Minnesota Sports Forum

I still feel like fans wanna see Shabazz fail, for reasons I'll never understand. We never gave him a chance to fail. Flip doesn't believe in him. Rick didn't believe in him. I almost wanna see him somewhere else just so he makes us look stupid. I feel like given everything that has happened to our SF's (Brewer's forgotten how to play defense, Budinger is a broken man, Mbah A Moute can never get on the court), and this team's halfhearted attempt at retooling, let's just give Shabazz his fair shot. We can't trust Flip to develop rookies or develop some other team's talent until he can get something out of the first guy he picked. Just because he didn't want doesn't mean he can't help. Also, since most of you guys are seemingly ready to give up on Pekovic too (why I don't know), make Shabazz the starting SF simply because the scoring has to come from somewhere. If he wants the ball, give him the ball. If he plays well alongside Rubio, why mess that up?

I don't see how we can crown Dieng after a month (I love Dieng don't get me wrong) and wanna throw away Shabazz (every potential lineup I've seen moving forward always has Shabazz deep down in our depth chart).

WW, I want to see Shabazz succeed, I just don't think he's at the point where we can say "this guy is someone that we can definitely count on in our regular rotation." Some people here are saying he should start. The point of my post on this was to slow the roll. This happens each year with some player, and that's with all our teams in each sport.

With Dieng, he's got improvement to go as well, but he is much more well rounded and polished than Shabazz at this point. He's older too, so we can give Shabazz the time to grow, but Dieng was a double double machine, offered shot altering rim protection, and showed off a polished mid-range shooting game (shouldn't have been surprising since he had it at Louisville).

Both will and should get playing time this year, but Dieng is clearly the more polished player at this point.

mrhockey89 wrote:WW, I want to see Shabazz succeed, I just don't think he's at the point where we can say "this guy is someone that we can definitely count on in our regular rotation." Some people here are saying he should start. The point of my post on this was to slow the roll. This happens each year with some player, and that's with all our teams in each sport.

With Dieng, he's got improvement to go as well, but he is much more well rounded and polished than Shabazz at this point. He's older too, so we can give Shabazz the time to grow, but Dieng was a double double machine, offered shot altering rim protection, and showed off a polished mid-range shooting game (shouldn't have been surprising since he had it at Louisville).

Both will and should get playing time this year, but Dieng is clearly the more polished player at this point.

Dieng is every bit as raw. He just got more of a chance to show glimpses of what he can do (his man to man defense actually sucked last year and that's what we're hoping is his calling card. Otherwise why is he here?). Robbie Hummel got starts ahead of Muhammad. HUMMEL! I've been advocating playing time for both of these guys when everyone was ready to dump Shabazz over that incident over the summer. Instead it's (let's trade Kevin Love for 6 picks and play them all over Bazz). The fact of the matter is we're the last team to thumb our noises at anyone who's dying for an opportunity to play. Let's give him that chance. I'm not saying play both of them 35 minutes a night. I'm saying they must be in the rotation. No excuses.

No way Dieng is just as raw. Dieng shows an array of moves, better ball handling than expected, better off the ball movement, decent passing, a nice mid-range shot, rim protection, and he's much more polished than most young bigs that come into the league.

To say that Shabazz is as polished as Dieng is .... I just don't even know how anyone could have that take with a straight face. I'd love to see that as a poll.

By the way WW, if playing Shabazz big minutes costs us a bunch of games, was it worth it?

WW where do you get the idea that Flip doesn't like Bazz? It seems like he talks about him every time he speaks to someone in the media the last few weeks saying he has lost weight is working hard etc. I think Flip likes Bazz. I think its pretty clear both Dieng and Bazz are gonna get plenty of chances under Flip unless they flat out suck when they get to training camp or something.

mrhockey89 wrote:By the way WW, if playing Shabazz big minutes costs us a bunch of games, was it worth it?

Last year? When we didn't make the playoffs? I'd say it would've been worth it. Hindsight is 20/20, but if we trade Love we've gotta give Bazz a chance to succeed

At this point we can't say one way or the other whether Bazz is a rotation guy, but a couple things are fact. We will never know if he is a rotation guy if we keep burying him on the bench until he beats his own teammates in practice to earn the time at the 3. That puts him at a disadvantage because they are vets and vets are almost always seen as people who can be counted on over young players. If you go into the season with 2-3 other options you think are ahead of him that you can count on, he will never see the floor and that kills his biggest development opportunity for another season. The only way he gets PT in that scenario is injuries which then clogs you up even more if he does something and the other guys get back from injury. He did too well against the D League to leave him there again.

Every team in the league takes risks, like the one some of us are proposing, every year when they count on a rookie to do anything significant on their team. As a second year player Bazz has an advantage on rookies and I see it as less of a risk to give him a shot. We wouldn't need Bazz if the guys in front of him could be counted on to do their jobs well consistently. I'd slot him into the starting spot and see what he can do. If you keep bringing in other guys or counting on other guys ahead of him, when does he get his shot? 2 years, 3 or even more? It would be pretty stupid to wait and see right up to the end of his rookie deal when the guys in front of him aren't that much better of options to go with. If he does well, you just wasted the bargain years of a rookie contract. We know that Bud and Brewer are bench guys, yet we start them over a guy who usually thrives in a starting role and hasn't come off the bench much in his career. If you know the cap on some of your players is bench quality, why do you insist to start them over someone who could be a starter? Brewer and Bud are signed here for 2 more years. Are you really going to wait until year 4 to give Bazz a shot when they are proven bench guys and he is an unknown? You'll either be wasting the bargain years of a rookie deal, or potentially picking up the team options on a bust you never gave a shot to and couldn't make an informed decision on.

You continue to say that Shabazz is not a good shooter, but while others disagree and back it up with data, you stick to your unsupported, and incorrect, narrative. Let's look at some shooting numbers:

College 3-pointers: Shabazz shot 37.7 % beyond the arc on high volume, coincidentally the same percentage as CJ McCollum. Is McCollum also a terrible shooter?

NBA rookie shooting %. Shabazz shot a very respectable 46% from the field in his rookie year. Let's put that in perspective with a little game. You come up with a 2013-14 non-center rookie with a better shooting percentage, and I'll find you three with a worse percentage. Okay, go...

NBA 3-pointers: Shabazz did not shoot well from beyond the arc...27.3 %. But Adelman didn't want him shooting threes, just like Love was held back his rookie year. And how did that work out for Love? Not very well, as he shot 10.5 % beyond the arc. And Love was a pretty good 3-point shooter in college at 34.4 %...not as good as Shabazz, but pretty good. But Love is a relentless worker like Shabazz, and has vastly improved his 3-point shooting. I'm not saying that Shabazz will for sure be a better 3-point shooter than Love, although he shot better in their respective first years in college and the pros, but I don't think it's inconceivable that he can become a 40% 3-point shooter...and still be productive on putbacks, little jump hooks and fast breaks.

Shabazz has flaws in his game, and while I expect him to improve, I think his best role will be as a sixth man. He's the kind of guy Flip can turn to and say "Shabazz, go out there for 8 minutes and get me 10 points". We saw him do it last year in the limited minutes Rick gave him (he was the rookie leader in points per minute), and he has scored in bunches at every level he has played. I see Shabazz as a potential 6th Man of the Year down the line, and teams with great 6th men are usually successful.