Minnesota Sports Forum

lipoli390 wrote:

Volans19 wrote:Can you imagine Love and Noah on the same squad? That would be epic. Add Derrick Rose (if he can get back to the player he used to be) and some sharp shooters on the outside and that is a dynasty. Mirotic, Boozer, and Jimmy Butler wouldn't be the worst we could do if we had to move Love

Boozer is pretty close to the worst. I went to the game with a friend from Chicago tonight. He's watched nearly every Bulls game this season. Said Boozer is terrible. I've seen enough of Boozer on my league pass to agree. Thibideau looked perpetually disgusted with Boozer's play tonight, especially on the defensive end. The Bulls plan to amnesty Boozer this summer. That's highly they think of him.

Gotta give to get and you need to make salaries match. Boozer is on the last year of his contract next season. Never said I liked him but he would be a stop gap for Mirotic.

Volans19 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Volans19 wrote:Can you imagine Love and Noah on the same squad? That would be epic. Add Derrick Rose (if he can get back to the player he used to be) and some sharp shooters on the outside and that is a dynasty. Mirotic, Boozer, and Jimmy Butler wouldn't be the worst we could do if we had to move Love

Boozer is pretty close to the worst. I went to the game with a friend from Chicago tonight. He's watched nearly every Bulls game this season. Said Boozer is terrible. I've seen enough of Boozer on my league pass to agree. Thibideau looked perpetually disgusted with Boozer's play tonight, especially on the defensive end. The Bulls plan to amnesty Boozer this summer. That's highly they think of him.

Gotta give to get and you need to make salaries match. Boozer is on the last year of his contract next season. Never said I liked him but he would be a stop gap for Mirotic.

Ok. I see where you're coming from.

lipoli390 wrote:No one had JJ to blame tonight. But we did get to see why Adelman doesn't play Shved. Of course we didn't need to see Shved's play tonight to know why since Shved got lots of minutes last season and early this season where he typically played like he played tonight. The worst bench in the league is noticeably worse without JJ. But either way, it's bad.

No, we are not a better coach away from the playoffs. We're a .500 team in need of some significant roster upgrades before next season. We have the makings of a pretty good team as we've seen in some recent games and in various games throughout the season. But there are serious holes that, unless filled, will keep us in the vicinity of .500 next season after which Love will leave.

Good post lip regarding to jj.

JJ has not played well or to the level we expects of him. But he is still a much better player than shved and our best option as backup pg to rubio. I agree too that we are a .500 team, a different coach wont make much of a difference.

Yes Lip, we are a better coach away from the playoffs and we don't need "significant" roster upgrades.

lipoli390 wrote:No one had JJ to blame tonight. But we did get to see why Adelman doesn't play Shved. Of course we didn't need to see Shved's play tonight to know why since Shved got lots of minutes last season and early this season where he typically played like he played tonight. The worst bench in the league is noticeably worse without JJ. But either way, it's bad.

No, we are not a better coach away from the playoffs. We're a .500 team in need of some significant roster upgrades before next season. We have the makings of a pretty good team as we've seen in some recent games and in various games throughout the season. But there are serious holes that, unless filled, will keep us in the vicinity of .500 next season after which Love will leave.

I can't agree with your take in the first paragraph, lip. Yes, Alexey struggled in the second half, as did most of the team, but he was one of the reasons the first half was so much fun to watch. And honestly his stats were pretty good last night, especially considering he was on the court with Turiaf, Dante, LMAM and Jeffers...9 points and 5 assists in 16 minutes. I don't agree that we have had lots of minutes to watch Shved at PG in the NBA. Personally, I have mostly seen Alexey at SG in the NBA, and he has not been very good...not his position. But I have had the opportunity to watch Alexey at point guard during the Olympics, and he showed me that he deserves a chance to be a PG in the NBA. I don't blame Adelman entirely for not playing Shved at PG last year, because Kahn gave him a roster with three PG's ahead of him (if one concludes JJ is a point guard), and not enough SGs. And I also don't expect Shved to step right away into the most difficult position in the NBA and not experience some difficulties. But let's not judge him for the only game in which he has been given a chance at PG this year, especially against the best defensive team in the league.

BizarroJerry wrote:Yes Lip, we are a better coach away from the playoffs and we don't need "significant" roster upgrades.

unless we replaced adleman with pop for this year, no a different coach wouldn't of got this team to the playoffs

alexftbl8181 wrote:

BizarroJerry wrote:Yes Lip, we are a better coach away from the playoffs and we don't need "significant" roster upgrades.

unless we replaced adleman with pop for this year, no a different coach wouldn't of got this team to the playoffs

I'm guessing Hornacek would strongly disagree. The mismanagement of the team during games by our coach was absolutely terrible.

The Rage Monster wrote:

alexftbl8181 wrote:

BizarroJerry wrote:Yes Lip, we are a better coach away from the playoffs and we don't need "significant" roster upgrades.

unless we replaced adleman with pop for this year, no a different coach wouldn't of got this team to the playoffs

I'm guessing Hornacek would strongly disagree. The mismanagement of the team during games by our coach was absolutely terrible.

Excellent point. rage, and I share your rage. Phoenix is going to increase their win total by 24-25 games this year, and although they added some pieces (certainly not all-star pieces, though), I think most experts would credit Hornacek with at least half of that improvement.

The Wolves are going to finish 7-8 games out of the playoffs, and his shortcomings are so notable this year that it's easy for me to conclude that the Wolves would have been a playoff team this year with Hornacek. This board is almost equally divided between those who think another coach would have led us to the playoffs and those that don't, and I respect the validity of both opinions. For those in the camp that this team would not have improved much with another coach, which of these statements do you agree with:

1) Rick Adelman did a good job coaching this year, or

2) An NBA coach really doesn't have much of an impact on his team's record.

Although I strongly disagree with both of these assertions, I can see how an argument could be constructed supporting one or the other. I can't come up with another assertion, though, to support the comment that Adelman did not cost us the playoffs this year.

Also, look at what Steve Clifford did for Charlotte. Hornacek is unique because he actually took a team and turned them around offensively. A lot of those players are having career years in shooting efficiency. It's very rare that a coach can impact an offense in that way. But there are a lot more cases of a new coach positively impacting a defense, some of which I have documented here.

With the right coach and some luck on the health front, we can absolutely win more games next year without anything other than some minor roster tweaks.

I wouldn't say we have too many Kahn apologists, but it does seem like we have a good amount of fans who want Flip to fail for whatever reason. And they praise Adelman saying he did what he could with what he had.

Remember, this isn't South Beach. We have to overpay players to come here. Horny or Clifford would have certainly had this team in the playoffs.