Wolves at Nuggs GDT

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

D'Angelo Russell heading straight to the showers.

[60WinTim]

D'Angelo Russell heading straight to the showers.

Could this be how Dlo ends his Wolves career? Thrown out of the game!

(Just kidding, Cam. Just kidding)

[60WinTim]

This has been a painfully long garbage time...

But I like what I see from Minott. Figure he is our first round pick next year and maybe he can contribute the year after that.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Nuggets scored on 19 of 24 possessions Rudy sat.

And he scored 0 points in 18 minutes. He's a negative on offense. And it continues to hurt the team.

The other center had a 20 / 12 / 16 night on 80% shooting while taking his foot off the gas. That's an All NBA center. That's a guy you mortgage 5 - 10 years for... not a lumbering center with a severely limited offensive game entirely dependent on his teammates.

So we can continue to rail about just how poorly the Timberwolves play defense without him without adding any context to it. But we should maybe occasionally acknowledge that the Wolves are worse with him on the other end. No matter how we spin it... or what stats we pick and choose... Tim Connelly put ALL of his chips in on a guy who is embarrassingly bad on offense.

That's not to say that Gobert is a bad player. But he is a niche player. A specialist. And you simply can't give up what the Timberwolves did to get that type of player at that price.

For all the heat D. Russell gets... Gobert just had a 0 point, 5 rebound night without an assist (obviously, because he averages only 0.9 assists per game) while being paid $38M+ (and rising next season).

I hope he rebounds tomorrow vs. his old team and plays great defense and is able to catch passes 18 inches from the rim that he can dunk with ease so he can be serviceable on offense.

[AbeVigodaLive]

DVR Review (that was shut off once the Wolves fell behind by 12 early... right before the Nuggets would score 17 straight more points)...

- The Nuggets came to play. I thought their defensive pressure on the ball was excellent and really set the tone. Edwards and Russell got a couple of buckets early, but nothing came easy.

- The Nuggets had 44 assists and would have pushed 50 if they kept the starters in. That's crazy effective. I think the assists were 18 - 4 at one point when I checked.

- Whether it's by 1 point or 111 points... it's just one loss. And a predictable one at that. Denver is 26 - 4 at home. The Wolves are 9 - 16 on the road.

- All that matters is winning tomorrow vs. Utah. A win is a win.

[Wolvesfan21]

Utah was great on offense with Rudy. The Wolves simply have crappy offensive players, compared to Utah the last few years at least.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Utah was great on offense with Rudy. The Wolves simply have crappy offensive players, compared to Utah the last few years at least.

To be fair, they had years to work on it. Years to find ways to mask Gobert's flaws while enhancing what he does well. We're going to read A LOT of stories this summer about how the season was doomed from the start because of Gobert's time with the French team and Towns' sickness and then injury.

And it will be part of the spin job to keep us hoping for a better 2024 season.

The team could be much better next season. But missing out on the playoffs in season 1 would still make the trade even more of a colossal failure and we'd still maybe not know if it's ever going to work.



[Note: BUT... the bigger point is that if Gobert is THAT reliant on his teammates... then he wasn't worth the price the team paid for him in the first place. You trade the farm for guys who can come in and make teammates better... not guys who need the perfect system catered to them even at the expense of his new teammates.]

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Rudy Gobert also needed to defend Nikola Jokic. I understand the idea of having him check Aaron Gordon and trying to roam the middle at times, but Naz Reid clearly couldn't handle that matchup and got abused repeatedly. Gobert's a three-time Defensive Player of the Year who has often made things difficult for opposing offensive bigs. He needed to man up on Jokic. Have to blame him and Chris Finch for not recognizing it early enough and changing the game plan.

That's not to say that it would have made a difference on the outcome, or that Gobert would have shut down an all-time great producer like Jokic, but why did we trade him for if not matchups like this one? I remember Gobert defended Joel Embiid earlier in the season. I remember Gobert defended Jonas Valenciunias. I've seen him defend Karl-Anthony Towns in past seasons. What's the difference here? Have to take those big boy matchups if you're Gobert. In part, that's what he was brought in to do. You can't assign the elite matchup down low to guys like Naz Reid and Kyle Anderson. Get in there and battle.

[Wolvesfan21]

Utah was great on offense with Rudy. The Wolves simply have crappy offensive players, compared to Utah the last few years at least.

To be fair, they had years to work on it. Years to find ways to mask Gobert's flaws while enhancing what he does well. We're going to read A LOT of stories this summer about how the season was doomed from the start because of Gobert's time with the French team and Towns' sickness and then injury.

And it will be part of the spin job to keep us hoping for a better 2024 season.

The team could be much better next season. But missing out on the playoffs in season 1 would still make the trade even more of a colossal failure and we'd still maybe not know if it's ever going to work.



[Note: BUT... the bigger point is that if Gobert is THAT reliant on his teammates... then he wasn't worth the price the team paid for him in the first place. You trade the farm for guys who can come in and make teammates better... not guys who need the perfect system catered to them even at the expense of his new teammates.]

Nah, the Wolves players suck and are overrated. It's not that hard to play with a roll big. NBA teams have been doing it since the beginning.

[Lipoli390]

Utah was great on offense with Rudy. The Wolves simply have crappy offensive players, compared to Utah the last few years at least.

To be fair, they had years to work on it. Years to find ways to mask Gobert's flaws while enhancing what he does well. We're going to read A LOT of stories this summer about how the season was doomed from the start because of Gobert's time with the French team and Towns' sickness and then injury.

And it will be part of the spin job to keep us hoping for a better 2024 season.

The team could be much better next season. But missing out on the playoffs in season 1 would still make the trade even more of a colossal failure and we'd still maybe not know if it's ever going to work.



[Note: BUT... the bigger point is that if Gobert is THAT reliant on his teammates... then he wasn't worth the price the team paid for him in the first place. You trade the farm for guys who can come in and make teammates better... not guys who need the perfect system catered to them even at the expense of his new teammates.]

That's the point I've been making ever since the trade was made. Utah took years designing a system and roster to accentuate Rudy's positives and hide his negatives. Yet in spite of those years of effort, they still couldn't hide his weaknesses adequately in the playoffs. It was nuts to shell out what the Wolves gave up and assume he'd have the sort of impact that would justify the price - both assets traded to get him and the money owed him under his contract.