Minnesota Sports Forum

Q-was-here wrote:

D-Mac wrote:

Q-was-here wrote:The four players that were most controversial on this board were Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio, Andrew Wiggins, and DLO. Of those, I think DLO has one very vocal supporter (Cam), lots of vocal opponents, including some folks whose sole purpose on this board is to troll DLO (D-Loser), and another group that are more neutral and might be willing to keep DLO at a lower price than what he's paid now.

So to me the REAL controversy on DLO is whether we should jettison him no matter what, i.e. addition by subtraction OR should we try to hold onto him at a lower price and somewhat more limited role, assuming him and his agent eventually come to that realization as well.

I think the controversies with guys like Love, Rubio, and Wiggins had more diversity, meaning there was a more even distribution of opinions, with some extremes thrown in. I could be mis-remembering though.

Hey Q, since you can make baseless assumptions about me, I'm gonna go ahead and assume that you're a complete idiot in all areas of your life (based on your idiotic takes here). Maybe that's not fair, but screw you man.

The difference is I'm not making assumptions. I'm basing my take on your actual activity on this board. Your handle is "D-Loser" for God's sake! Trolling DLO is literally

I've clearly shown that I'm a fan of the team and not just a Dlo basher, in fact, if you were paying attention, I've actually been objective on DLo many times. You're obviously a very literal person, who doesn't want me to have any fun with my screen name. For the record, I'm not a Dlo hater, I'm a hater of the fact that dlo makes the max, and a hater of the trade we made to get him. If Dlo was willing to sign a 4/60 extension today, I would do it. So as I've said MANY times (I'll say it again for you, as you're obviously a little slow), I think Dlo is a good teammate and a decent player, who I would be ok with keeping under the right circumstances. Now I'm actually feeling a little embarrassed that I have nothing better to do than respond to some idiots personal attacks on a wolves chat board, so I'm just gonna hit send and call it a day :)

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Pretty much, Q.

The Russell discussions have a sort of paint-by-numbers vibe to them at this point. We all know the beats by now... the exact moment Cam chimes in. When FNG will pull out +/-. When one of the trolls will arrive. When Cam insults somebody for disagreeing with him. When somebody with a realistic take calms the discourse for a very short while... before... we do it all again.

FNG wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Pretty much, Q.

The Russell discussions have a sort of paint-by-numbers vibe to them at this point. We all know the beats by now... the exact moment Cam chimes in. When FNG will pull out +/-. When one of the trolls will arrive. When Cam insults somebody for disagreeing with him. When somebody with a realistic take calms the discourse for a very short while... before... we do it all again.

LOL, I do pull out +/- numbers a lot. To be fair (speaking of paint-by-numbers vibes ;-) ), it's a long-time mental illness of mine that I have always had a peculiar fondness for outscoring my opponent. It goes back to some childhood trauma, and it causes me to notice when a player consistently outscores or gets outscored by the opponent. Don't worry...I'm getting psychiatric help for this illness, and my shrink says he'll have me ignoring defensive ineptness and focusing on only PPG within a couple months :cool: .

lipoli390 wrote:OK. I'll chime in on this with a few points.

First, we need to evaluate DLO's value to the team in a broader context. I've never been a DLO defender, but let's look at the facts. The team is 4 points better offensively in games that DLO plays versus those he doesn't. We're 6 points worse defensively. So we're net 2 points worse with DLO than without him. In the stat that matters most, we're 2 games under .500 when DLO plays and 1 game under overall. So at a high level, he doesn't seem to be a difference maker one way or the other. However, he can carry the team with his offense as he did in the first half today against Utah. The Wolves wouldn't have been in the game without DLO's first half. More importantly, DLO's net impact on this team is actually better than another max player on the team named Gobert. The team's defensive rating is exactly the same in games that Rudy plays as it is in games he doesn't; yet the team is over 5 points worse offensively when he plays. The team is actually 1 game over .500 without Rudy. The difference between the two is that DLO's max contract is expiring and there's no doubt in my mind the Wolves will be able to sign him for less than the max and even less than he makes now. He's also not even 26 years old so there won't be any potential age-related fall-off in his game over the next 3 years. In contrast, Rudy has three years left at an escalating max salary and he'll be turning 31 after this season. So if we're going to talk about trading DLO, we should talk about trading Rudy.

Second, I'm definitely not opposed to trading DLO. But whether we trade him has to depend on who we can get and what it would cost to sign him. I just don't see DLO having a lot of value around the League. As a result, I don't see us getting much if anything worthwhile in return. At the same time, his lack of value around the League means he's not likely to have a high contract value either. Does anyone really think another team will offer DLO $30 million or even $25 million per year on a multi-year deal? I think his annual salary probably tops out at around $20 million and I could see him having to accept $12-15 million per year in a multi-year deal. So I would test the waters with him and maybe there's someone like Rosas out there who loves him and will overpay. If we can package him with Naz Reid for Fultz and salary, TC should pull the trigger on that deal in an instant.

Finally, the Wolves front office needs to get to the root of this team's problems. And in spite of his weaknesses, I don't see DLO as a root cause. The evidence tells us he's a bit of a meh. This is Ant's team going forward and our front office has to fully accept that fact. That means building around him -- around his strengths, weaknesses, style and age. The evidence tells us that McDaniels and Prince have added substantial positive value to this team this season. Our defensive rating is 113.5 in games McDaniels plays and a whopping 124.0 in games he doesn't. That's what I'd call an impact. In contrast, the team has a defensive rating of 114.2 in games with Rudy and 114.2 in games without him. The team is 6 games below .500 in games without Taurean Prince. McDaniels is only a year older than Ant and Prince is still 28 and very affordable. So I see McDaniels and Prince as part building a team around Ant. If there's one player that needs to be dealt, it's not our PG with an expiring contract; it's our center with 3 years left on a max contract who hasn't made the team better and, statistically, has made the team worse from a net offensive/defensive rating perspective. If the Wolves can retrieve some of the many assets they gave up to get him and add a player in the deal or with salary savings who fits better with Ant, McDaniels and KAT, that's what they need to do. I'd be open to trading KAT after this season, but I'd be inclined to start next season with him and, assuming he stays healthy, see if he can have the positive impact on the team he had last season when we finished 10 games over .500 and competed well against the #2 seed in the West with KAT as this teams most productive player.

So I just can't get into this debate over trading DLO because I can't see how it would have a material impact one way or the other on this team overal

I agree with your conclusion Lip even if I disagree with a lot of your logic on him and other players given the small sample size of half a season.

kekgeek1 wrote:Shams reported that the wolves are shopping Dlo, want a PG back (Rumors are Conley, FVV, Lowry and will not do a Dlo and Lowry swap) and don't want to lose Dlo salary spot.