total of 14 games out of a total of 399. We've actually been pretty healthy too, but not THAT fortunate. If SGA ever misses a few games, I think they will have a much harder time weathering things versus Minnesota missing Ant or KAT for a few games.

[Q-is-here]

With us winning and the Pelicans losing, we now hold a 7.5 game lead over the 5th seed. While nothing is guaranteed, it would seem highly improbable for us to not have home court advantage in the first round at this point. All these wins against bad teams matter!

[Coolbreeze44]

Nice help from the Spurs tonight!