Q-was-here wrote:We got a peek at a full-strength Clippers team today and they manhandled Dallas on the road.
New Orleans' injury issues are catching up to them, as they dropped one to Miami and have lost 8 out of their last 10.
There are probably 9 or 10 teams in the West capable of being anywhere from a 1-3 seed IF they were mostly healthy this season. The race to a top 6 seed largely depends on player health and availability.
There is a clear top 2 and bottom 2 in the west then there is just 5 wins separating the top 3rd place team from the 3rd worst team. It's gonna be interesting to see how it shakes out. Now for the Wolves despite everything they have or haven't done to this point and the injuries etc the path to get a decent playoff position is right there. It's not going to be easy and they might not be able to do it but it's right there for them.
Q-was-here wrote:We got a peek at a full-strength Clippers team today and they manhandled Dallas on the road.
New Orleans' injury issues are catching up to them, as they dropped one to Miami and have lost 8 out of their last 10.
There are probably 9 or 10 teams in the West capable of being anywhere from a 1-3 seed IF they were mostly healthy this season. The race to a top 6 seed largely depends on player health and availability.
There is a clear top 2 and bottom 2 in the west then there is just 5 wins separating the top 3rd place team from the 3rd worst team. It's gonna be interesting to see how it shakes out. Now for the Wolves despite everything they have or haven't done to this point and the injuries etc the path to get a decent playoff position is right there. It's not going to be easy and they might not be able to do it but it's right there for them.
Don't disagree there is still a chance, but they will need some injury luck, in terms of both their own players AND other teams experiencing problems. But assuming KAT is out for multiple more weeks and we have other guys missing 2, 3, or 4 game chunks, then it's probably going to be too big of a hill to take. The schedule gets tougher here and we wasted a lot of opportunities to build in margin for error when we lost to Detroit, San Antonio, etc.
Q-was-here wrote:We got a peek at a full-strength Clippers team today and they manhandled Dallas on the road.
New Orleans' injury issues are catching up to them, as they dropped one to Miami and have lost 8 out of their last 10.
There are probably 9 or 10 teams in the West capable of being anywhere from a 1-3 seed IF they were mostly healthy this season. The race to a top 6 seed largely depends on player health and availability.
I think the Clippers are scary...IF they can stay healthy, and they have several key players with a history of not staying healthy. But yeah, look what they did to the Mavs today. And the Clippers actually weren't even at full strength, as they were missing their best 3-point shooter (Kennard) and their best distributor (Wall). Add those to the mix, and today's game could have been even more of a blowout.
Q-was-here wrote:We got a peek at a full-strength Clippers team today and they manhandled Dallas on the road.
New Orleans' injury issues are catching up to them, as they dropped one to Miami and have lost 8 out of their last 10.
There are probably 9 or 10 teams in the West capable of being anywhere from a 1-3 seed IF they were mostly healthy this season. The race to a top 6 seed largely depends on player health and availability.
I think the Clippers are scary...IF they can stay healthy, and they have several key players with a history of not staying healthy. But yeah, look what they did to the Mavs today. And the Clippers actually weren't even at full strength, as they were missing their best 3-point shooter (Kennard) and their best distributor (Wall). Add those to the mix, and today's game could have been even more of a blowout.
I really hate to say this but at what point is Towns a guy that is a "I wonder if he can stay healthy" guy?
Q-was-here wrote:We got a peek at a full-strength Clippers team today and they manhandled Dallas on the road.
New Orleans' injury issues are catching up to them, as they dropped one to Miami and have lost 8 out of their last 10.
There are probably 9 or 10 teams in the West capable of being anywhere from a 1-3 seed IF they were mostly healthy this season. The race to a top 6 seed largely depends on player health and availability.
I think the Clippers are scary...IF they can stay healthy, and they have several key players with a history of not staying healthy. But yeah, look what they did to the Mavs today. And the Clippers actually weren't even at full strength, as they were missing their best 3-point shooter (Kennard) and their best distributor (Wall). Add those to the mix, and today's game could have been even more of a blowout.
I really hate to say this but at what point is Towns a guy that is a "I wonder if he can stay healthy" guy?
I don't know, Monster. KAT was an iron man for the first four years of his career. After some injury struggles for two consecutive seasons after that, including a concussion from a car accident, he appeared to bound back last season when he played 74 games - approaching his old iron-man self although not quite. But this season we've seen him illness and injury-plagued again. You ask an important question. Time will give us the answer. Since he's signed for a long time and remains the second most important player on this roster, we had better hope that he gets over this calf issue and returns to something resembling his early career resiliency.
Q-was-here wrote:We got a peek at a full-strength Clippers team today and they manhandled Dallas on the road.
New Orleans' injury issues are catching up to them, as they dropped one to Miami and have lost 8 out of their last 10.
There are probably 9 or 10 teams in the West capable of being anywhere from a 1-3 seed IF they were mostly healthy this season. The race to a top 6 seed largely depends on player health and availability.
I think the Clippers are scary...IF they can stay healthy, and they have several key players with a history of not staying healthy. But yeah, look what they did to the Mavs today. And the Clippers actually weren't even at full strength, as they were missing their best 3-point shooter (Kennard) and their best distributor (Wall). Add those to the mix, and today's game could have been even more of a blowout.
I really hate to say this but at what point is Towns a guy that is a "I wonder if he can stay healthy" guy?
I don't know, Monster. KAT was an iron man for the first four years of his career. After some injury struggles for two consecutive seasons after that, including a concussion from a car accident, he appeared to bound back last season when he played 74 games - approaching his old iron-man self although not quite. But this season we've seen him illness and injury-plagued again. You ask an important question. Time will give us the answer. Since he's signed for a long time and remains the second most important player on this roster, we had better hope that he gets over this calf issue and returns to something resembling his early career resiliency.
This segues nicely into a most pressing topic. It's been reported that the Clippers and Nuggets have shown interest in a Naz Reid trade. It seems quite unlikely that the Wolves trade Naz without getting a big back since Towns status is clear as mud.
At this point it might be necessary to lock him up long term with the understanding that he will get minutes alongside Towns and Gobert. Hopefully Connelly has a solid grasp of what it will take to keep Naz and if it's in the cards. The team can't afford to lose him for nothing.
Q-was-here wrote:We got a peek at a full-strength Clippers team today and they manhandled Dallas on the road.
New Orleans' injury issues are catching up to them, as they dropped one to Miami and have lost 8 out of their last 10.
There are probably 9 or 10 teams in the West capable of being anywhere from a 1-3 seed IF they were mostly healthy this season. The race to a top 6 seed largely depends on player health and availability.
I think the Clippers are scary...IF they can stay healthy, and they have several key players with a history of not staying healthy. But yeah, look what they did to the Mavs today. And the Clippers actually weren't even at full strength, as they were missing their best 3-point shooter (Kennard) and their best distributor (Wall). Add those to the mix, and today's game could have been even more of a blowout.
I really hate to say this but at what point is Towns a guy that is a "I wonder if he can stay healthy" guy?
I don't know, Monster. KAT was an iron man for the first four years of his career. After some injury struggles for two consecutive seasons after that, including a concussion from a car accident, he appeared to bound back last season when he played 74 games - approaching his old iron-man self although not quite. But this season we've seen him illness and injury-plagued again. You ask an important question. Time will give us the answer. Since he's signed for a long time and remains the second most important player on this roster, we had better hope that he gets over this calf issue and returns to something resembling his early career resiliency.
This segues nicely into a most pressing topic. It's been reported that the Clippers and Nuggets have shown interest in a Naz Reid trade. It seems quite unlikely that the Wolves trade Naz without getting a big back since Towns status is clear as mud.
At this point it might be necessary to lock him up long term with the understanding that he will get minutes alongside Towns and Gobert. Hopefully Connelly has a solid grasp of what it will take to keep Naz and if it's in the cards. The team can't afford to lose him for nothing.
The Wolves' 4th and 5th string centers have helped them win games in the past week.
Q-was-here wrote:We got a peek at a full-strength Clippers team today and they manhandled Dallas on the road.
New Orleans' injury issues are catching up to them, as they dropped one to Miami and have lost 8 out of their last 10.
There are probably 9 or 10 teams in the West capable of being anywhere from a 1-3 seed IF they were mostly healthy this season. The race to a top 6 seed largely depends on player health and availability.
I think the Clippers are scary...IF they can stay healthy, and they have several key players with a history of not staying healthy. But yeah, look what they did to the Mavs today. And the Clippers actually weren't even at full strength, as they were missing their best 3-point shooter (Kennard) and their best distributor (Wall). Add those to the mix, and today's game could have been even more of a blowout.
I really hate to say this but at what point is Towns a guy that is a "I wonder if he can stay healthy" guy?
I don't know, Monster. KAT was an iron man for the first four years of his career. After some injury struggles for two consecutive seasons after that, including a concussion from a car accident, he appeared to bound back last season when he played 74 games - approaching his old iron-man self although not quite. But this season we've seen him illness and injury-plagued again. You ask an important question. Time will give us the answer. Since he's signed for a long time and remains the second most important player on this roster, we had better hope that he gets over this calf issue and returns to something resembling his early career resiliency.
This segues nicely into a most pressing topic. It's been reported that the Clippers and Nuggets have shown interest in a Naz Reid trade. It seems quite unlikely that the Wolves trade Naz without getting a big back since Towns status is clear as mud.
At this point it might be necessary to lock him up long term with the understanding that he will get minutes alongside Towns and Gobert. Hopefully Connelly has a solid grasp of what it will take to keep Naz and if it's in the cards. The team can't afford to lose him for nothing.
The issue is the wolves have been pathetic though out Naz career when Naz plays PF. In 409 possessions the wolves have been outscored by 19.4 pts per 100 possessions (1st percentile) when with Kat, Gobert or Knight. Last year outscored but 7.3 pts per 100 possessions playing PF (19th percentile) and 2 years ago -4.2 pts per 100 possessions (33rd percentile)
Wolves have been pathetically bad when Naz is at PF.
Wolves are center lineups have been good this year with Naz but I think we are seeing the weakness of when he plays a bigger center. He gets into foul trouble, we don't rebound and they score pretty easily.
I just don't know Naz value on the open market. We are also trying to win games so Naz for a 2nd I would be disappointed in. If Naz walks Naz walks.
I will say Naz is just not a power forward what really kills his value to this wolves team even though Naz has improved as a player overall
It's becoming more and more apparent to me that the Timberwolves should NOT trade Naz Reid at or before the deadline. They need him this season as insurance for a Karl-Anthony Towns and/or Rudy Gobert injury even with the recently improved play from Luka Garza and Nathan Knight. The latter two, while plenty intriguing, are less proven against better competition. While it's fair to note that we've seen Reid be overwhelmed against bigger or better players, we've also seen him produce against quality talent as well. I have doubts that any realistic return would be worth moving off of him.
Certainly, things change if a team is willing to trade a first-round pick and a useable player for Reid. I'd also deal Reid to Los Angeles for Terance Mann. But those are high asks and I'm not sure those deals play out.
As far as the future, I'd either look to re-sign him or facilitate a sign-and-trade. I think Minnesota will have the option to do either this off-season.
