Minnesota Sports Forum

Okogie starting over Culver -- even with the year of experience Okogie has -- just doesn't feel right to me. Ideally, we would have added a veteran, but if this is really all we have, I think Culver has a good chance at taking that job.

Rosas' strategy: rebuild without telling Towns it's a rebuild

If they trade Covington and other top vets for future assets I doubt that would sit well with KAT. He's going to want a team that will at least compete on a nightly basis, not a team that will be expecting to lose most nights.

He might not be to attached to Covington since he was injured most of last year.

KAT seems like a reasonable guy. If he understands and you sell him on the plan I think he will be fine.

I don't know how easy it is for any 5th year "star" to be be told the team is re-building from scratch.

I imagine it could be even tougher for a 5th year star who is already being blamed (and subsequently losing tens of millions of potential earnings) for all the losing...

Remember, the Wolves losing record is THE reason Towns didn't make All NBA. To tell him that the team is going to get even worse? I guess with a 5-year deal there's not too much Towns can do about it... even in today's player entitlement era.

But it's far from an ideal situation.

Lets take a bit of a look at the Wolves 3 point shooting with guys that played last year and guys that will be playing this year. Shooting is something the team obviously needed to address and nobody is feeling super awesome about that but where are we at?

Improvements from player health:

Covington played 22 games for this team and hit 55 3's which was 6th on the team. If he plays say 66 games that's a pretty big addition in the shooting dept.

Teague doesn't shoot them enough but he takes them at a high rate than Rose and Tyus...yeah that not saying much but its a little something.

Incoming vs outgoing

The Wolves lost some volume 3 point shooting guys in Saric Tolliver and when he played Bayless. They are bringing in a higher volume guy in Napier, Layman got up a solid amount and Vonleh took about half as many 3's as Saric in similar minutes. Graham increased his volume and his percentages went down. Who else left though? Taj and Rose combined for 5 3 pointers made after December even though they missed a bunch of games thats not good. Bell coming in is a non-shooter.

Young players???

Culver is coming in and is likely to get minutes. Will he take more 3's than guys he is replacing? I'd guess he gets up 3's at a higher rate than Rose did. What about if KBD plays some legit minutes? Will he get up 3's at a simlar rate as guys like Deng or maybe not a big drop off from Tolliver's rate? What about Okogie getting up more and maybe making like 30%? Will Vonleh let them fly at a little higher rate than last year? more long term developmental guys...Nowell was good shooter in college he just wasn't a big volume guy. Naz Reid likely won't play much but he looks to be a shooter. Their could be some guys in the pipleline and we may get another 2-way player yet.

To me the Wolves didn't really address their 3 point shooting with any awesome moves but they brought in some guys that take them and the totality may add up to at least a higher volume across the board than the guys they had before. Bell and Wallace are the non-shooters and Wallace likely won't play a ton of minutes if he is even on the team or their are injuries which...means things likely have gone awry anyway. IF the Wolves coaching and system actually get guys to get up shots that's the biggest difference but what I see is a roster of guys at least capable of getting up 3's with just a couple exceptions. Will they hit those 3's at any kind of decent rate? Yeah...idk but I think I can see a bit of the plan here especially since basically all the guys other than Layman seem to be solid to positives on the defensive end. As much as this team needed shooting defense was a pretty big problem too. Hopefully coaching and systems us move in the right direction in both areas.

I will add on to what Monster stated:

First - we were in the bottom 5 in 3p taken, and in the top 5 in mid-range shots taken. If the summer league is any indication of what we can expect (irrespective to the players on the roster) we should see a dramatic switch - it's not like the shooting % can get worse - we were not good at shooting long twos anyway so why not take more threes and spread the defense out more.

Its clear Rosa has brought in (for the most part) players that shoot 3s and we let go of ones that didnt (Saric and Tolliver being the exceptions - both backups).

The other major issue for our team is allowing 3 point shots - we were bad at this - really bad. So the other team took more and made way more 3 pointers - allowing them to play set defenses and #math have a better eFG%.

The players and concept being adopted by Rosa is more dynamic and defensive players. This is slightly different then what Hou does - so maybe Rosa recognizes what Hou's biggest issue is and is putting his own spin on what a championship team looks like. 3 wings that can play switch Def and shoot 3s. I dont think Teague fits this mold and must be his biggest issue going into the season (his 3p rate and ability to play effective switch def).

Rosa keeps saying we are not done making moves - what PG can he get that can play switch Def and shoot high 3's at a high rate?

I think Covington, Culver, Okogie, and Towns all have the ability (bbiq and handle) to play a ball movement off - which is what we are seeing in vegas. A ball movement off would differ from what Rosa had in Hou.

So those 3 things alone should be significant improvements for us:
Shoot more 3s instead of long 2s
Play switch def and emphasis stopping the 3, the switch is specifically designed to stop this
And play more movement-oriented basketball to setup 3s and dribble drives into the paint

WildWolf2813 wrote:Rosas' strategy: rebuild without telling Towns it's a rebuild

I think you nailed it there Wild

Wolves are hiring Max Lefevre what was Texas Tech's director of player development. If he had a hand in finding and turning 3 star recruits into NBA 1st round picks like he did with Zaire Smith and Culver then its a pretty awesome move. It's also probably nice for Culver to have a familiar face in the organization. Also I'm just looking back and Chris Beard's coaching record...its pretty impressive.

https://twitter.com/JonKrawczynski/status/1149046890115166208

apollotsg wrote:
Its clear Rosa has brought in (for the most part) players that shoot 3s and we let go of ones that didnt (Saric and Tolliver being the exceptions - both backups).

I like your points in general in that post, but is that accurate?

Out

Saric, 38% on 3.7 attempts per game last year
Rose, 37% on 2.9 attempts per game last year
Tolliver, 38% on 3.3 attempts per game last year
Cam Reynolds, 42% on 2.7 attempts per game last year
Taj, 32%
Tyus, 32%

In
Jarrett Culver, 38% 3FG% as freshman and 30% as sophomore
Shabazz Napier, career 35% career
Jay Nowell, 35% 3FG% as freshman and 44% as sophomore on 3.2 attempts per game
Noah Vonleh, career 32% 3FG%, max 2 3PA per game last year
Jake Layman, career 30% 3FG%, up to 32.6% last year on 2.5 attempts per game
Jordan Bell, has shot only 6 3PA in his career, career 65% FT%
Ty Wallace, career 24% 3FG%, 53% FT% last year

Seems like there are good shooters and bad shooters both going out and coming in, although I'd say overall we took a step back in terms of 3PT shooting. Saric, Tolliver, and Reynolds helped, and I think they could have shot more if the offense demanded it.

As for the group coming in, two of the key shooters we're relying on coming in are our rookies, Culver and Nowell. While Nowell showed some promise last year that suggests he could become a real deep threat for us to stretch the floor with, Culver's shot is more suspect. Shabazz Napier has more experience, but do we really want him on the floor?

Getting Covington back should help, although he has had bad shooting stretches in his career. Okogie REALLY has to improve this area of his game.

The analysis on the 3PT shooting in this thread has been interesting. Keep it up.