Minnesota Sports Forum

LST, while I agree on the premise of what you're saying. Flip's been around this rodeo long enough that he knows a team isn't going to knock his socks off with an offer. No team is going to offer an unprotected first for Martin.

I'll put it this way...the odds of Flip being offered an unprotected first round pick from a borderline playoff team or unprotected future 1st from any team period, is about as good as the odds of Cleveland deciding to offer us LeBron James, in my opinion.

bleedspeed177 wrote:LST - I was going off D-League stats for both.

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Clint-Capela-6359/
http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Adreian-Payne-5286/

Payne is shooting less then 20% on 3's in the D-League. That is likely to go up, but it might not translate to the NBA.

This nails why I said "I thought the price was expensive considering ATL's objectives in making a deal but he has potential and a cheap contract. His athletic profile, length and offensive skill set provides high upside, but I question his defense, in college I seen him as soft but the defensive potential is there."

I question his D more than anything but I do think his upside is high. How anyone can determine what he will be in the league is beyond me. Best case scenario he could be deadly in pick and roll and turn his length and athleticism into a real force on D. Or a complete bust, but nobody knows this early in his career.

KiwiMatt wrote:I'm all for keeping Thad on this team going forward, based on him resigning for a reasonable price.

However I'd have him as my first big off the bench. I'd like to see Flip experiment by starting Dieng or Payne at PF and have Young come in and play the 4 and the 3. I'd still like to see him get 28 - 30 minutes a game though. I believe Thad could flourish in this role and really exploit opposition 2nd units.

bleedspeed177 wrote:LST - I was going off D-League stats for both.

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Clint-Capela-6359/
http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Adreian-Payne-5286/

Payne is shooting less then 20% on 3's in the D-League. That is likely to go up, but it might not translate to the NBA.

I don't even want him at what would be considered a reasonable price. I am fine with him for another year as a means of being competitive next year because I think we might be playoff caliber next year (good health please). I'd rather cash out on Thad if possible because I'd invest his money in better FA's that will want to play with all these young assets we have. Also we are going to need money to keep all these players around so giving money to Thad beyond next year at the price he is likely to command doesn't make sense to me.

Tactical unit wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:LST - I was going off D-League stats for both.

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Clint-Capela-6359/
http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Adreian-Payne-5286/

Payne is shooting less then 20% on 3's in the D-League. That is likely to go up, but it might not translate to the NBA.

This nails why I said "I thought the price was expensive considering ATL's objectives in making a deal but he has potential and a cheap contract. His athletic profile, length and offensive skill set provides high upside, but I question his defense, in college I seen him as soft but the defensive potential is there."

I question his D more than anything but I do think his upside is high. How anyone can determine what he will be in the league is beyond me. Best case scenario he could be deadly in pick and roll and turn his length and athleticism into a real force on D. Or a complete bust, but nobody knows this early in his career.

I
Of course nobody can know for sure how good or bad a player after playing less than 20 minutes for half a NBA season. But we make predictions based on the evidence we have. What we have with Payne is a far more complete set of pre-NBA data than we usually have for players in the top half of the first round - i.e., 4 years of college stats. Nothing in his stats, even as a senior, suggest anything close to defensive prowess at the NBA level. Less than a block a game as a senior with his length and athleticism is a red flag to me. 7 boards a game is underwhelming to say the least. Look at the guys Atlanta has coming off the bench ahead of Payne and it's evident Atlanta's coaching staff didnt see much in him. The fact that a win-now team like Atlanta would trade him for a future pick tells us what their front office thought of him.

The Wolves front office obviously put a higher value on Payne than the Atlanta front office did. I sure hope Flip and his brain trust turn out to be smarter than the Atlanta front office on this one. But my guess is that this deal will end up in Flip's mistake bucket.

Tactical unit wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:I'm all for keeping Thad on this team going forward, based on him resigning for a reasonable price.

However I'd have him as my first big off the bench. I'd like to see Flip experiment by starting Dieng or Payne at PF and have Young come in and play the 4 and the 3. I'd still like to see him get 28 - 30 minutes a game though. I believe Thad could flourish in this role and really exploit opposition 2nd units.

bleedspeed177 wrote:LST - I was going off D-League stats for both.

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Clint-Capela-6359/
http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Adreian-Payne-5286/

Payne is shooting less then 20% on 3's in the D-League. That is likely to go up, but it might not translate to the NBA.

I don't even want him at what would be considered a reasonable price. I am fine with him for another year as a means of being competitive next year because I think we might be playoff caliber next year (good health please). I'd rather cash out on Thad if possible because I'd invest his money in better FA's that will want to play with all these young assets we have. Also we are going to need money to keep all these players around so giving money to Thad beyond next year at the price he is likely to command doesn't make sense to me.

But who are those FA's that are better that we could get at a lower price? What if Thad wanted to stay at $6-7M per year on a longer deal? He's only 26.

lipoli390 wrote:

Tactical unit wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:LST - I was going off D-League stats for both.

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Clint-Capela-6359/
http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Adreian-Payne-5286/

Payne is shooting less then 20% on 3's in the D-League. That is likely to go up, but it might not translate to the NBA.

This nails why I said "I thought the price was expensive considering ATL's objectives in making a deal but he has potential and a cheap contract. His athletic profile, length and offensive skill set provides high upside, but I question his defense, in college I seen him as soft but the defensive potential is there."

I question his D more than anything but I do think his upside is high. How anyone can determine what he will be in the league is beyond me. Best case scenario he could be deadly in pick and roll and turn his length and athleticism into a real force on D. Or a complete bust, but nobody knows this early in his career.

I
Of course nobody can know for sure how good or bad a player after playing less than 20 minutes for half a NBA season. But we make predictions based on the evidence we have. What we have with Payne is a far more complete set of pre-NBA data than we usually have for players in the top half of the first round - i.e., 4 years of college stats. Nothing in his stats, even as a senior, suggest anything close to defensive prowess at the NBA level. Less than a block a game as a senior with his length and athleticism is a red flag to me. 7 boards a game is underwhelming to say the least. Look at the guys Atlanta has coming off the bench ahead of Payne and it's evident Atlanta's coaching staff didnt see much in him. The fact that a win-now team like Atlanta would trade him for a future pick tells us what their front office thought of him.

The Wolves front office obviously put a higher value on Payne than the Atlanta front office did. I sure hope Flip and his brain trust turn out to be smarter than the Atlanta front office on this one. But my guess is that this deal will end up in Flip's mistake bucket.

Good points Lip. His situation is different from LaVine or even Wiggins. When you are only 19 with one year of college experience, it's much easier to be patient and envision future improvement (although even then, it doesn't always happen). Yet this guy is practically as old as Thad Young! While we certainly don't know what we have, it also shouldn't take too long to figure it out once he starts getting regular minutes.

I think the Payne trade will sting and sadly it will sting more if we are winning because it will be a chip we could have used to make one last big move.

My guess is Lip's guess is wrong.

We've heard about Payne's "lung capacity" issues. I have no idea if that has been solved, or can be solved, or if he will always be a "less than 30 minutes per game" guy. But if you check the "40 minute" stats in his draft express profile, he stacks up just fine with other PFs in terms of scoring, rebound and blocks.

While Flip may have missed out on some good picks (Gobert), it's pretty tough to complain about the picks he has made.

I'm all in on Payne.

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Adreian-Payne-5286/stats/

http://www.nba.com/kings/blog/prospect-profile-adreian-payne

Q and Lip, I understand your points about the Payne trade, but I still see it differently. He was slowed by plantars fasciitis much of the early portion of the season, and Atlanta was not about to mess around with its incredible success by working him into the rotation after he got healthy. I read little into his lack of minutes this year (provided he is healthy now, and by all reports, he is).

Also, Flip didn't acquire him because he has Wiggins/LaVine type upside. He acquired him because he thought he would be an upgrade at PF, and when I compare his college stats (all we have to go on) to Thad Young's, Adreian's are superior in almost every area. Sure, he's not an elite shot blocker or rebounder (especially considering his length), but his college rebound and block numbers are vastly superior to Thad's. Thad is a good athlete, but anyone who saw Adreian's dunk in the college dunk contest knows that he is much more explosive. Adreian is also more of a true stretch 4, as he hit over 42% of his threes his last year in college.
Finally, many of us have been frustrated by Thad's defense this year. OTOH, Tom Izzo (who typically stresses defense) raved about Adreian's PnR defense. I agree that college stats don't always translate to the NBA game (look at AB, for goodness sake), but Payne appears to be an upgrade over our current starting PF in athleticism, outside shooting, shot blocking, rebounding and defense. And all this in exchange for a draft pick that is likely to be in the late teens in a forecasted weak 2017 draft, and at a salary vastly less than Young's. Time will tell, but I like what Flip did here.

Q12543 wrote:

TRKO wrote:Flip has done a good job as shown by the amount of youngsters we had playing in the rising star game. I think his only real big flaw is trading two firsts to try to find the answer at PF. I'm not sure he has found that guy. Thad is a nice player, but you need your PF to get a minimum of 7 rebounds per game. I think Thad may be better off coming off the bench as a tweener.

Agree his best role is off the bench, as his best years in Philly were in that role. I've always been a proponent of giving Gorgui a chance at PF, not because I think he's ideal either, but I thought it would be a good way to start games since teams tend to start big, then go smaller when they go to their bench. Flip played with this a bit and it seemed to work OK, but then he went away from it for whatever reason.

I'd like to see:
Rubio
Wiggins
Thad (This way I get to see how much I like Thad at SF)
Dieng
Pek