Minnesota Sports Forum

lipoli390 wrote:

Camden wrote:Kemba Walker (age 26): 13,299 regular season minutes played

John Wall (age 26): 16,250 regular season minutes played

James Harden (age 27): 18,939 regular season minutes played

Steph Curry (age 28): 18,358 regular season minutes played

Russell Westbrook (age 28): 21,107 regular season minutes played

Mike Conley (age 29): 21,412 regular season minutes played

Kyle Lowry (age 30): 20,964 regular season minutes played

Goran Dragic (age 30): 16,302 regular season minutes played

For those that debate against the idea of acquiring Dragic and use his age as part of your supporting argument, take a look at this. The guy may be 30-years old, but his minutes total is closer to 26-year olds John Wall's and Kemba Walker's than players close to his age. Lowry, Conley, Curry, Westbrook and Harden all have more miles on their bodies and I'm 100% sure that every one of us would ignore their age when discussing whether or not we'd like to add them.

The mileage is significant, but father time is more significant. Fact is, regardless of how many minutes your've played, the body simply starts to decline with age. If you look back through history, you see that NBA players typically start to decline between ages 32-35 and declined very quickly at 35. There are exceptions, but not many. He's 8-9 years older than our core three. That's very significant.

Yeah it's significant. He could help that core win games the next 3 years. :) it's pretty easy to make an arguement Dragic would be a nice player to add to the group we have here. Like I've said before I think he will cost more than I would be willing to pay to get him. I would be somewhat terrified to do an unprotected first for him. We have seen teams recently that have seen those types of deals backfire on them bigtime. Not that it matters since I doubt the heat would be interested in playing such a long game to get that pick for Dragic.

Just for fun I'll add this to the list.

Ricky Rubio (age 26) 9595 minutes played.

lipoli390 wrote:

Camden wrote:Kemba Walker (age 26): 13,299 regular season minutes played

John Wall (age 26): 16,250 regular season minutes played

James Harden (age 27): 18,939 regular season minutes played

Steph Curry (age 28): 18,358 regular season minutes played

Russell Westbrook (age 28): 21,107 regular season minutes played

Mike Conley (age 29): 21,412 regular season minutes played

Kyle Lowry (age 30): 20,964 regular season minutes played

Goran Dragic (age 30): 16,302 regular season minutes played

For those that debate against the idea of acquiring Dragic and use his age as part of your supporting argument, take a look at this. The guy may be 30-years old, but his minutes total is closer to 26-year olds John Wall's and Kemba Walker's than players close to his age. Lowry, Conley, Curry, Westbrook and Harden all have more miles on their bodies and I'm 100% sure that every one of us would ignore their age when discussing whether or not we'd like to add them.

The mileage is significant, but father time is more significant. Fact is, regardless of how many minutes your've played, the body simply starts to decline with age. If you look back through history, you see that NBA players typically start to decline between ages 32-35 and declined very quickly at 35. There are exceptions, but not many. He's 8-9 years older than our core three. That's very significant.

Interesting research by Cam, but that was my exact thought when I read it, Lip. Minutes on the court is only one minor aspect of wear and tear. Dragic has had 4 more years of grueling pre-season camps, off-season workouts and tough practices...not to mention the father time factor you mention. No matter how you spin it, the typical NBA 30-year-old is much older than the typical 26-year-old, and on the downward slope of his career. I don't see Dragic is the answer for us.

longstrangetrip wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Camden wrote:Kemba Walker (age 26): 13,299 regular season minutes played

John Wall (age 26): 16,250 regular season minutes played

James Harden (age 27): 18,939 regular season minutes played

Steph Curry (age 28): 18,358 regular season minutes played

Russell Westbrook (age 28): 21,107 regular season minutes played

Mike Conley (age 29): 21,412 regular season minutes played

Kyle Lowry (age 30): 20,964 regular season minutes played

Goran Dragic (age 30): 16,302 regular season minutes played

For those that debate against the idea of acquiring Dragic and use his age as part of your supporting argument, take a look at this. The guy may be 30-years old, but his minutes total is closer to 26-year olds John Wall's and Kemba Walker's than players close to his age. Lowry, Conley, Curry, Westbrook and Harden all have more miles on their bodies and I'm 100% sure that every one of us would ignore their age when discussing whether or not we'd like to add them.

The mileage is significant, but father time is more significant. Fact is, regardless of how many minutes your've played, the body simply starts to decline with age. If you look back through history, you see that NBA players typically start to decline between ages 32-35 and declined very quickly at 35. There are exceptions, but not many. He's 8-9 years older than our core three. That's very significant.

Interesting research by Cam, but that was my exact thought when I read it, Lip. Minutes on the court is only one minor aspect of wear and tear. Dragic has had 4 more years of grueling pre-season camps, off-season workouts and tough practices...not to mention the father time factor you mention. No matter how you spin it, the typical NBA 30-year-old is much older than the typical 26-year-old, and on the downward slope of his career. I don't see Dragic is the answer for us.

Since Dragic had his rookie season 2008-9, he has had same amount of grueling NBA pre-season camps, off-season workouts and tough practices than Westbrook, one year less than Conley and two years less than Lowry. Even Curry and Harden have played only one year less in NBA. Of course Dragic played in Europe before that but playing there is not that grueling, which might explain why Manu Ginobili is still able to contribute in NBA at age of 39. Manu didn't start his NBA career before age 25.

Another aspect that Cam didn't even yet include to his post is that Dragic has much less postseason minutes and games than those others. Dragic has played 30 postseason games with just 709 total minutes. That means almost one season less compared to other players.

Westbrook: 82 games and 3094 minutes
Harden: 77 games and 2622 minutes
Curry: 58 games and 2233 minutes

I don't see that currently Dragic career would be already on downward slope, His current PER is 17.5 that is about same what it has been in last 5 years (with 13-14 season 21.4 as only exception).

I'm firmly on the fence with Dragic. I think the question is does he turn us into a top 5 team offensively because that's what we need to be to come out ahead IMO. I don't think the dropoff defensively would be huge because PGs can only do so much to impact that side of the ball. But we have very little room for error defensively and he certainly wouldn't help.

Mikkeman wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Camden wrote:Kemba Walker (age 26): 13,299 regular season minutes played

John Wall (age 26): 16,250 regular season minutes played

James Harden (age 27): 18,939 regular season minutes played

Steph Curry (age 28): 18,358 regular season minutes played

Russell Westbrook (age 28): 21,107 regular season minutes played

Mike Conley (age 29): 21,412 regular season minutes played

Kyle Lowry (age 30): 20,964 regular season minutes played

Goran Dragic (age 30): 16,302 regular season minutes played

For those that debate against the idea of acquiring Dragic and use his age as part of your supporting argument, take a look at this. The guy may be 30-years old, but his minutes total is closer to 26-year olds John Wall's and Kemba Walker's than players close to his age. Lowry, Conley, Curry, Westbrook and Harden all have more miles on their bodies and I'm 100% sure that every one of us would ignore their age when discussing whether or not we'd like to add them.

The mileage is significant, but father time is more significant. Fact is, regardless of how many minutes your've played, the body simply starts to decline with age. If you look back through history, you see that NBA players typically start to decline between ages 32-35 and declined very quickly at 35. There are exceptions, but not many. He's 8-9 years older than our core three. That's very significant.

Interesting research by Cam, but that was my exact thought when I read it, Lip. Minutes on the court is only one minor aspect of wear and tear. Dragic has had 4 more years of grueling pre-season camps, off-season workouts and tough practices...not to mention the father time factor you mention. No matter how you spin it, the typical NBA 30-year-old is much older than the typical 26-year-old, and on the downward slope of his career. I don't see Dragic is the answer for us.

Since Dragic had his rookie season 2008-9, he has had same amount of grueling NBA pre-season camps, off-season workouts and tough practices than Westbrook, one year less than Conley and two years less than Lowry. Even Curry and Harden have played only one year less in NBA. Of course Dragic played in Europe before that but playing there is not that grueling, which might explain why Manu Ginobili is still able to contribute in NBA at age of 39. Manu didn't start his NBA career before age 25.

Another aspect that Cam didn't even yet include to his post is that Dragic has much less postseason minutes and games than those others. Dragic has played 30 postseason games with just 709 total minutes. That means almost one season less compared to other players.

Westbrook: 82 games and 3094 minutes
Harden: 77 games and 2622 minutes
Curry: 58 games and 2233 minutes

I don't see that currently Dragic career would be already on downward slope, His current PER is 17.5 that is about same what it has been in last 5 years (with 13-14 season 21.4 as only exception).

All fair points, mikkeman, as are Cam's. But I still don't think we can ignore the fact that 26-29 are widely considered peak years for NBA players. Sure, there are exceptions, but generally you're going to get less from guys as they get into their 30s. My preference is still to let our young core grow into their peaks, rather than adding a poor defender who almost certainly is going to diminish in value as his years add up.

I'm with LST. He makes us better today, but incremental improvement isn't what interests me. Everything we do should be pointed toward the idea of being a title contender. If we were ready to contend today, I'd be all over bringing him to the Wolves.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I'm with LST. He makes us better today, but incremental improvement isn't what interests me. Everything we do should be pointed toward the idea of being a title contender. If we were ready to contend today, I'd be all over bringing him to the Wolves.

Right, I can empathize with that, but don't we need to take steps towards getting to that level of team? I don't see us going from bottom dweller to title contender over the course of one or two seasons. I think the addition of Dragic and a big capable of shifting Dieng to the bench firmly puts us in the playoffs and after that it's all progression. To me, that's a bit more than incremental. Making the playoffs would be a huge step for this franchise, especially our three 21(22)-year olds.