Not a Knee Jerk Reaction

[TAFKASP]

How one guy can go from so good to so bad night to night and most of it is mentality. I think his fouling issues is probably a mentality issue as well.

I think his problem is 100% between his ears. Whether he gets calls or feels like calls going against him are fair build up like a snow ball downhill and his concentration goes to shit. After all these years I'm not sure we can expect that to ever change.

IMO you have a championship contender if KAT is your 3rd best player, but if he's top two I'm not sure it's going to work. But then I'll be the first to admit, I don't know squat about basketball! LOL

[Lipoli390]

How one guy can go from so good to so bad night to night and most of it is mentality. I think his fouling issues is probably a mentality issue as well.

I think his problem is 100% between his ears. Whether he gets calls or feels like calls going against him are fair build up like a snow ball downhill and his concentration goes to shit. After all these years I'm not sure we can expect that to ever change.

IMO you have a championship contender if KAT is your 3rd best player, but if he's top two I'm not sure it's going to work. But then I'll be the first to admit, I don't know squat about basketball! LOL

The Bulls won 6 championships with a second-best player who refused to go into a crucial tight playoff game down the stretch because the coach called a play for one of his teammates. I'm talking about Scottie Pippen - a guy who was notorious for missing games with headaches and who sat out over half a season recovering from surgery which he refused to get over the summer as a protest against management for the bad contract that he agreed to. I know they had MJ as their best player, but we're talking about 6 championships with Pippen as their second best player. I see no reason why KAT can't be the second best player behind Ant on a team that is simply in contention for a championship.

Yes, KAT's problems are between his ears. But the next step in the analysis is to assess how much those problems affect his play and ability to help the team. KAT played more games and more minutes than any other player on the roster. KAT ranked first on the team in scoring, rebounds, blocks, shooting percentage, and 3-point percentage. Importantly, he had the best on-off, 5.1, on a team that won 46 games. That on-off number compares favorably with some best and second-best players on this year's championship contenders - Devin Booker (3.8), Chris Paul (5.8), Jaylen Brown (5.8), Jimmy Butler (2.5), and Kris Middleton (6.1). Not that KAT had a phenomenal on-off number of 11.2 last season. KAT's weak points statistically are fouls and turnovers, but his numbers in those two categories were similar to those of perhaps the League's best player, Giannis. The most important thing KAT needed to do was improve his defense and he's done that. Now he needs to improve between the ears. We'll see how successful he'll be in that area. But meanwhile, his a consistent all-star performer and elite offensive player who has a substantially positive impact on winning. Based on his remaining weaknesses, it's fair to say that KAT probably can't be the best player on a championship contender. But it's way over the top in my view to suggest he can't be an effective #2.

[Tactical unit]

Making it 2-2 in a series I thought MN would win doesn't put me over the moon on KAT & DLO. What does drive me nuts is KAT's dumb fouls and inability to control his emotion as a leader. Emotion drives this guy so don't turn it off but he needs to be able to curb the complaining and use it for good vice an infectious disease that spreads throughout the team. DLO's lack of defense and not showing up as a floor general when needed the most makes me prefer J-Mac, at least I know what he brings to the table and see room for growth in him. DLO is basically a hot and cold scorer that isn't all that good at defense, sounds more like a 6th man to me. I'd love for them to prove me wrong and win something meaningful, getting past Memphis is nice but lets win at least round two for me to consider it meaningful. With the overall talent on this team winning a playoff series and that's all would be a let down. Most people have lower expectations because of the history of this team. Not me, win something meaningful or KAT & DLO have to be questioned as to weather you can do anything special with them.

I don't care about being the 7 seed, the talent is there to make a run. If they can grow and clean up some of there weakness, I guess I could live with them but they have been around long enough to show they are ready for the moment. I'm really finding it hard to believe that combo will ever play in a Western conference finals.

[Duke13]

Making it 2-2 in a series I thought MN would win doesn't put me over the moon on KAT & DLO. What does drive me nuts is KAT's dumb fouls and inability to control his emotion as a leader. Emotion drives this guy so don't turn it off but he needs to be able to curb the complaining and use it for good vice an infectious disease that spreads throughout the team. DLO's lack of defense and not showing up as a floor general when needed the most makes me prefer J-Mac, at least I know what he brings to the table and see room for growth in him. DLO is basically a hot and cold scorer that isn't all that good at defense, sounds more like a 6th man to me. I'd love for them to prove me wrong and win something meaningful, getting past Memphis is nice but lets win at least round two for me to consider it meaningful. With the overall talent on this team winning a playoff series and that's all would be a let down. Most people have lower expectations because of the history of this team. Not me, win something meaningful or KAT & DLO have to be questioned as to weather you can do anything special with them.

I don't care about being the 7 seed, the talent is there to make a run. If they can grow and clean up some of there weakness, I guess I could live with them but they have been around long enough to show they are ready for the moment. I'm really finding it hard to believe that combo will ever play in a Western conference finals.

Well said, agree completely. Dlo and Kat combo is interesting, Kat's talent level is much higher for sure. But these two as leaders on your team draw serious questions. The variance in Dlo's performance and effort is so frustrating from game to game. I wouldn't not resign Dlo, not a chance. I think it's pretty telling they haven't tried to extend him, or at least there hasn't been any talk of them trying to do so.

He could go out in game 5 and out of numbers like he did against the Clips, still wouldn't change my mind one bit, seen too many dud performances. People will say he made some nice passes in game 4, he did but that's baseline expectation for a starting caliber PG in the NBA. Give me Malcolm Brogdon on this team!

[Wolvesfan21]

I've been saying it all year but the future of the Wolves upside (potential NBA contender) still rides on what Ant can become and KAT if he is here longer term simple needs to get control of his emotions and support Ant becoming the main leader.

I've been on board trading him before if the package was favorable and still am. But what happens these next two or 3 games (not likely plus) will certainly sway what I would take.

Also on KAT can you think of another All Star player who is so hot and cold? One game is a whiny bitch who is uncoordinated and running over defenders, kicking his leg out trying to draw fouls, scores 8 points and does not much else. Then goes for 33 and 14 and a mostly great game. Not to mention still has the same foul issues from 6-7 years ago. Like, why can you not get better?

How one guy can go from so good to so bad night to night and most of it is mentality. I think his fouling issues is probably a mentality issue as well. He is maybe over amped for the game and can't control himself.

Wild - I think those consistency issues are mainly in the post season. He had some bad games during the regular season but very few. He has otherwise been amazingly consistent in the regular season. Having said that, your critique of KAT is accurate in my view. He needs to get control of his emotions and stop doing dumb things.

I'm confident he'll accept and support Ant as the main guy. One that point, I think KAT's post-game comments last night were particularly telling. I don't have the exact quote, but he referred to Edwards as possibly the most talented player he's every played with and that his job was to make sure Edwards succeeds. What I heard KAT saying is that he's the #2 guy with the job of making sure the team's #1 guy (most talented player) can do what he does. I wouldn't expect KAT (or any all-star player) to publicly say they're not as good or as important as another player on their team. Athletes at that level necessarily have too much ego and pride to do that. But I encourage folks to listen to those KAT comments on line and I think you'll interpret it as I did. You could tell from the tone of his voice that KAT is just blown away by what Edwards can do.

I watched the interview also. I do think he can take a step back as Ant becomes the guy. What happens coming up will be interesting though and tell me more about his ability to be on a NBA contender in the future.

[Duke13]

I would tend to agree with the assessment Kat most likely would be ok with Ant's rise in stature. But I'd also caution with taking any of what Kat says in interviews seriously. It's so superficial, scripted and filled with hyperbole it's tough to stomach. The psychology of Kat is so weird and odd to me, he should be a case study for the U of M psych dept.

The other night during the post game when he said he planned to go home and drink some wine to decompress. Id be willing be bet anything Kat doesn't drink Wine! My all time favorite was after his 2nd year I think, he said he talked to all the great leaders in the history of the NBA during the off-season for advice on how to be a good leader. He mentioned Russell and a number of all time great players. It made me want to throw up at the time, just wreaked of BS for lack of a better team.

His personality isn't the type that is going to capture a locker or guys on the court. He's just not relatable to his peers is my guess, that's always been my sense of him.

Even Saturday night, he played great, but I always had the sense he was one play from losing his cool and unraveling at anytime.

[AbeVigodaLive]

I would tend to agree with the assessment Kat most likely would be ok with Ant's rise in stature. But I'd also caution with taking any of what Kat says in interviews seriously. It's so superficial, scripted and filled with hyperbole it's tough to stomach. The psychology of Kat is so weird and odd to me, he should be a case study for the U of M psych dept.

The other night during the post game when he said he planned to go home and drink some wine to decompress. Id be willing be bet anything Kat doesn't drink Wine! My all time favorite was after his 2nd year I think, he said he talked to all the great leaders in the history of the NBA during the off-season for advice on how to be a good leader. He mentioned Russell and a number of all time great players. It made me want to throw up at the time, just wreaked of BS for lack of a better team.

His personality isn't the type that is going to capture a locker or guys on the court. He's just not relatable to his peers is my guess, that's always been my sense of him.

Even Saturday night, he played great, but I always had the sense he was one play from losing his cool and unraveling at anytime.

While Towns does reek of insincerity... I think the basketball player would be ok with a 1b or #2 role. He hasn't forced much in the past in that role and has taken a backseat role many times.

He seems like the type of guy who cares more about his efficiency than volume stats anyway...

[Monster]

I would tend to agree with the assessment Kat most likely would be ok with Ant's rise in stature. But I'd also caution with taking any of what Kat says in interviews seriously. It's so superficial, scripted and filled with hyperbole it's tough to stomach. The psychology of Kat is so weird and odd to me, he should be a case study for the U of M psych dept.

The other night during the post game when he said he planned to go home and drink some wine to decompress. Id be willing be bet anything Kat doesn't drink Wine! My all time favorite was after his 2nd year I think, he said he talked to all the great leaders in the history of the NBA during the off-season for advice on how to be a good leader. He mentioned Russell and a number of all time great players. It made me want to throw up at the time, just wreaked of BS for lack of a better team.

His personality isn't the type that is going to capture a locker or guys on the court. He's just not relatable to his peers is my guess, that's always been my sense of him.

Even Saturday night, he played great, but I always had the sense he was one play from losing his cool and unraveling at anytime.

While Towns does reek of insincerity... I think the basketball player would be ok with a 1b or #2 role. He hasn't forced much in the past in that role and has taken a backseat role many times.

He seems like the type of guy who cares more about his efficiency than volume stats anyway...

Duke's post shows why I'm not sure anything Towns could say will convince anyone that he is something other than what they think he is. And to be honest that's fair as I agree with the idea that Taking Towns at his word is difficult to do.

What I do think about Towns is that he isn't some absolutely selfish dude that is saying shit to make himself look good and he is kind of an asshole. I think for the most part kinda like he is on the court he is sincere and wants too badly to show that and it gets him into trouble. He just tries too damn hard and takes things too seriously and wants everyone to know how serious he is. Part of me thinks him saying he is gonna just go home and drink whine is probably a good thing as he needs to chill out (yeah who knows if he even does drink whine but anywho lol) but maybe he needs like a hobby or something. Patrick Beverly is obviously pretty serious about basketball but he has a pretty wild amount of interests outside of basketball. I think it's good to be able to get away into something else.

I do think it's easy to forget how fast these guys have to grow up and also live in the public eye while doing it. I would assume it can be difficult to really find yourself and that's also an ongoing process.

I also think it's also pretty clear Towns cares a lot about what other people think. It can be hard to let that go.

[AbeVigodaLive]

I'm just suggesting that we have history of Towns letting others take more shots than him...

Heck, even this season.

[Q-is-here]

One could argue that KAT isn't even the true leader of this team now. It seems like PBev is the emotional leader of this team and after that it's kind of a shared arrangement between KAT, DLO, and Ant. And then everyone respects the hell out of Finch so he's at the fulcrum of it all.

One thing I always thought San Antonio did really well during their 20-year run of excellence was pass the alpha dog baton from one guy to the next - Robinson to Duncan to Manu to Parker to Kawhi. Things eventually went sideways with Kawhi, but that was a hell of a run without a lot of ego-related issues.

First things first....Ant needs to actually become as good or better than KAT. He's not there yet. May be next year? May be the year after? May be never?