Minnesota Sports Forum

Wildwolf has been consistent in pretty much writing Dunn off. I hold out hope for him still at PG, but that hope is hanging by a thread after seeing loose handles, throwing the ball into the stands, etc. He was almost as bad looking as LaVine at PG. The difference is Dunn could actually defend people. Now contrast him to Tyus Jones, who is physically far less superior but basically screams "point guard!" the second you see him on the floor.

Fortunately, he is as big and even bigger in some cases than most 2-guards, so he could potentially be our version of Tony Allen off the bench. That's not what you want from a #4 pick, but it's not a bad outcome either. And God knows we need defensive-minded players on this squad.

I think Thibs will give him another crack at it early this next season (starting with running the show at summer league), but if he looks terrible again, I envision Tyus as our backup PG and Dunn as a backup SG again.

monsterpile wrote:

I could be wrong but ai think WW is making these points largely in response to the idea Presented in this thread that Dunn should have played MORE minutes last year.

He isn't saying Dunn is gonna suck for all time he is just being realistic of what Dunn did last year. There is no doubt he was disappointing as an offensive player and even Dunn offensive skeptics like myself weren't expecting it to be as bad as it was. Defensively...he exceeded expectations for me by quite a bit and I was high on him after being a little skeptical about his vaunted defense early in the process of looking at him before The draft but I started to come around after watching a couple actual games.

Correct!

I don't dislike Dunn at all, but where this team is (and I feel the same way about whoever the team selects at 7), I don't want next season to devolve into Dunn and #7's developmental year. Last year doesn't give me the hope that we can throw Dunn in the deep end of the pool and the team somehow improves drastically.

WildWolf2813 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

I could be wrong but ai think WW is making these points largely in response to the idea Presented in this thread that Dunn should have played MORE minutes last year.

He isn't saying Dunn is gonna suck for all time he is just being realistic of what Dunn did last year. There is no doubt he was disappointing as an offensive player and even Dunn offensive skeptics like myself weren't expecting it to be as bad as it was. Defensively...he exceeded expectations for me by quite a bit and I was high on him after being a little skeptical about his vaunted defense early in the process of looking at him before The draft but I started to come around after watching a couple actual games.

Correct!

I don't dislike Dunn at all, but where this team is (and I feel the same way about whoever the team selects at 7), I don't want next season to devolve into Dunn and #7's developmental year. Last year doesn't give me the hope that we can throw Dunn in the deep end of the pool and the team somehow improves drastically.

That I can agree with.

If Dunn beats out Ricky, Ricky's trade value becomes almost 0. A 14 million dollar backup PG who got beat out by a sophomore would end the ability to get really any value for Ricky outside of a salary dump. Just something to keep in mind for the people who believe Ricky passing the torch to Dunn is the best solution to the problem. You have the best stretch of Ricky's career to go off for trade value and a couple teams who might be losing starting PG's like the Jazz and Pelicans who want to fight for a playoff spot. I don't imagine his trade value ever being higher so if we keep him, so be it. Just don't expect anything better than what we can get right now for him. His value only goes down as he approaches the end of his discount deal and it really goes down if he puts up another 11/9 season with overall subpar shooting or if Dunn beats him out for the job.

khans2k5 wrote:If Dunn beats out Ricky, Ricky's trade value becomes almost 0. A 14 million dollar backup PG who got beat out by a sophomore would end the ability to get really any value for Ricky outside of a salary dump. Just something to keep in mind for the people who believe Ricky passing the torch to Dunn is the best solution to the problem. You have the best stretch of Ricky's career to go off for trade value and a couple teams who might be losing starting PG's like the Jazz and Pelicans who want to fight for a playoff spot. I don't imagine his trade value ever being higher so if we keep him, so be it. Just don't expect anything better than what we can get right now for him. His value only goes down as he approaches the end of his discount deal and it really goes down if he puts up another 11/9 season with overall subpar shooting or if Dunn beats him out for the job.

I'd love nothing more than to see Dunn become so good he displaces Rubio as our starter. That means we'd go from having a good starting PG to a great starting PG. I'll gladly then deal with the "problem" of having a really good backup PG that perhaps doesn't yield as much trade value as he does now.

Q12543 wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:

WildWolf2813 wrote:For those saying "well being a rookie PG is tough and they'll experience struggles," the whole point of taking Dunn, an upperclassman, was to limit that being an issue compared a high upside rookie project whom you expected to have those struggles. Dunn being as bad as he was makes it feel like at best we were sold false goods.

You don't know how players are going to adjust. Coming off the bench for the first time in his life. Playing with a ton of non scorers off the bench. Yes he struggled massively on offense but so did butler and Draymond their rookie year and they were upperclassmen.

You just don't know how the player will turn out

That's all true, but some of this more recent back and forth started with Future saying we should trade Rubio for a 3 or 4 and then just start Dunn. While I certainly want Dunn to be successful, he showed absolutely no signs last year of being able to competently run a team. Defense, hustle, toughness? Yes. But his point guard skills were atrocious. May be he comes around, but I certainly don't want to go into next season with him as our starting PG.

Where did I say the only positive outcome was by trading Rubio for a 3-4?

TheFuture wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:

WildWolf2813 wrote:For those saying "well being a rookie PG is tough and they'll experience struggles," the whole point of taking Dunn, an upperclassman, was to limit that being an issue compared a high upside rookie project whom you expected to have those struggles. Dunn being as bad as he was makes it feel like at best we were sold false goods.

You don't know how players are going to adjust. Coming off the bench for the first time in his life. Playing with a ton of non scorers off the bench. Yes he struggled massively on offense but so did butler and Draymond their rookie year and they were upperclassmen.

You just don't know how the player will turn out

That's all true, but some of this more recent back and forth started with Future saying we should trade Rubio for a 3 or 4 and then just start Dunn. While I certainly want Dunn to be successful, he showed absolutely no signs last year of being able to competently run a team. Defense, hustle, toughness? Yes. But his point guard skills were atrocious. May be he comes around, but I certainly don't want to go into next season with him as our starting PG.

Where did I say the only positive outcome was by trading Rubio for a 3-4?

"If I was Thibs I would trade Rubio in a package for a 3/4...."