Minnesota Sports Forum

Duke13 wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:

Camden wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Amazing how this rebuild never came close to peaking and then died. And it all happened in a matter of months under Thibs.

Wolves would be in a fine position right now if your boy Wiggins didn't suck so fucking much. But sure, blame Thibs.

Im with you, in the end it comes down to the development of Wiggins, and well he has gotten worse (only in wolves land). I don't think we are in any different shape if our team looks like.

Rubio
Lavine
Wiggins
Markannen
Towns

That is still a .500 at best team. In the end we haven't developed talent well. We have done really bad at using our assets for a long time. Payne for a 1st, Young for 30 KG games, etc.....

In the end we are here because our young guys weren't good outside of Kat.

I just think it is funny that this board blamed Thibs so much and that we had so much talent and it was Thibs fault because of his coaching style. But Thibs has a .475 winning % this year while Ryan has a winning % of .440.

So in the end talent wasnt there and if Im being realistic I don't think we could have done better than what Thibs did. He acquired a star and we were good with Butler. But Butler is an ass and him and Kat didn't get along, in the end it sucks but I will always respect that trade.

So short sighted to just blame everything on Wiggins lack of development! Haha.

Once again, it's not the only reason but it's a huge reason. If Wiggins even came close to his potential we wouldn't be having these conversations.

In 2 years Wiggins value has went from trading him for an all NBA player to can get solid value for him to possibly having to give up assets to get rid of him.

I've been saying forever with Wiggins it's the shooting, and now he's now become the worst shooter in the NBA. It's so sad and seems to be mental from what I can tell. This is why I was always convinced that if he went to the Spurs he'd probably be an all star. There are plenty of teams who make players into better shooters. We aren't one of them. But I'm sure Taylor has nothing to do with us having an extra budget for things like a full time shooting coach.

Typical Wolves.

Can someone remind me of someone who shot above their career averages for us?

thedoper wrote:I've been saying forever with Wiggins it's the shooting, and now he's now become the worst shooter in the NBA. It's so sad and seems to be mental from what I can tell. This is why I was always convinced that if he went to the Spurs he'd probably be an all star. There are plenty of teams who make players into better shooters. We aren't one of them. But I'm sure Taylor has nothing to do with us having an extra budget for things like a full time shooting coach.

Typical Wolves.

Can someone remind me of someone who shot above their career averages for us?

Wiggins stated that he was absolutely a max player. Max players can shoot the BB. Maybe he should pay for the coach with some of his 25 mil!

sjm34 wrote:

thedoper wrote:I've been saying forever with Wiggins it's the shooting, and now he's now become the worst shooter in the NBA. It's so sad and seems to be mental from what I can tell. This is why I was always convinced that if he went to the Spurs he'd probably be an all star. There are plenty of teams who make players into better shooters. We aren't one of them. But I'm sure Taylor has nothing to do with us having an extra budget for things like a full time shooting coach.

Typical Wolves.

Can someone remind me of someone who shot above their career averages for us?

Wiggins stated that he was absolutely a max player. Max players can shoot the BB. Maybe he should pay for the coach with some of his 25 mil!

I'm a max player too. The SP just needs to look me in the eye before I get my max contract.

thedoper wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Once Butler was jettisoned, the Wolves were decent under Thibodeau at 15 - 12.

The problem is that Thibodeau was directly responsible for the previous 13 games when Butler was actively sabotaging the season. The Wolves were 4 - 9.

If Thibodeau dumped Butler prior to the season, the Wolves could very well be in the hunt. But going into the season with that fiasco over the team's collective head was grounds for his firing if nothing else.

As a coach... wins and losses... Thibodeau will be considered the Wolves 2nd best coach all-time. That's much more telling than impressive.

Yeah the whole thing is a disappointment. After all the dust has settled the part that really bothers me is that so much of the decision to fire seemed based on Thib's personality according to the reporting I've read. That being said Thibs did lose a lot of games, but ultimately I feel like Roco and Saric is an upgrade to Markanen, Lavine, and Dunn. So there was good and bad in Thibs tenure, but I don't feel like it was a complete disaster on the surface. But certainly not a success and ultimately worth dismissal.

My biggest fear in all of this is that whoever is coming in next will have conditions attached to their hire (keep Ryan as coach, be a pleasant force in the community, etc.) I'm not very enthusiastic about another season of a new GM and a new coach. But it seems to be a regular occurrence with this team.

I'm not sure RoCo and Saric is an upgrade over Markennan, LaVine and Dunn. Saric hasn't been been particularly impressive. Meanwhile, Markennan has shown flashes and is much younger with more upside than Saric. Meanwhile, LaVine has been putting up really impressive numbers.

But another way to look at it is to think about how much better we'd be in Thibodeau had traded Wiggins instead of LaVine and the Markennan pick. That deal was reported to have been on the table. In fact, it was reported that we could have done a one-for one swap of Wiggins for Butler, but I'm being conservative in my assumption. LaVine is averaging nearly 24 points, 4.5 assists, and 4.6 rebounds per game. He's scoring efficiently, hitting 46.7 of his FGs, 36.8% of his 3-pointers and 84.3% of his free throws while getting to the line 5.8 times per game. He has a TS of 57.4% and an EFG of 52%. Wiggins offensive stats are pathetic in comparison to Zach's. Meanwhile, they both have almost the exact same advanced defensive rating -- Zach at 111.5 and Wiggins at 111.1. Oh, and Zach costs $6 million per year less. Add Markennan to the picture. OF course, there was also the Dunn pick, the Patton pick and the Butler fiasco. But I'm repeating myself.

Thibodeau was a bad PBO. There's no getting around it. The fact that he's one of a long line of bad Wolves PBOs doesn't make Thibodeau's tenure any more palatable. Maybe Thibodeau would have been a better coach if he had a better PBO. Or maybe it's the other way around. :)

Dunn/Lavine/Wiggins/Markkanen/Towns would be one of the worst defensive teams of all time. It cannot be said enough. It is always overlooked when talking about them. That team is giving up 140 a night. We are giving up 130 with our team now and people want to add two bad defenders to our rotation. You're talking about taking core pieces from a 17 win team, adding them to our team and somehow we're better off. That math doesn't add up.

khans2k5 wrote:Dunn/Lavine/Wiggins/Markkanen/Towns would be one of the worst defensive teams of all time. It cannot be said enough. It is always overlooked when talking about them. That team is giving up 140 a night. We are giving up 130 with our team now and people want to add two bad defenders to our rotation. You're talking about taking core pieces from a 17 win team, adding them to our team and somehow we're better off. That math doesn't add up.

We're already one of the worst defensive teams of all time. Not sure how we could get much worse. :) In my scenario, a smart PBO would have swapped Wiggins for Butler or done something better. Assuming the smart PBO swapped Wiggins for Butler and then ended up trading Butler for RoCo and Saric, we'd have RoCo, Saric, KAT, Markennan and LaVine. In my view that's a much better team than RoCo, Saric, KAT and Wiggins. But what if we had a really top notch PBO? You can envision that caliber PBO (1) drafting Murray instead of Dunn, (2) trading down a few slots the next year to draft Donovan Mitchell while picking up another asset, (3) not giving Gorgui a big long-term contract, and (4) trading Wiggins for value while it was still possible. There are any number of different moves a really good PBO would have made that would have likely made the Wolves a much better team right now. There's no one scenario. Ultimately, it's not about LaVine. It's about a slew of bad decisions by a bad PBO.

lipoli390 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Dunn/Lavine/Wiggins/Markkanen/Towns would be one of the worst defensive teams of all time. It cannot be said enough. It is always overlooked when talking about them. That team is giving up 140 a night. We are giving up 130 with our team now and people want to add two bad defenders to our rotation. You're talking about taking core pieces from a 17 win team, adding them to our team and somehow we're better off. That math doesn't add up.

We're already one of the worst defensive teams of all time. Not sure how we could get much worse. :) In my scenario, a smart PBO would have swapped Wiggins for Butler or done something better. Assuming the smart PBO swapped Wiggins for Butler and then ended up trading Butler for RoCo and Saric, we'd have RoCo, Saric, KAT, Markennan and LaVine. In my view that's a much better team than RoCo, Saric, KAT and Wiggins. But what if we had a really top notch PBO? You can envision that caliber PBO (1) drafting Murray instead of Dunn, (2) trading down a few slots the next year to draft Donovan Mitchell while picking up another asset, (3) not giving Gorgui a big long-term contract, and (4) trading Wiggins for value while it was still possible. There are any number of different moves a really good PBO would have made that would have likely made the Wolves a much better team right now. There's no one scenario. Ultimately, it's not about LaVine. It's about a slew of bad decisions by a bad PBO.

I don't think the Bulls do Wiggins for Butler straight up. They got 3 young pieces for Jimmy in reality so saying they would have settled for one just to keep Markkanen on our team in your hypothetical is some big time rose colored glasses when looking back. Zach is probably the worst defender in the league so yes it can get worse than what we are seeing now. Imagine the sometimes help Wiggins provides being literally nothing ever from Zach. He's just lost on that end.

And at the end of the day extrapolating hypotheticals into more hypotheticals (assuming the same Jimmy trade goes down with a different team around him for his career here) is just way too easy to post something that favors your argument. That's like saying we should have had Steph/Derozan/Giannis/Love/Gobert on our team because we had picks that could have realistically drafted them. The first scenario completely changes the availability of the second scenario if the first scenario actually happens. Making a different first trade for Jimmy completely changes what the second trade would have ended up if it would have even been made at all.

lipoli390 wrote:

thedoper wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Once Butler was jettisoned, the Wolves were decent under Thibodeau at 15 - 12.

The problem is that Thibodeau was directly responsible for the previous 13 games when Butler was actively sabotaging the season. The Wolves were 4 - 9.

If Thibodeau dumped Butler prior to the season, the Wolves could very well be in the hunt. But going into the season with that fiasco over the team's collective head was grounds for his firing if nothing else.

As a coach... wins and losses... Thibodeau will be considered the Wolves 2nd best coach all-time. That's much more telling than impressive.

Yeah the whole thing is a disappointment. After all the dust has settled the part that really bothers me is that so much of the decision to fire seemed based on Thib's personality according to the reporting I've read. That being said Thibs did lose a lot of games, but ultimately I feel like Roco and Saric is an upgrade to Markanen, Lavine, and Dunn. So there was good and bad in Thibs tenure, but I don't feel like it was a complete disaster on the surface. But certainly not a success and ultimately worth dismissal.

My biggest fear in all of this is that whoever is coming in next will have conditions attached to their hire (keep Ryan as coach, be a pleasant force in the community, etc.) I'm not very enthusiastic about another season of a new GM and a new coach. But it seems to be a regular occurrence with this team.

I'm not sure RoCo and Saric is an upgrade over Markennan, LaVine and Dunn. Saric hasn't been been particularly impressive. Meanwhile, Markennan has shown flashes and is much younger with more upside than Saric. Meanwhile, LaVine has been putting up really impressive numbers.

But another way to look at it is to think about how much better we'd be in Thibodeau had traded Wiggins instead of LaVine and the Markennan pick. That deal was reported to have been on the table. In fact, it was reported that we could have done a one-for one swap of Wiggins for Butler, but I'm being conservative in my assumption. LaVine is averaging nearly 24 points, 4.5 assists, and 4.6 rebounds per game. He's scoring efficiently, hitting 46.7 of his FGs, 36.8% of his 3-pointers and 84.3% of his free throws while getting to the line 5.8 times per game. He has a TS of 57.4% and an EFG of 52%. Wiggins offensive stats are pathetic in comparison to Zach's. Meanwhile, they both have almost the exact same advanced defensive rating -- Zach at 111.5 and Wiggins at 111.1. Oh, and Zach costs $6 million per year less. Add Markennan to the picture. OF course, there was also the Dunn pick, the Patton pick and the Butler fiasco. But I'm repeating myself.

Thibodeau was a bad PBO. There's no getting around it. The fact that he's one of a long line of bad Wolves PBOs doesn't make Thibodeau's tenure any more palatable. Maybe Thibodeau would have been a better coach if he had a better PBO. Or maybe it's the other way around. :)

I realize it's my opinion. I still think Roco and Saric are better basketball players than Markanen, Lavine and Dunn. The hypotheticals of trading Wiggins instead don't factor into my assesment. So many moving factors make the hypotheticals silly at this point. We would have paid Zach a max deal too which would have been an abysmal failure as well. In all I think we got our net positive which is remarkable considering Butler tried to derail our team. Either way, the future is in Taylor's hands, which is the last place I would want anyone's future in basketball.

"Saric hasn't been been particularly impressive."

Saric has had his ups and downs -- most players do -- but his numbers say that he's a fine young player. Oh, and he's already shown thus far in his career that he can be a key contributor -- third option offensively -- on a winning team. You can't say that about much of this roster.

For me, the displeasure on this board with what we've got out of Saric this year is just so misguided.