Wolves at Grizz with Rubio - GDT

[SameOldNudityDrew]

I've watched all of the games so far (League Pass has all the preseason games), and I am getting a little worried about our wings. Wiggins and Bazz have been bad. I know they can play better, but these days I either don't even notice them on the floor or, when I do, too often it's because they made a mistake.

LaVine has been even worse. I understand wanting LaVine to start, but if we want to improve our chances of winning games to start the season, Martin should get more minutes for sure. LaVine needs to improve his decision making, regardless of his position. He's an offensive explosion waiting to happen, but it feels like we're waiting a lot lately and dealing a little too often with bad decisions, turnovers, and gummed up offense in the meantime. It feels like he's so busy trying to look cool with one-handed passes or driving into multiple defenders that he forgets to play smart. I'm having McCants flashbacks.

[Carlos Danger]

I've watched all of the games so far (League Pass has all the preseason games), and I am getting a little worried about our wings. Wiggins and Bazz have been bad. I know they can play better, but these days I either don't even notice them on the floor or, when I do, too often it's because they made a mistake..

Nick Wiggins now has a higher PER than Andrew. I'm not sure i can make it through another season of under 20 wins. Yeah - It's only preseason. And it's only 5 games. But this team looks horrible based on what they've shown us to this point. Two preseason games left. I really need some hope/reason to watch this year. I am not going to spend two hours a night watching shitty basketball. Let's get it together Mitchell and show me something!

[TheFuture]

If you're lucky like me and work nights then you can watch them in the early am - mid morning and only sit through 1-1.5 hours of shitty basketball!

[Carlos Danger]

If you're lucky like me and work nights then you can watch them in the early am - mid morning and only sit through 1-1.5 hours of shitty basketball!

LOL. I've tried DVRing games...but it's not the same feel for me. It's pretty tough to avoid getting the outcome in today's internet world. And once I know who won - all I want to see is the box score vs. watching a game that I already know what happens. But yeah, you can sure shave some time by skipping commercials, time outs etc.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

I've watched all of the games so far (League Pass has all the preseason games), and I am getting a little worried about our wings. Wiggins and Bazz have been bad. I know they can play better, but these days I either don't even notice them on the floor or, when I do, too often it's because they made a mistake.

LaVine has been even worse. I understand wanting LaVine to start, but if we want to improve our chances of winning games to start the season, Martin should get more minutes for sure. LaVine needs to improve his decision making, regardless of his position. He's an offensive explosion waiting to happen, but it feels like we're waiting a lot lately and dealing a little too often with bad decisions, turnovers, and gummed up offense in the meantime. It feels like he's so busy trying to look cool with one-handed passes or driving into multiple defenders that he forgets to play smart. I'm having McCants flashbacks.

Yes, Wiggins, Bazz and Zach are all shooting under 40% (Zach under 30%). In Zach and Bazz's case especially, if you are really not a good defender to begin with, you better be making shots. So at least in the pre-season, we are seeing these guys get torched on defense AND miss a bunch of shots on offense. It's the worst of both worlds.

That being said, I'm pretty sure Zach and Bazz aren't going to shoot 23% and 33% respectively for the season. The question is can they both build upon their shooting numbers from last season? Let's hope so.

[bleedspeed]

I hope we give the the Rubio/LaVine/Wiggins/KG/Towns lineup the calendar year to
gel with Bjelica coming in for KG. The Thunder team went through growing pains
to start but they stayed the course.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

My observations are almost entirely box score related, because other than the scrimmage, I've seen little of the preseason. But it's clear from the wins and losses and individual stats that we are much less ready for the season to start than last year. A year ago the Wolves looked crisp in preseason and were winning games, and optimism level was high...just look at the wins prediction thread from a year ago when the average prediction was about 40 wins! We were scoring 13 PPG more than this year and also getting 10 more RPG. Before last game, it was convenient to say that not having Rubio for the first 4 games of the preseason this year was the primary reason for the poorer performance this year, but that's more difficult to say after the terrible team offensive appearance last game with Ricky playing.

I think the actual reason for the poorer preseason this year is not the absence of Rubio, but the difference of coaching styles in preseason for Saunders and Mitchell. Flip was clearly focused on making the playoffs a year ago and setting the stage for a quick start by playing the preseason almost like regular season, while Sam is not focused on wins and losses but rather on evaluating the players he knows less about...case in point, Rudez has played 22 MPG so far this year, and never would have played that much for Flip last year. This is frustrating to watch for sure, but I think many of us (including me) are allowing the losses to influence our impressions of how we will do this year...just like we let Flip's pre-season wins guide us to our 40-win predictions a year ago. I'm discouraged about the poor play so far, but I'm going to let the next two games influence my final prediction more than the early games. I'm hoping that Sam will shorten his bench and begin giving more minutes to players who are going to be in his rotation, and that we're going to see if those players perform better with Rubio now running the point.

There are some positives in the first 5 games. Dieng has been terrific so far this year, and our three rookies have all exceeded my expectations and look ready to contribute. Our three senior citizens also look relatively sharp and ready to contribute in limited minutes. Martin has played sparingly, but 8 PPG in only 10 MPG indicates that he will continue to be a prolific scorer. Wiggins has been up and down, but still scored 11PPG in 22 MPG and hit 50% of his threes. The only three guys who have really disappointed me are LaVine, Bazz and Payne, and there are similarities in the three. They are all young athletic players with great motors who have a tendency to get out of control at times and make bonehead plays. I'm optimistic about all three of them, though, and expect to see them pick up their games in the final week of preseason. If they do, and Ricky starts to move closer to regular season form, I think my optimism level will be much higher in a week.

Today I'm looking at a 25 win season, but I think my final prediction may go substantially higher after the two Bucks games.

[AbeVigodaLive]

I've watched all of the games so far (League Pass has all the preseason games), and I am getting a little worried about our wings. Wiggins and Bazz have been bad. I know they can play better, but these days I either don't even notice them on the floor or, when I do, too often it's because they made a mistake.

LaVine has been even worse. I understand wanting LaVine to start, but if we want to improve our chances of winning games to start the season, Martin should get more minutes for sure. LaVine needs to improve his decision making, regardless of his position. He's an offensive explosion waiting to happen, but it feels like we're waiting a lot lately and dealing a little too often with bad decisions, turnovers, and gummed up offense in the meantime. It feels like he's so busy trying to look cool with one-handed passes or driving into multiple defenders that he forgets to play smart. I'm having McCants flashbacks.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

[Coolbreeze44]

If Sam was serious about starting Zach at the 2, I sure as hell hope he was going to give it a longer trial than just 3 preseason games played without our starting point guard. I'm starting to think he has already moved away from that idea. Otherwise he should be playing a ton at that position right now, not coming off the bench to play point. But then again this is Sam Mitchell we are talking about. I don't expect many of his moves to make a whole lot of sense.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

If Sam was serious about starting Zach at the 2, I sure as hell hope he was going to give it a longer trial than just 3 preseason games played without our starting point guard. I'm starting to think he has already moved away from that idea. Otherwise he should be playing a ton at that position right now, not coming off the bench to play point. But then again this is Sam Mitchell we are talking about. I don't expect many of his moves to make a whole lot of sense.

Sam should have never made that declaration so damn early. I get that he was heavily leaning that way, but he should have let things play out longer to validate his inclination before going public with it and committing. LaVine is going to get plenty of playing time either way, especially with Martin's unreliable health.

The other thing I'm scratching my head about is starting Prince at the 3. I'm not sure what the benefit of that is other than it moves Wiggins to the 2. But then why not start 'Bazz at the 3 if you want to experiment with a bigger lineup? KG,Towns, Prince, Rubio, and Wiggins might be OK defensively, but now there is a total imbalance on offense, with Wiggins being the only real scorer in this group, and as we've seen, he's struggled this pre-season.