Minnesota Sports Forum

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

Brooklyn_Wolves wrote:

thedoper wrote:I'm still not hearing any legit alternatives about where we would be now without a Butler trade. Offering Lavine a max with the 9th or 10th pick? Yuck. How that is a more optimistic is silly.

how about you fucking draft Donovan Mitchell with that pick.? How's that for a future. But you need competent people in charge, like a GM with an actual vision beyond winning the next game.

This post brings down the hammer. Game, set, match.

Agreed!!!

Brooklyn_Wolves wrote:

thedoper wrote:I'm still not hearing any legit alternatives about where we would be now without a Butler trade. Offering Lavine a max with the 9th or 10th pick? Yuck. How that is a more optimistic is silly.

how about you fucking draft Donovan Mitchell with that pick.? How's that for a future. But you need competent people in charge, like a GM with an actual vision beyond winning the next game.

Yes travel back in time, see the future and pick Mitchell where no one had him ranked. Still about emotions and not logic. Great point. Doesn't answer where we'd be now with Lauri, Lavine, and Dunn. Unless you were the only one on this board calling for Mitchell at that spot.

I think drafting a defensive PG with Ricky Rubio and Kris Dunn on the team really would have gone over well on this board. Get out of here. That's one of the bigger BS hindsight arguments we've had on here. Literally zero roster fit as well as a reach with BPA given everyone's big boards at the time.

khans2k5 wrote:I think drafting a defensive PG with Ricky Rubio and Kris Dunn on the team really would have gone over well on this board. Get out of here. That's one of the bigger BS hindsight arguments we've had on here.

I know no one was calling for Mitchell on this board. People are just letting their emotions take over rational thinking.

The fucking Thibs was reportedly intrigued by Mitchell pre draft. I liked Mitchell myself, but I don't post here. But no, I didn't think he would be so good so fast. I had him over players like Smith Jr and Markannen,

khans2k5 wrote:I think drafting a defensive PG with Ricky Rubio and Kris Dunn on the team really would have gone over well on this board. Get out of here. That's one of the bigger BS hindsight arguments we've had on here. Literally zero roster fit as well as a reach with BPA given everyone's big boards at the time.

He was/is an undersized defensive SG and made sense with LaVine being out with ACL. He also has potential at PG so he could be eventual replacement for Rubio. Mitchell made sense and Thibs liked him. But Thibs is a fat moron and blew it.

Butler is not taking Wolves anywhere. He's an injury prone 30 y. old. He's either going to leave or sign a super max deal that will anchor the wolves once 50 game seasons become a norm for him.

khans2k5 wrote:I think drafting a defensive PG with Ricky Rubio and Kris Dunn on the team really would have gone over well on this board. Get out of here. That's one of the bigger BS hindsight arguments we've had on here. Literally zero roster fit as well as a reach with BPA given everyone's big boards at the time.

I'll admit I didn't have Mitchell on my list to draft at #7. But the Jazz front office obviously put a high value on him since they didn't just draft him, but also traded up to get him. Using the hindsight argument to defend an NBA front office is pretty lame. This isn't a contest between the prospect evaluation skills of the Wolves front office and rubes on a message board. Thibodeau and Layden are paid a lot of money to make these decisions. They have information and resources we don't have, including a bevy of professional scouts. It's more than fair to look back and criticize our highly paid experts who head the Wolves organization for failing to make optimal decisions. The Warriors didn't become what they've become by accident. They drafted Curry at #6, Thompson at #11 and Draymond Green at #35. The Celtics drafted Tatum, Brown, Smart and Rozier.

If we want excellence on the court, we need excellence in the front office. The fact that rubes like us on this message board weren't any smarter than the professionals who run the Wolves basketball operations is NOT a persuasive defense of our front office mediocrity.

lipoli390 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:I think drafting a defensive PG with Ricky Rubio and Kris Dunn on the team really would have gone over well on this board. Get out of here. That's one of the bigger BS hindsight arguments we've had on here. Literally zero roster fit as well as a reach with BPA given everyone's big boards at the time.

I'll admit I didn't have Mitchell on my list to draft at #7. But the Jazz front office obviously put a high value on him since they didn't just draft him, but also traded up to get him. Using the hindsight argument to defend an NBA front office is pretty lame. This isn't a contest between the prospect evaluation skills of the Wolves front office and rubes on a message board. Thibodeau and Layden are paid a lot of money to make these decisions. They have information and resources we don't have, including a bevy of professional scouts. It's more than fair to look back and criticize our highly paid experts who head the Wolves organization for failing to make optimal decisions. The Warriors didn't become what they've become by accident. They drafted Curry at #6, Thompson at #11 and Draymond Green at #35. The Celtics drafted Tatum, Brown, Smart and Rozier.

If we want excellence on the court, we need excellence in the front office. The fact that rubes like us on this message board weren't any smarter than the professionals who run the Wolves basketball operations is NOT a persuasive defense of our front office mediocrity.

Using a hindsight argument to blame a front office would make you fire every GM in the league. There are 26 teams in the league that should have Gobert as their Center. There are tons of teams that would have loved our mediocre 16 win improvement last year. I'll take tangible improvement over fantasy time travel scenarios any day.

lipoli390 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:I think drafting a defensive PG with Ricky Rubio and Kris Dunn on the team really would have gone over well on this board. Get out of here. That's one of the bigger BS hindsight arguments we've had on here. Literally zero roster fit as well as a reach with BPA given everyone's big boards at the time.

I'll admit I didn't have Mitchell on my list to draft at #7. But the Jazz front office obviously put a high value on him since they didn't just draft him, but also traded up to get him. Using the hindsight argument to defend an NBA front office is pretty lame. This isn't a contest between the prospect evaluation skills of the Wolves front office and rubes on a message board. Thibodeau and Layden are paid a lot of money to make these decisions. They have information and resources we don't have, including a bevy of professional scouts. It's more than fair to look back and criticize our highly paid experts who head the Wolves organization for failing to make optimal decisions. The Warriors didn't become what they've become by accident. They drafted Curry at #6, Thompson at #11 and Draymond Green at #35. The Celtics drafted Tatum, Brown, Smart and Rozier.

If we want excellence on the court, we need excellence in the front office. The fact that rubes like us on this message board weren't any smarter than the professionals who run the Wolves basketball operations is NOT a persuasive defense of our front office mediocrity.

It's not just rubes on this board. No NBA experts had Mitchell over Smith Jr. Nobody had Mitchell for the top 7. There's a reason he dropped and it's because a bunch of other teams and league experts didn't put him at the top. It's unfair to blame a front office for not finding the diamond in the rough nobody else predicted. You're basically saying our front office needs to be better than everyone else's and that's not fair. The truth is if we take Mitchell and it fails like it very well could have given how Dunn's first year went as a barometer you all would have been at Thibs throat for drafting a defensive PG on this team. He can't win either way and that's just not a reasonable stance.

Very few here despise Thibs as a coach as much as I do, but I tend to side with the Thibs supporters in evaluating the Butler deal. Butler (and Gibson, also to POBO Thibs' credit) were the reason the Wolves overcame Coach Thibs' dinosaur-like coaching and improved so many wins this year, and POBO Thibs deserves credit for that. I liked the Butler deal at the time, and I still love it with hindsight. You win with stars in the NBA, and getting one star in exchange for 3 guys who I think will always be mediocre is a home run in my opinion. I have to side with Doper and Khans (and maybe others) who don't see drafting Mitchell as a viable possibility. Yes, Utah's front office did a great job in drafting him at 13, but 11 other GMs other than Thibs (and everyone here on this board) passed on him before that. Look at his mediocre college stats...as great as he has been in the pros, his college stats point to a late first round pick. I give Thibs a pass on this one.