Minnesota Sports Forum

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

60WinTim wrote:My premature grade is an "A". For what this team needed to get out of its youthful funk, I think he hit home runs with Butler, Teague and Gibson. I understand the questions surrounding Crawford, however, we have not trotted out a bench with a legit vet player for years. Crawford gives the bench credibility.

My "A" also assumes that the great work done so far will help attract some very nice FAs on vet minimum contracts. Doogie just tweeted we have made contact with Luc Mbah a Moute -- someone I thought would be a great target weeks ago.

If Thibs signs Luc, I'll take his grade down from B- to C- for the summer. We don't need a 32%, low volume 3-point shooting PF. Thibs has impulse control problems. You can see it watching his non-stop carping from the bench. Now we're seeing it in his obsession with filling the roster with veteran defensive tough guys in a three-point shooting offensive-oriented League. I like Luc. But we have a couple roster spots left after signing Crawford. Neither one should be used on Luc.

Your view of this offseason is honestly hard to keep track of.

You just have to follow very, very closely. :). But seriously, it's easy. The Butler deal gave Thibs a great start. Although I hated to give up Zach and Dunn, getting Butler plus the #16 pick was the right thing to do because it brought in an allstar still in his prime who I think ensures us a playoff birth if Butler stays healthy and we also got a mid-1st round pick in a very deep draft. I would have much preferred John Collins, but Patton was a good high-upside pick. So the Butler deal wasn't an A+ in my view, but it certainly deserved an A-. But as I've made clear in many other posts, I haven't liked what Thibs has done since that deal, especially the Taj signing. I think it's wrong headed to build a grind-it-out defensive roster in today's NBA, especially the Western Conference, without really good 3-point shooting. So what might have been an A- after the Butler deal has been dragged down to a B- by those other moves. Are you tracking now? :)

Would I really take Thibs to a C- if he signed Luc? No, but a little hyperbole seemed in order for what I'd see as a boneheaded move given what this team needs.

Your downgrade of ratings for Thibs from B- to C- is not only premature, but also unconvincing. The assessment of his performance hinges on and shall hinge on the effects of key additions (Butler, Teague, Gibson and Crawford).

If anyone here is convinced that the young core we got before is promising, please look at numbers and our records again. Zach Lavine last year, according to fivethirtyeight.com, posted a whopping -0.1 WARP rate.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/carmelo/zach-lavine/

And our beloved Andrew only had a plus 0.1 rate last year.

Granted, Rubio is a fighter and brings positive impact, but his erratic shooting will not go away, and I really don't like the idea of benching a key member of the team in crunch time, because opposing defenders are only going to sag off on him and double team another player.

If fans here wish the team would just grow and turn into OKC 2.0, they are bound to be disillusioned. That team was going nowhere and we need a change of scenery: a winning culture and accountability. And many also forgot that Rubio, Zach and Andrew have not even played one single minute of playoff basketball. To just keep that old team and throw money to them would be mind-boggling.

wolvesfaned wrote:Your downgrade of ratings for Thibs from B- to C- is not only premature, but also unconvincing. The assessment of his performance hinges on and shall hinge on the effects of key additions (Butler, Teague, Gibson and Crawford).

If anyone here is convinced that the young core we got before is promising, please look at numbers and our records again. Zach Lavine last year, according to fivethirtyeight.com, posted a whopping -0.1 WARP rate.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/carmelo/zach-lavine/

And our beloved Andrew only had a plus 0.1 rate last year.

Granted, Rubio is a fighter and brings positive impact, but his erratic shooting will not go away, and I really don't like the idea of benching a key member of the team in crunch time, because opposing defenders are only going to sag off on him and double team another player.

If fans here wish the team would just grow and turn into OKC 2.0, they are bound to be disillusioned. That team was going nowhere and we need a change of scenery: a winning culture and accountability. And many also forgot that Rubio, Zach and Andrew have not even played one single minute of playoff basketball. To just keep that old team and throw money to them would be mind-boggling.

I fully get your sentiment, and you share those thoughts with many posters here.

I only ask this: Name me the last small market team who made a big move and became anything more than even a fringe playoff team?

In this league, you add when you're on the cusp. Too early, or too late, and you accept mediocrity. If you state we improved, I agree 100%. Yet, Nothing has really changed long term (. We did however accelerate into mediocrity.

Future I get where you are coming from wanting to build with the guys we had. There are 2 ways you can look at this now and I think you would agree the situation in the WC makes the approaches even more...extreme than they would have been.

1. Keep the kids together and keep building:

With the west loaded up again like it had been before a down year or two the Wolves would have been in danger of not making the playoffs again. Ok maybe some people like you and I could have lived with that. At what point do players start thinking this isn't the place for them etc? I think adding some legit vets to the roster in FA would have helped but heck the Kings are not even going to be a joke this year with adding their vets. We would have likely been another lottery team hoping to make the jump. If guys made progress it may have been good. There were questions though. What if Dunn wasn't more than just a defensive guru? What if Rubio couldn't shoot? What if these young guys really didn't improve a ton defensively? What if the draft pick at 7 wasn't all that great? There were real possibilities that some of the pieces around this team weren't going to be much. We could have easily kept Bazz but what is he really? I say this stuff and I believe in all these guys to some extent except if we drafted Markkanen that guy is trash!!! Lol jk

2. Make some moves to add good players to the roster including a top 15 player in the league in Butler and start winning now.

This is what has happened we went from a team with a couple guys over 30 and a bunch of young guys to a legit star player that's still under 30 in Butler a legit vet guy in his prime in Teague, a versatile tough be player in Gibson and a vet heat check scorer in Crawford. The roster isn't finished either. They also added a young player in Patton who could end up being the future pairing next to Towns. They also kept Tyus who could be the future at PG. they also added a future 1st round pick (still can't believe we got that pick). I wouldn't be shocked if they added 1 younger player to the end of the roster as well after signing a couple more vets. It's not all in on winning but it's put some strong moves into being a winner now. Is it a sure thing to work out? No but the young long game wasn't either if we are being honest with ourselves. The only guy that I would feel really strong about predicting being a better player than Butler is Towns. Wiggins might get there but he has a long way to go defensively although it's very possible he could be better offensively. I'm about as big of a Lavine fan as you will find (seriously) but Butler is an absolutely terrific 2-way player and it's tough to see him get there defensively.

Personally the way the west has gotten tougher makes me feel even better about getting more vets because man it would have been tough to get into the playoffs with the young kids. If we had stayed young the toughness of the west would have made it look smart to stay young if you wanted to trust the process get another pick etc. :) At some point you may have to go for it and I think Thibs has done a pretty good job of doing that. The Gibson signing for a fair contract (teams wanted him and other guys got similar deals) but it took up a fair amount of cap space is something work questioning. Let's see how we fill out this roster. If we end up getting a couple guys for the vet min we thought we would have to throw a few million at to get then we can be happy and move on. I think we both agree that the way the roster was filled out either path we took was a pretty big deal and we still don't know how either would be played out. Either path we take we need vets and also find some gems along the way also one way or another.

lipoli390 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

60WinTim wrote:My premature grade is an "A". For what this team needed to get out of its youthful funk, I think he hit home runs with Butler, Teague and Gibson. I understand the questions surrounding Crawford, however, we have not trotted out a bench with a legit vet player for years. Crawford gives the bench credibility.

My "A" also assumes that the great work done so far will help attract some very nice FAs on vet minimum contracts. Doogie just tweeted we have made contact with Luc Mbah a Moute -- someone I thought would be a great target weeks ago.

If Thibs signs Luc, I'll take his grade down from B- to C- for the summer. We don't need a 32%, low volume 3-point shooting PF. Thibs has impulse control problems. You can see it watching his non-stop carping from the bench. Now we're seeing it in his obsession with filling the roster with veteran defensive tough guys in a three-point shooting offensive-oriented League. I like Luc. But we have a couple roster spots left after signing Crawford. Neither one should be used on Luc.

Your view of this offseason is honestly hard to keep track of.

You just have to follow very, very closely. :). But seriously, it's easy. The Butler deal gave Thibs a great start. Although I hated to give up Zach and Dunn, getting Butler plus the #16 pick was the right thing to do because it brought in an allstar still in his prime who I think ensures us a playoff birth if Butler stays healthy and we also got a mid-1st round pick in a very deep draft. I would have much preferred John Collins, but Patton was a good high-upside pick. So the Butler deal wasn't an A+ in my view, but it certainly deserved an A-. But as I've made clear in many other posts, I haven't liked what Thibs has done since that deal, especially the Taj signing. I think it's wrong headed to build a grind-it-out defensive roster in today's NBA, especially the Western Conference, without really good 3-point shooting. So what might have been an A- after the Butler deal has been dragged down to a B- by those other moves. Are you tracking now? :)

Would I really take Thibs to a C- if he signed Luc? No, but a little hyperbole seemed in order for what I'd see as a boneheaded move given what this team needs.

I guess there should be a hyperbole font.

I simply don't get your player evaluations. You say one guy is off the board because he can't defend then you name a bunch of guys with similarish skill sets that can't defend. You are willing to dismiss top level deceive players for the freaking vet min but you want guys to defend.

Also you preach patience but it doesn't seem like many of your posts are looking to let things play out.

Thibs has impulse control problems? I'm assuming that was written in hyperbole font. Lol

The root of all these issues lies in Andrew Wiggins.

Three years into the league, we have been treated to two seasons where Andrew performed inconsistently. For about 30 games, his play would be stellar and remind people of Kobe and Tmac. Then 20 games where he played ok but not great. The worst part were the remaining 30ish games when he's just passive and even looked non-existent from time to time.

If Andrew is becoming a bona-fide superstar, he and Karl alone will be taking us to the WCF just by themselves year in and year out. So right now we got all these high motor people in Butler and Gibson, to call him out and motivate him, and lecture him the proper way to play defence, and the correct attitude to be a professional. If all these don't pan out, I have no problem with Thibs trading him for another piece, because I will have seen enough to believe he just doesn't care enough.

As for the argument about mediocrity, I quite disagree. How do we measure mediocrity? Does it mean losing in the second round consecutively for a few years? If the answer is yes, I would still go for mediocrity because right now Minnesota has been a laughing stock in the league for so long, we need to compete to gain people's respect, to make some noise and actually let all those young guns play some meaningful games, before their careers are ruined.

I am totally on board with the Gibson signing, though the price tag might be a bit higher than wanted. In Taj we have a high-level rim protector, a model professional and a player no opponents want to mess with. Last year, right after the third game of season, Thibs called the Wolves out by calling them soft physically and mentally. And I agree with his assessment.

Yes the league has turned into a 3-point shooting contest, but it doesn't mean we need to follow the trend 100%. At the end of the day superstar power matters the most. The Rockets assembled a superb 3-point shooting team last year, but in face of the Spurs they were just no match. It's about how good your team is, but not completely correlated to how well your are shooting 3-pointers.

wolvesfaned wrote:Your downgrade of ratings for Thibs from B- to C- is not only premature, but also unconvincing. The assessment of his performance hinges on and shall hinge on the effects of key additions (Butler, Teague, Gibson and Crawford).

If anyone here is convinced that the young core we got before is promising, please look at numbers and our records again. Zach Lavine last year, according to fivethirtyeight.com, posted a whopping -0.1 WARP rate.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/carmelo/zach-lavine/

And our beloved Andrew only had a plus 0.1 rate last year.

Granted, Rubio is a fighter and brings positive impact, but his erratic shooting will not go away, and I really don't like the idea of benching a key member of the team in crunch time, because opposing defenders are only going to sag off on him and double team another player.

If fans here wish the team would just grow and turn into OKC 2.0, they are bound to be disillusioned. That team was going nowhere and we need a change of scenery: a winning culture and accountability. And many also forgot that Rubio, Zach and Andrew have not even played one single minute of playoff basketball. To just keep that old team and throw money to them would be mind-boggling.

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

60WinTim wrote:My premature grade is an "A". For what this team needed to get out of its youthful funk, I think he hit home runs with Butler, Teague and Gibson. I understand the questions surrounding Crawford, however, we have not trotted out a bench with a legit vet player for years. Crawford gives the bench credibility.

My "A" also assumes that the great work done so far will help attract some very nice FAs on vet minimum contracts. Doogie just tweeted we have made contact with Luc Mbah a Moute -- someone I thought would be a great target weeks ago.

If Thibs signs Luc, I'll take his grade down from B- to C- for the summer. We don't need a 32%, low volume 3-point shooting PF. Thibs has impulse control problems. You can see it watching his non-stop carping from the bench. Now we're seeing it in his obsession with filling the roster with veteran defensive tough guys in a three-point shooting offensive-oriented League. I like Luc. But we have a couple roster spots left after signing Crawford. Neither one should be used on Luc.

Your view of this offseason is honestly hard to keep track of.

You just have to follow very, very closely. :). But seriously, it's easy. The Butler deal gave Thibs a great start. Although I hated to give up Zach and Dunn, getting Butler plus the #16 pick was the right thing to do because it brought in an allstar still in his prime who I think ensures us a playoff birth if Butler stays healthy and we also got a mid-1st round pick in a very deep draft. I would have much preferred John Collins, but Patton was a good high-upside pick. So the Butler deal wasn't an A+ in my view, but it certainly deserved an A-. But as I've made clear in many other posts, I haven't liked what Thibs has done since that deal, especially the Taj signing. I think it's wrong headed to build a grind-it-out defensive roster in today's NBA, especially the Western Conference, without really good 3-point shooting. So what might have been an A- after the Butler deal has been dragged down to a B- by those other moves. Are you tracking now? :)

Would I really take Thibs to a C- if he signed Luc? No, but a little hyperbole seemed in order for what I'd see as a boneheaded move given what this team needs.

I guess there should be a hyperbole font.

I simply don't get your player evaluations. You say one guy is off the board because he can't defend then you name a bunch of guys with similarish skill sets that can't defend. You are willing to dismiss top level deceive players for the freaking vet min but you want guys to defend.

Also you preach patience but it doesn't seem like many of your posts are looking to let things play out.

Thibs has impulse control problems? I'm assuming that was written in hyperbole font. Lol

Let me help you a bit, Monster. Take a look at who I'm recommending we sign. It's two-way wings who can shoot three-pointers. Afflalo is my clear top guy in that regard and his career numbers along with his reputation support my assessment. Rush and Thabo are my next two picks. Each of those two is slanted one way of the other -- Rush towards offense/3-point shooting, Thabo towards defense. But neither one is terrible in the other area. Tony Allen can't shoot the three at all and is breaking down physically at age 35 while the 40 year old Jason Terry really can't guard anyone and clearly doesn't pass the test as anything close to a 2-way wing. I mentioned some other guys who should be considered, but if you read my post you might have noticed I didn't recommend signing them. I just thought they were additional names worth of consideration and discussion on this message board.

As for patience, I would have kept Ricky and I would have passed on giving Taj the rest of our cap space. As I said in my reaction to that signing, we should have waited for other opportunities to use that money and should have put a chunk of it towards three-point shooting two-way wing or a three-point shooting PF like Ilyasova. I think that approach exhibited patience or would be, in your words, "letting it play out." I thought Thibs jumped the gun in throwing the rest of our cap space at Taj -- hence he seems to have been a bit less patient that me, right?

And yes, my comment about Thibs having impulse control issues was in hyperbole font.

thedoper wrote:Thibs is the first GM to lure an active top 15 player to this franchise while sending out players who at best will only sniff the top 15. Relative to any of the past people in this position this offseason has been an A+ by any measure.

This is an important point. Has this team ever traded for a better player than Butler? If so, I can't think of who. And he did it while keeping our two most valuable developing assets and giving up what any objective observer would say was much less valuable than Butler. So that was a great move and it is so much more important than the other moves he made this offseason and arguably more important than any trade or free agent signing in the franchise's history. So we need to keep that in mind, even if we quibble about the other stuff.

You might think that he overpaid for the rest of the vets, but they are short term contracts and by the market value of most guys signed this offseason (it's not fair to just compare them to the best deals teams got), they are of a fair value. And you might wish (like I do) that we were bringing in more outside shooters, but Thibs has picked up highly experienced, effective vets who match his mentality and style of play, and he's had success with guys like that in the past. You might wish he had gotten slightly younger free agents, but those guys would have cost more or would have been bigger long shots at a time when we don't want to gamble with our roster with Wiggins and Towns at such a critical stage. You might scratch your head at the Patton pick when we already have Towns and Gorgui, but he went for a high upside guy who might eventually replace Taj or even Gorgui as a rotation big.

In regard to the non-Butler stuff, I see and share some of the reservations, but every argument I can think of against Thibs on these things has a counter argument that's just as good if not arguably better. So to me, the non-Butler stuff is all a wash, it shouldn't increase or decrease the grade significantly, although I'll give Thibs credit for being consistent and doing what a great front office person does--bring in good players who not only fit the team needs, but who also fit the way the coach wants to play. At its best, this is what we want to get out of the dual position of having a guy who is both the coach and the person with the final say in the front office. The players we get match up perfectly with what the coach sees we need on the floor.

I'm going to give the harshest response here. By the way, I am very optimistic about this season because of the Butler deal, so my bad grade might seem incongruent. But I question Thibs' PBO acumen after the post-Butler moves:

Last year's grade: I openly admired Thibs' restraint in free agency, and praised his picking up some serviceable players coming off good seasons at good prices. So I originally gave PBO Thibs an A. But I'm using hindsight to lower the grade to a C for an odd reason. An effective PBO needs to build a roster that the coach will use, and PBO Thibs didn't bring in players that coach Thibs felt comfortable putting on the court (even though coaches of much better teams used them effectively the prior year), and as I have said before Thibs' refusal to play his bench was the main reason for last year's disaster. It was so sad to watch our tired starters collapse defensively (and to a lesser extent offensively) and blow big leads at t record setting pace. I still give him an average grade for keeping his powder dry for this year, but he essentially did nothing in free agency last year because he wouldn't play his acquisitions.

This year's grade: After the moves of the past week, I really question Thibs' judgement as a PBO, so despite the home run Butler move, I can't give him a higher grade than another C. Here's how I see the deals:

Rubio/Teague: I like Teague, but I think Ricky's sizably better stats the last half of 2017 was not a mirage. I do not endorse Thibs' decision to swap for an older, more expensive PG with a longer contract that I think doesn't fit our team as well as Ricky did when Thibs used him correctly. We all will watch Rubio vs. Teague this season, and I am almost certain Ricky's stats will be far superior to Teague's. Terrible deal.

Gibson: Again, I like Taj as a player, and I hope he adds some needed toughness to the team. And I like the shortness of the deal. But like others, I think Thibs drastically overpaid for a need that was far less important than 3-point shooting.

Crawford: I have always liked Crawford as a person...seems like a quality guy. But I have privately celebrated every time we have flirted with picking him up but dodged the bullet. When Thibs finally pulled the trigger, I was dismayed. Crawford is a high-volume shooter to be sure, but high volume and a career 3-point rate of 35% doesn't jive with me. And he is a terrible defender, just terrible...even before he was an aging player. I would much prefer Brandon Rush getting wing moments over Crawford. I'm hoping Thibs signs a better-shooting wing, and uses him more than Crawford. If not, I hate this move.

I'm sure some will find my opinion harsh and inconsistent, since I am so on board with the Butler deal. But one good offseason deal and three bad ones really colors my opinion of Thibs as a PBO. I'm still looking for a stellar season because of the improvement I expect to see from KAT and Wig, and because Butler over Zach and Tyus over Dunn really improve this club. But the post-Butler offseason moves could have been so much better, so I can only give Thibs a C.