Knee-jerk reactions from Vegas

[mjs34]

I've got a couple reactions. First, our SL coaching looked like a mess compared to other teams we played. We might as well of picked up five guys at the Y and thrown them out them without any practice. God I hope Ryan Saunders never becomes our head coach.

Towns' FG% isn't a problem for me, but his lack of D against SL talent is. My biggest concern with KAT was his mental toughness or edge, and he has done nothing to dispel that concern. I am not surprised that he couldn't duplicate the shooting he showed in his video where he took shots in the gym that were uncontested. I am surprised at the type of shots he took. His decison making will certainly need to improve.

Zach is a player that is going to need a lot of coaching. He takes a lot of unbalanced bad shots, but I do like that he looks stronger. Most of his improvement will likely come throughout the season with more playing time.

I am not surprised by Tyus mainly because I had very low expectations. I think we need to pickup a back up PG (#2) for the season. Neither Tyus or Brown are capable of stepping in if Ricky goes down.

I like what Payne has done, and think he looks the part of a back up PF, but his outside shooting is atrocious. Uncalled bank shots are shots that missed their target by 3 feet or more.

Negative Nancy over here

Thanks for the constructive criticism. :snore: ~

[Monster]

I guess I will post about the Wolves PGs Tyus and Brown here because it would be easy in one way or another to have a knee jerk reaction on either guy in one way or another.

I'll start with Brown. I just looked at his stats and damn he has been efficient hitting half of his 3's and almost 62% of his shots but it's 3 games so Ibeont get too excited. It's SL play and he is a PG and he has only 2 TOs a game although that's in 23mpg. On the turnovers I was a little surprised at the lowish number because Brown makes a couple bad decisions a game but maybe it's really only those couple that are bad and that's it. Maybe I am being a little too hard on him but overall I can't buy in too much because of a couple of those plays that bug me. Now a brighter spot when it comes to Brown is his defense. He has at the very least been solid and to a certain extent that's almost impressive. A lot of the PGs in SL are small quick guys on both ends of the ball and team defense often doesn't help you out much either. Brown is a bigger player so in some ways he is set up as a disadvantage in SL setting and he has done well. He has a bunch of steals and has been rebounding well also. He is around the ball a lot. He shows some good instincts doubling off on guys. I have said that Brown has 2 ways he could go to become a legit NBA bench PG: 3 point shooting and defense. He has shown some of both but I think his work on defense in SL all things considered gives me hope in that regard.

Tyus is at a bit of a disadvantage like Brown on both sides of the ball. He is a game manager type with good passing skills and a lot of the SL PGs tend to be all over the place attacking depending on the player on both sides of the ball or at least 1 side. Jones isn't the quickest guy etc so I was really curious how he would do in SL. So far it's probably been more negative than positive. You can see some signs of him being crafty on offense finding ways to get his shot off. It won't get easier when he is playing real NBA games but Playing against SL PGs can actually be tough in a quirky way.

Brown has been better than Jones that's obvious but he has more experience at both the college and pro level plus a physical advantage of both being an older guy and his size. Brown a lot of the time runs a team like an old vet PG much of the time slowing things down calming the troops etc. Brown I think needs to find a little more aggressiveness both as a passer and as a scorer at times. Tyus is a young guy his body could improve as time goes on. He will likely learn the game and get better at a few things. He turned 19 a few weeks ago. He is a guy that's actually still very young. Considering the youth behind Rubio when it comes to ball handling you would like to see someone on the roster with something more than Zach, Tyus and maybe even Wiggins (becoming a more effective ball handling SG) I wouldn't be opposed to Brown but I wouldn't feel confident in him either. There is a lot of depth of PGs in and out of the league. Can Brown be a little more than a fringe guy? If he can defend more like he did in SL I think he could. He seems like a Flip guy and obviously Flip likes him since he drafted him and then brought him in last year plus he hasn't just dumped him. I'm not saying Flip is gonna keep him at all costs but I do think whether Flip thinks you can do what he wants you to do obviously matters. Flip has coached a lot of effective talent in the NBA at PG so I do have some confidence in him when it comes to PGs. He isn't batting 1.000 but I'd give him the benefit of the doubt on that.

[mjs34]

Realizing this is a knee jerk reactions thread, the board continues to overreact to just about everything going on at Summer League. What's next? Are we going to start comparing Towns stats over 3 SL games to other prominent big men, and then declare he can't become great because the numbers don't stack up? Here are my counters to some of the overreactions:

1) If Ricky gets hurt this year, we would need another point guard. Until then we have Ricky, Tyus, Lobro, and Zach who can play there. Ricky's going to get 32 minutes, Zach is probably going to get 10, Tyus will get spot minutes as he continues to develop, and Lobro is your emergency guy. Where in the hell is another PG needed? If we signed one, how would he be used?

2) Zach's not going to go from raw rookie to seasoned veteran overnight. He's still going to make youthful mistakes, and the game is still going to be a little fast for him. But he's going to continue to get better. I think he should start at the 2 on opening night. He's going to frustrate you at times, but so what? We are still a young developing team.

3) Payne can play in this league. His effectiveness is going to fall somewhere in between what we saw last year, and what we are seeing in the SL. He's an older 2nd year player but you still have to have some patience with him. Not too worried about his outside shooting (though it's not that bad) because he should do most of his damage near the basket on hustle plays.

4) Towns strength is his versatility and well rounded game for a player of his size. If you thought he was going to have a dominant offensive trait at this stage, you were misguided. If that's what you want, you should have been pro-Okafor during the draft process - and hardly anybody was. Towns has shown enough to validate where we drafted him. By the time the season rolls around he will be stronger and have a better idea of how to man-up on defense without fouling. It's going to take a while before he figures out his best offensive niche, but I see no reason to worry about any aspect of his game at this time.

Offseason - Summer League - Summer League Game - Summer League Half Game - Summer League Quarter Game - Summer League Stint - Summer League Possession. I've seen overreactions to every one of these time intervals.

I don't think we should sign Brown (only because we already signed Tyus), but what happens when Kmart gets injured. Is Zach going to play 48 minutes. I am tired of going into the season ignoring that we have major injury concerns on this team, and then expecting to just tank the season when the inevitable happens.

I would suggest trading for Chalmers or a guy like Blake (who just got moved for a bag of peanuts). I would like to have a real back up for when those injuries occur. That is how winning teams structure their roster, not signing guys like Hummel to guaranteed deals.

I am pretty sure you posted the same things I did about Zach and Payne. The one difference is that I worry about his outside shooting because Flip believes it to be a staple in his offensive scheme.

As for Towns, I was one that didn't see this wide gap between him and Okafor, I have no issue with his skill-set as I have already stated, but to ignore the mental aspect would be silly. KAT also struggled at times with fouling too much, and that certainly looks like a issue so far in SL.

This is the Knee-jerk reaction thread, so there you have it.

[Monster]

I've got a couple reactions. First, our SL coaching looked like a mess compared to other teams we played. We might as well of picked up five guys at the Y and thrown them out them without any practice. God I hope Ryan Saunders never becomes our head coach.

Towns' FG% isn't a problem for me, but his lack of D against SL talent is. My biggest concern with KAT was his mental toughness or edge, and he has done nothing to dispel that concern. I am not surprised that he couldn't duplicate the shooting he showed in his video where he took shots in the gym that were uncontested. I am surprised at the type of shots he took. His decison making will certainly need to improve.

Zach is a player that is going to need a lot of coaching. He takes a lot of unbalanced bad shots, but I do like that he looks stronger. Most of his improvement will likely come throughout the season with more playing time.

I am not surprised by Tyus mainly because I had very low expectations. I think we need to pickup a back up PG (#2) for the season. Neither Tyus or Brown are capable of stepping in if Ricky goes down.

I like what Payne has done, and think he looks the part of a back up PF, but his outside shooting is atrocious. Uncalled bank shots are shots that missed their target by 3 feet or more.

Could you define more what you mean by mental toughness or edge when it comes to Towns?

I agree with what you said about Lavine. What we found out in 2 games is Lavine is still Lavine although he does look stronger which is a good positive and he looked the part of a guy with talent no question. I like him but he has a lot of work to do. The good thing is it seems he will put in the time and effort and that's another good thing. His body looking stronger in about 4 months since the season ended speaks to that.

He looks soft mentally. He says all the right things in interviews and he certainly has a nice skill-set, but so does Bennett, and DW. There is a wide gap between him and guys like Portis, Turner, etc. when it comes to aggressiveness. I realize this is very early, but I haven't seen that out of him in college either, and it is something he needs to have. The "little friend Carlito" thing scares the hell out of me. Maybe it's nothing, but it still concerns me, and was on my list of negatives for him.

Thanks for your response. I see where you are coming from. What separates (to a certain extent) Towns from the guys you mentioned for me is how he will pursue basketballs diving on the floor for them etc.

This is gonna sound like an excuse but Indonthink Towns has the problem of being sorta too versatile on both ends. He ends up trying to do too many different things and out think a himself of what he is going to do. That's more on the offensive end but I think it applies at times to a lesser degree on defense also.

[Coolbreeze44]

Realizing this is a knee jerk reactions thread, the board continues to overreact to just about everything going on at Summer League. What's next? Are we going to start comparing Towns stats over 3 SL games to other prominent big men, and then declare he can't become great because the numbers don't stack up? Here are my counters to some of the overreactions:

1) If Ricky gets hurt this year, we would need another point guard. Until then we have Ricky, Tyus, Lobro, and Zach who can play there. Ricky's going to get 32 minutes, Zach is probably going to get 10, Tyus will get spot minutes as he continues to develop, and Lobro is your emergency guy. Where in the hell is another PG needed? If we signed one, how would he be used?

2) Zach's not going to go from raw rookie to seasoned veteran overnight. He's still going to make youthful mistakes, and the game is still going to be a little fast for him. But he's going to continue to get better. I think he should start at the 2 on opening night. He's going to frustrate you at times, but so what? We are still a young developing team.

3) Payne can play in this league. His effectiveness is going to fall somewhere in between what we saw last year, and what we are seeing in the SL. He's an older 2nd year player but you still have to have some patience with him. Not too worried about his outside shooting (though it's not that bad) because he should do most of his damage near the basket on hustle plays.

4) Towns strength is his versatility and well rounded game for a player of his size. If you thought he was going to have a dominant offensive trait at this stage, you were misguided. If that's what you want, you should have been pro-Okafor during the draft process - and hardly anybody was. Towns has shown enough to validate where we drafted him. By the time the season rolls around he will be stronger and have a better idea of how to man-up on defense without fouling. It's going to take a while before he figures out his best offensive niche, but I see no reason to worry about any aspect of his game at this time.

Offseason - Summer League - Summer League Game - Summer League Half Game - Summer League Quarter Game - Summer League Stint - Summer League Possession. I've seen overreactions to every one of these time intervals.

I don't think we should sign Brown (only because we already signed Tyus), but what happens when Kmart gets injured. Is Zach going to play 48 minutes. I am tired of going into the season ignoring that we have major injury concerns on this team, and then expecting to just tank the season when the inevitable happens.

I would suggest trading for Chalmers or a guy like Blake (who just got moved for a bag of peanuts). I would like to have a real back up for when those injuries occur. That is how winning teams structure their roster, not signing guys like Hummel to guaranteed deals.

I am pretty sure you posted the same things I did about Zach and Payne. The one difference is that I worry about his outside shooting because Flip believes it to be a staple in his offensive scheme.

As for Towns, I was one that didn't see this wide gap between him and Okafor, I have no issue with his skill-set as I have already stated, but to ignore the mental aspect would be silly. KAT also struggled at times with fouling too much, and that certainly looks like a issue so far in SL.

This is the Knee-jerk reaction thread, so there you have it.

When Martin gets injured, and he will, Zach's minutes go up, Wiggins plays more 2, Shabazz and Bjelica get more time. We have depth this year. A Rubio injury is the one thing that could have us scrambling. I suggest that if Ricky gets hurt, and Jones doesn't develop, PG would be a priority for next offseason.

[mjs34]

He looks soft mentally. He says all the right things in interviews and he certainly has a nice skill-set, but so does Bennett, and DW. There is a wide gap between him and guys like Portis, Turner, etc. when it comes to aggressiveness. I realize this is very early, but I haven't seen that out of him in college either, and it is something he needs to have. The "little friend Carlito" thing scares the hell out of me. Maybe it's nothing, but it still concerns me, and was on my list of negatives for him.

Thanks for your response. I see where you are coming from. What separates (to a certain extent) Towns from the guys you mentioned for me is how he will pursue basketballs diving on the floor for them etc.

This is gonna sound like an excuse but Indonthink Towns has the problem of being sorta too versatile on both ends. He ends up trying to do too many different things and out think a himself of what he is going to do. That's more on the offensive end but I think it applies at times to a lesser degree on defense also.

You may have a good point on being too versatile. I know we all want to look for elite skills, but maybe that is a bigger problem for Towns. That being said, he will have to work on perfecting specific areas so he has some go to moves.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I will leave this hear.

http://www.nba.com/2015/news/features/scott_howard_cooper/07/14/rookie-ladder-after-day-4-in-las-vegas/index.html?ls=nba:specialsfull4

If I learned one thing in Vegas, it's this...23 year old guys will generally outplay 19 year old guys. There's a big physical and emotional maturity difference, and sitting close to the action in SL really highlights this...the 19 year-olds don't look or act like the 23 year-olds up close. It's one of the main reasons SL results need to be taken with a grain of salt. It's not surprising that many 2nd rounders play better than first rounders in these early games...very few second rounders are 19 years old. Tyus Jones will be a much better pro than Joseph Young and Lorenzo Brown. Karl-Anthony Towns will be a much better pro than Tariq Black. But if you take their respective performances in a vacuum, you would come to the exact opposite conclusion.

Many people thought Jahlil Okafor would contribute right away, and they look like they may be right...he just looks and acts older than the rest of the one-and-dones. Guys like Towns, Russell, and even Jones are likely to be very good pros, but they all looked completely overmatched playing against older players in Vegas.

BTW, the same sort of logic needs to be used in evaluating Adreian Payne. Yes, he was very good in his first three games, but similar to Joseph Young, he is a man playing against boys. I'm a Payne fan and have actually liked last year's trade right from the start, but let's not get too carried away because he has been physically better than the young guys he has been matched up against.

[mjs34]

When Martin gets injured, and he will, Zach's minutes go up, Wiggins plays more 2, Shabazz and Bjelica get more time. We have depth this year. A Rubio injury is the one thing that could have us scrambling. I suggest that if Ricky gets hurt, and Jones doesn't develop, PG would be a priority for next offseason.

Two problems with that scenario. The first is that we should expect Ricky to get injured at some point, as well as several others. That is the roster that Flip has signed on with, and to expect anything other than that is insanity.

The second problem is that I am not willing to throw away another season because we lose our PG.

[mjs34]

I will leave this hear.

http://www.nba.com/2015/news/features/scott_howard_cooper/07/14/rookie-ladder-after-day-4-in-las-vegas/index.html?ls=nba:specialsfull4

If I learned one thing in Vegas, it's this...23 year old guys will generally outplay 19 year old guys. There's a big physical and emotional maturity difference, and sitting close to the action in SL really highlights this...the 19 year-olds don't look or act like the 23 year-olds up close. It's one of the main reasons SL results need to be taken with a grain of salt. It's not surprising that many 2nd rounders play better than first rounders in these early games...very few second rounders are 19 years old. Tyus Jones will be a much better pro than Joseph Young and Lorenzo Brown. Karl-Anthony Towns will be a much better pro than Tariq Black. But if you take their respective performances in a vacuum, you would come to the exact opposite conclusion.

Many people thought Jahlil Okafor would contribute right away, and they look like they may be right...he just looks and acts older than the rest of the one-and-dones. Guys like Towns, Russell, and even Jones are likely to be very good pros, but they all looked completely overmatched playing against older players in Vegas.

BTW, the same sort of logic needs to be used in evaluating Adreian Payne. Yes, he was very good in his first three games, but similar to Joseph Young, he is a man playing against boys. I'm a Payne fan and have actually liked last year's trade right from the start, but let's not get too carried away because he has been physically better than the young guys he has been matched up against.

The maturity issue is a valid point Long, but with some of these guys it goes deeper than that. I hope KAT goes the way of WIggins last year, and starts to build confidence. The one thing that makes me question that is their personalities with Wiggins being shy and somewhat of an introvert so I expected it to take some time with him.

I surprised there isn't more concern considering how many posters seem to think the wolves were going to run away with it in SL.

I have to admit that I thought we would see a little more out of KAT, but I am really shocked at what we haven't seen out of Russell. I was not a huge fan of his, and questioned whether he had the athleticism to take over in the NBA. I see him more along the lines of Evan Turner, with a better shot. From what I have watched to this point, I think NY hit it big.

[Coolbreeze44]

I will leave this hear.

http://www.nba.com/2015/news/features/scott_howard_cooper/07/14/rookie-ladder-after-day-4-in-las-vegas/index.html?ls=nba:specialsfull4

If I learned one thing in Vegas, it's this...23 year old guys will generally outplay 19 year old guys. There's a big physical and emotional maturity difference, and sitting close to the action in SL really highlights this...the 19 year-olds don't look or act like the 23 year-olds up close. It's one of the main reasons SL results need to be taken with a grain of salt. It's not surprising that many 2nd rounders play better than first rounders in these early games...very few second rounders are 19 years old. Tyus Jones will be a much better pro than Joseph Young and Lorenzo Brown. Karl-Anthony Towns will be a much better pro than Tariq Black. But if you take their respective performances in a vacuum, you would come to the exact opposite conclusion.

Many people thought Jahlil Okafor would contribute right away, and they look like they may be right...he just looks and acts older than the rest of the one-and-dones. Guys like Towns, Russell, and even Jones are likely to be very good pros, but they all looked completely overmatched playing against older players in Vegas.

BTW, the same sort of logic needs to be used in evaluating Adreian Payne. Yes, he was very good in his first three games, but similar to Joseph Young, he is a man playing against boys. I'm a Payne fan and have actually liked last year's trade right from the start, but let's not get too carried away because he has been physically better than the young guys he has been matched up against.

Excellent post LST