Minnesota Sports Forum

I agree that Gasol is a good comparison for Towns in terms of size, rebounding, defense and passing, but he also has Nowitzki type range on his jumper


If we got lucky, had the first pick and it was up to me? Towns. We are a project team in full rebuild mode. Draft potential

Towns is on ESPN, as is Cauley-Stein. I like both of them a lot.

Wow, Towns is long and athletic. Defensive ability is off the charts, and surprised me with some solid post moves. Sweeping hook was a thing of beauty. If he shows an ability to score in a consistent manner, he will be hard to pass up at #1. Love Okafor as well, but Towns has the legit body and defensive skills to anchor a defense. That said, Okafor is just so smooth....really impressive player. This class looks legit early on.

Cauley-Stein really really sucks at freethrows or else I would like him alot also

Well, based on Pek's balky health and Dieng's uncertainty as a legit starting C (we'll know more after this season), it's good to know that there are some promising big men in the upcoming draft.

Geez, it's early to be evaluating high lotto picks! All of you who thought we were going to win 35+ games have obviously jumped off that bandwagon quickly....

Q12543 wrote:Well, based on Pek's balky health and Dieng's uncertainty as a legit starting C (we'll know more after this season), it's good to know that there are some promising big men in the upcoming draft.

Geez, it's early to be evaluating high lotto picks! All of you who thought we were going to win 35+ games have obviously jumped off that bandwagon quickly....

1. I'm always paying heavy attention to draft classes (in NBA and NFL), with or without my team having a high pick. It's just the fun in evaluating a talent, forming your own opinion on them and watching them prove you right (or wrong).

2. I think everyone's just feeling the dark cloud over this team since Rubio went down. He's the guy that makes this team competitive. I predicted 42 wins. You predicted 20 something wins if I recall correctly. Neither of us had Rubio rolling his ankle severely in the equation. Small sample size, but those four or so games with Ricky showed why I was high on this team's potential for this year. The pieces fit well with each other, and were somewhat clicking. It's all for not when the best player goes down, though.

Rubio is the clear difference maker in the W/L column.

Q12543 wrote:Well, based on Pek's balky health and Dieng's uncertainty as a legit starting C (we'll know more after this season), it's good to know that there are some promising big men in the upcoming draft.

Geez, it's early to be evaluating high lotto picks! All of you who thought we were going to win 35+ games have obviously jumped off that bandwagon quickly....

Pretty easy jump when we lose our best player for what looks to be a couple of months!

Camden wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Well, based on Pek's balky health and Dieng's uncertainty as a legit starting C (we'll know more after this season), it's good to know that there are some promising big men in the upcoming draft.

Geez, it's early to be evaluating high lotto picks! All of you who thought we were going to win 35+ games have obviously jumped off that bandwagon quickly....

1. I'm always paying heavy attention to draft classes (in NBA and NFL), with or without my team having a high pick. It's just the fun in evaluating a talent, forming your own opinion on them and watching them prove you right (or wrong).

2. I think everyone's just feeling the dark cloud over this team since Rubio went down. He's the guy that makes this team competitive. I predicted 42 wins. You predicted 20 something wins if I recall correctly. Neither of us had Rubio rolling his ankle severely in the equation. Small sample size, but those four or so games with Ricky showed why I was high on this team's potential for this year. The pieces fit well with each other, and were somewhat clicking. It's all for not when the best player goes down, though.

Rubio is the clear difference maker in the W/L column.

Yeah, I agree with this take 100%. I assume that we are talking about Towns, Okafor and the PG playing in China as merely a discussion of relative talent, not as potential Wolves. We may not win more than a couple games with Rubio out, but we looked like a 45-win team when he was playing, and if he comes back by early January (not unlikely) we're still going to win 35. Come next June I expect us to be drafting somewhere in the 7-12 range.

That said, I really like Towns, and it looks like Calipari isn't going to be afraid of playing him next to Cauley-Smith. Kentucky looks really scary this year. But Okafor is setting a new standard for consistency and efficiency...9-10, 8-10 and 8-10 in his first three games!

LST, I hate to break it to you, but this team is not winning 35 games.

Yes, Rubio is their most important player, but Ricky Rubio is not LeBron James or Kevin Durant or even Chris Paul. He is not good enough to make, say, a 15-20 game difference in wins and losses by himself. If he was as good as you say he is, the combination of him and Love (a top 10 player in his own right) would have won 50+ games last season.

I love Ricky as much as everyone here, but this roster was constructed like a house of cards. We all knew injuries are an inevitable part of the game and that some of our better players (like Pek and Martin) were injury-prone. It was only a matter of time before we would have to rely too much on 1st and 2nd year players - it just happened a bit earlier in the season than we all thought - but it was going to happen eventually. It would have been unbelievably lucky for our vets to stay healthy for the entire season. And once you have to rely on rookies and 2nd year guys to carry the load, you're in trouble.

At this point, I would be giddy with the 25 wins I originally predicted. I'm afraid that's in jeopardy too....

I hope you're right, q, because I would much rather be drafting 3rd than 10th, but I think the only way this club doesn't win 35 is if Rubio is out much longer than the 2 months I'm expecting. Look at the four games we played with him. We beat the two teams we should have beaten (Brooklyn and Detroit, although Brooklyn does have a winning record at home) and our only losses were to Chicago at home (they're 6-0 on the road) and Memphis on their court (where they are also 6-0). Pretty extraordinary results for a team that was expected to struggle early getting used to new rotations and a new coach and system. Maybe they were playing out of their heads, but to me they looked pretty consistent in all four of those games. Given that it was reasonable to project improvement during the year from all their rookies and second year players, I'm convinced they would have easily put up 45 wins. But that discussion is academic...we will never know.

But you can't discount the impact Rubio has on this team. As I pointed out a week ago, Rubio's percentage of "productive passes" (essentially passes that eventually end up in a score) stood far above the rest of the PG's in the league. Point guards ranked second through ninth were all clustered around a similar percentage, and Rubio was an island siting by himself statistically significantly above them. The only reason the offense has been productive since Ricky went down is because we are getting blown out so badly we get a lot of garbage time points.

But the most incredible difference has been on defense, as defensive stats before and after the ankle injury are absurdly different. Our opponents' offense starts with PG penetration, and Ricky is so much better at disrupting that than Zach and Mo. Zach and Mo's ineffective defense early in the possession puts our defense in scramble mode, and our help defense just isn't good enough to be effective in that mode. Our defense without Ricky is a joke.

I see the Wolves at 8-23 by the end of the calendar year playing without Ricky...not very good at all. But I see them playing the same .500 ball they played in the first four games the rest of the season after he returns, and that gets them close to 35 wins. If Ricky isn't ready to play in early January, all bets are off. But this club has a completely different identity when he is on the court. Again, I hope your prediction is correct because it would be nice to add one more very good piece to this young, talented roster, but I don't see it happening.