Minnesota Sports Forum

thedoper wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Duke13 wrote:I don't think we need to sign guys specifically for defense. I hear people saying we need more rim protection but we are the only team in the league to start two centers. What else can we do?? By this boards omission we have a top level defensive PG, Butler is a great two way player. Bottom line is our defensive improvement is dependent on Wig and Kat showing effort which will equal improvement. Kat was a matador defending the PnR, same with G. I think the team is better off starting Belly, assuming he is healthy. I think they should look to deal both Gorgi and Rubio to free up salary and see what they can get back that fits the team better. They are both bad fits with this core. Dunc'd on talked openly about the need for us to find a better PG. JVC said our point guard play was below average last year.

Doper -- I agree that the key to defensive improvement beyond the addition of Butler will be the defensive develpment of KAT and Wiggins. We can't spend money on additional players to cover up the defensive failings of two of our three core guys. If we end up going down that path, this thing isn't going to work and we'll be in yet another rebuilding process in a couple years. So KAT and Wiggins have to step up and improve substantially on the defensive side of the ball. They clearly have the physical size and talent to succeed; it's a matter of attitude and understanding. Butler will take some of the defensive pressure off those two guys, but hopefully he'll press them to improve.

Geez Lip, you're lumping me into the same person as Duke. I know we've both criticized Rubio but I didn't remember what this was about.

It ain't Lip's fault you went full Duke! ;)

TheSP wrote:

thedoper wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Duke13 wrote:I don't think we need to sign guys specifically for defense. I hear people saying we need more rim protection but we are the only team in the league to start two centers. What else can we do?? By this boards omission we have a top level defensive PG, Butler is a great two way player. Bottom line is our defensive improvement is dependent on Wig and Kat showing effort which will equal improvement. Kat was a matador defending the PnR, same with G. I think the team is better off starting Belly, assuming he is healthy. I think they should look to deal both Gorgi and Rubio to free up salary and see what they can get back that fits the team better. They are both bad fits with this core. Dunc'd on talked openly about the need for us to find a better PG. JVC said our point guard play was below average last year.

Doper -- I agree that the key to defensive improvement beyond the addition of Butler will be the defensive develpment of KAT and Wiggins. We can't spend money on additional players to cover up the defensive failings of two of our three core guys. If we end up going down that path, this thing isn't going to work and we'll be in yet another rebuilding process in a couple years. So KAT and Wiggins have to step up and improve substantially on the defensive side of the ball. They clearly have the physical size and talent to succeed; it's a matter of attitude and understanding. Butler will take some of the defensive pressure off those two guys, but hopefully he'll press them to improve.

Geez Lip, you're lumping me into the same person as Duke. I know we've both criticized Rubio but I didn't remember what this was about.

It ain't Lip's fault you went full Duke! ;)

Someone has to defend Duke around here, and pork for that matter too. I've been pretty thorny for a bit. Amazing what Butler can do around here, it's all smiles.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:And all three of those guys shot better from behind the arc than both Russell Westbrook and James Harden. Maybe our 3 point shooting woes aren't as bad as we make them out to be. It makes some sense that Westbrook's percentage would be what it is, but it seems like Harden hardly ever misses when we play him.

I think Harden's % went down because he is never playing off of other guys and instead is the sole focal point of the defense. And while he didn't shoot it particularly accurately, he opened up gobs of space for other guys to get off 3's.

The issue with Wiggins and Butler is volume of 3's, not accuracy. They both take way too many long, difficult 2-point jumpers and not enough 3's. I'm not suggesting either goes all Houston on us and completely turn down good looks from 2, but we need to find ways to get these guys more open 3's.

Q12543 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:And all three of those guys shot better from behind the arc than both Russell Westbrook and James Harden. Maybe our 3 point shooting woes aren't as bad as we make them out to be. It makes some sense that Westbrook's percentage would be what it is, but it seems like Harden hardly ever misses when we play him.

I think Harden's % went down because he is never playing off of other guys and instead is the sole focal point of the defense. And while he didn't shoot it particularly accurately, he opened up gobs of space for other guys to get off 3's.

The issue with Wiggins and Butler is volume of 3's, not accuracy. They both take way too many long, difficult 2-point jumpers and not enough 3's. I'm not suggesting either goes all Houston on us and completely turn down good looks from 2, but we need to find ways to get these guys more open 3's.

I agree, Q. This will be one of Thibs' biggest challenges as head coach next season. He's going to have to trust KAT, Wiggins and Gorgui taking more threes. I like Gorgui's corner three potential. He's very accurate on his mid and long-range twos and he's shown the ability to knock down corner threes. KAT can be a 40% 3-point shooter. Wiggins really improved his 3-point shooting last season and I see that continuing. He has a nice looking stroke. I don't see Butler progressing much as a 3-point shooter. He'll take and make crunch-time threes, but I wouldn't look to increase his volume of threes over prior seasons. Thibs challenged Ricky at the end of last season to improve his three-point shooting. Hopefully we'll see progress there. It will be a collective thing and Thibs will have to have multiple sets with all of these guys taking threes they haven't taken very often in the past. Add a Tony Snell, Joe Ingles, or Pattie Mills to the mix and I like the potential improvement in our three-point shooting as a team.

My prediction is the wolves will explore moving Rubio and Gorgi without taking much back, to free up space to allocate resources differently. No way Bazz is back. They need more shooting out of the 4, Gorgi is a pretty expensive back up center. Playing him and Kat was a disaster defensively, and against the top teams in the west, zero chance you can play them together to close games.

Rubio to the Knicks makes sense still, Utah possibley, somehow without taking back much salary. Beverly would be perfect I believe, he's shot close to 40% on 3's the last couple years on roughly 4.5 attempts a game.

All indications they are going to be big players in the free agency market. I believe they will look to trade those two salaries to enable this to happen.

Duke13 wrote:My prediction is the wolves will explore moving Rubio and Gorgi without taking much back, to free up space to allocate resources differently. No way Bazz is back. They need more shooting out of the 4, Gorgi is a pretty expensive back up center. Playing him and Kat was a disaster defensively, and against the top teams in the west, zero chance you can play them together to close games.

Rubio to the Knicks makes sense still, Utah possibley, somehow without taking back much salary. Beverly would be perfect I believe, he's shot close to 40% on 3's the last couple years on roughly 4.5 attempts a game.

All indications they are going to be big players in the free agency market. I believe they will look to trade those two salaries to enable this to happen.

Definitely a plausible scenario. But I don't think Thibs is set on dramatically reshaping the roster. In particular, I don't see him moving Ricky or Gorgui. If he trades one, I think it will more likely be Ricky. The defensive "disaster" your referred to is mainly on KAT, not Gorgui. Gorgui is usually in the right place at the right time and he and Ricky are the only two guys on the team who take charges. If KAT steps up on the defensive end as he should, we'll be OK defensively with the addition of Butler. Gorgui does a lot of little but important things on both ends and Thibs has repeatedly mentioned that fact. He's a Thibs/Butler kind of guy who hasn't reached his prime yet.

Thibs might move Cole Aldrich if he needs to free up another $7 million in cap space to get the guys he wants. The roster will be changed substantially without trading Ricky or Gorgui. Guys who definitely won't be back: LaVine, Dunn, and Jordan Hill. I'm leaving open a sliver of a chance that Payne returns on a minimum contract. There's a chance we keep Rush, but I doubt it. And I could see Thibs keeping Bazz, although that's not likely either. Assuming we re-sign Casspi on a minimum deal and let the others go as expected, we'll have 5 or 6 roster spots to fill. Assuming we renounce rights to Bazz, we'll have about $24 million in cap space to spend in free agency after including Patton's rookie salary.

It will be interesting to see what Thibs and Layden do.

Agree Lip, it's mostly on Kat. Gorgui's PnR defense isn't his best quality however. I think Gorgui is a very good player, worthy of his salary. I think his proper role on our team would be to back up Kat at center, difficult to construct a top level roster paying that position 14-15 million. Our best defensive stretch of the year was when Belly started playing more minutes then Gorgui.

I know he's a Tibs guy but I think Tibs is objective enough to see what I'm saying. It will be explored. Man I wish they could do that Rose for Rubio deal now.

I am really puzzled by our moves since Thibs took over. The Dieng contract was the first head scratcher, not just because of the numbers, but the timing as well. Gorgui's deal will be the single biggest road block going forward.

Moving Ricky doesn't really help much because we have to spend to replace him, and I think he is a great fit with three scorers in the starting lineup, and he is a very good defender as well.

Not sure why you trade for a star with two years left and then use your single draft pick on a developmental guy?

This team does not have an offensive problem. It is all defense, and unless they can get G to step out of the paint on the PnR, teams will continue to exploit it. Jimmy Butler isn't going to help that. I would think a defensive guru of a coach would have been able to see that.

When I look two seasons ahead, we have six players making 90 mil with Wiggins penciled in at 25/yr, and KAT, Butler due for big raises the following year. I don't see how we can spend much this off season.

sjm34 wrote:I am really puzzled by our moves since Thibs took over. The Dieng contract was the first head scratcher, not just because of the numbers, but the timing as well. Gorgui's deal will be the single biggest road block going forward.

Moving Ricky doesn't really help much because we have to spend to replace him, and I think he is a great fit with three scorers in the starting lineup, and he is a very good defender as well.

Not sure why you trade for a star with two years left and then use your single draft pick on a developmental guy?

This team does not have an offensive problem. It is all defense, and unless they can get G to step out of the paint on the PnR, teams will continue to exploit it. Jimmy Butler isn't going to help that. I would think a defensive guru of a coach would have been able to see that.

When I look two seasons ahead, we have six players making 90 mil with Wiggins penciled in at 25/yr, and KAT, Butler due for big raises the following year. I don't see how we can spend much this off season.

You're puzzled by Thibs moves and how we have a defense problem not offensive, yet we just traded for besides Kawai (and it's close) the best wing defender in the NBA who's just entering his prime? Gorgui isn't that hard of a contract to move and he isn't that bad on defense either. wtf is this post?

If we can land a big in free agency I think that puts G in play for a trade. 14 million is a lot to pay a backup especially one who was sitting on the bench to close games because Belly was a better fit on both ends of the court. Maybe ATL or TOR would be willing to sign and trade for Dieng so we could keep our exceptions to bring in a couple depth guys. We have lots of options so we'll see what we end up with.