Minnesota Sports Forum

Despite all the criticisms the consistent message about Bazz was that he works his ass off in practice. I love that the young guys beat the starters in scrimmage yesterday. I think Williams and Bazz both feel they have a lot to prove. It will make our team better.

http://www.nba.com/timberwolves/news/training-camp-report-day-2-oct-2-2013

"Shabazz Muhammad has been garnering praise from veteran players as well as coach Rick Adelman and Flip Saunders. He's been facilitating the ball, not looking for his shot first, and he's been a model teammate on the court. When Robbie Hummel drew a foul and hit the floor midway through practice on Wednesday, Muhammad was the first person over to help him up. But the biggest thing Muhammad has done consistently is crash the offensive boards. Adelman said teams need to box him out, because he's been very aggressive in hitting the glass.

Perhaps K-Love put it best: "He listens--he has that good one year UCLA education."

Before Q eats any more hats, let's see this translate on the court for this team.

Once he does that, I have a ton of hats for Q to eat

WildWolf2813 wrote:Before Q eats any more hats, let's see this translate on the court for this team.

Once he does that, I have a ton of hats for Q to eat

Ha! I've always said that Shabazz's ticket to NBA success is as a role player, not a do-it-all star. He simply doesn't have the quickness or handles to be an alpha dog scorer. However, his rugged build and oft-cited "hunger" on the court could be channeled toward becoming a 3 & D hustle guy. Shane Battier, Keith Bogans, James Posey....Those should be the guys he models his game after.

All of that being said, I'm always skeptical about these early training camp reports. It's the classic honey-moon period. Everyone is coming in lighter; everyone's shot looks good; everyone has a great attitude, blah, blah, blah....

I am honestly more worried about the honeymoon comments about DWill then Shabazz. I think ShaBazz won't have the mental lapses that DWill have and can make decisions quicker. I think that will server him in the 3 & D role. He knows that this is his only way to get playing time on this team so I think he is committed to it.

I think the main thing that can be said about Shabazz at this point is that he is a definite level above the benchwarmers on the team. It is clear from what is being said that his talent and athleticism separates him from the bottom 4 of the lineup. Now whether that puts him in full rotation at this point remains to be seen. But from what I am hearing at this point it seems to say that he has NBA level talent. Now whether he really has the attitude and drive to improve and capitalize on that talent remains to be seen. As for just being a "hustle guy" (Posey, Battier, etc.) it seems to me that his offense has far great potential than many of those players. Whatever gets him on the court this early in his career is a positive sign though. If he can come in and get points with the second unit on putbacks and broken plays caused by JJ then great.

It is always funny how peoples' tune changes.

I set this thread up to facilitate a continuing discussion about the value of McCollum vs Muhammad (and Deing). One of the factors that might have entered into Flip's draft decision that has not been discussed in this thread reared its ugly head today...durability. Shabazz has not missed any significant time in HS or college, while McCollum missed most of his senior year with a broken foot. Unfortunately, he broke the same bone in practice, and is out indefinitely with surgery scheduled. Meanwhile, Muhammad is impressing everyone with his work ethic and relentless rebounding after the first week.

It's a long season, and hopefully a long career for these three guys, so there will be plenty of time to evaluate Flip's first draft. But as of today, he is looking pretty good.

McCollum's hurt... WE WIN! Group hug in the showers tonight!

Yes, I am bumping this thread to continue the discussion :shock: ...now with most of their rookie season behind them. First of all, draft success can only be truly evaluated after 3-4 years, so the jury is still out on Flip's draft. But I find it beneficial to revisit this topic periodically to evaluate Flip's first draft. After all, his second draft is coming up in about 3 months and unfortunately it looks like the Wolves will have a first rounder, so we want to know if we can feel confident going into this draft.

My opinion is unchanged...Flip did a masterful job in turning the 9th pick into Muhammad and Dieng. Frankly, the biggest black mark against him is that he wanted to draft KCP at 9 (I believe we know this, but I'm not 100% positive), because KCP has been a flop. But since the prevailing opinion of this forum at the time was that CJ was the best pick (support for the Greek Freak is pure hindsight), comparing CJ to Shabazz/Dieng is still the best way of evaluating Flip's draft, and to me the Wolves' pair of rookies > CJ.

CJ has actually performed better offensively than I expected, although he has experienced drop off in recent games. He has averaged 5.6 points per game on 41% shooting (36% on threes). But scoring is all he has contributed. Although he was a point guard in college, he really wasn't a very good distributor in college and it was apparent his NBA position would be SG, despite being undersized. His role with Portland has been almost exclusively as a shooter, because he has averaged only .7 assists per game.

But his real issue has been on defense, as he has neither the size or quickness to guard NBA SG's. And this has not gone unnoticed by Portland, resulting in decreased minutes for CJ (only 13 MPG his past five, and only 1.5 PPG). I have been surprised by his lack of quickness when I have tuned in to Portland games, but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he is still feeling the effects of breaking his foot twice in the last 2 years. However, this propensity for injury is another reason why CJ was a risky pick.

Like CJ, Shabazz and Gorgui came into the league with a reputation for excelling in only one facet of the game...scoring for Shabazz, and shot blocking for Gorgui. And despite the lack of minutes afforded them by the coach, they have both excelled in their areas of expertise...both ranking second among rookies per 48 minutes. Shabazz is averaging 22 points per 48, second only to MCW, and Gorgui is averaging 4.3 blocks per 48, second only to Gobert.

To have both of his first rounders end up near the top of the rookie crop in their most important stat seems like a real coup for Flip. Even with hindsight, it's hard to come up with one player available to Flip at 9 that has performed better or has more potential than the combo platter of Muhammad/Dieng. The only guys who even belong in the conversation are the Freak and Hardaway Jr., but in all fairness, neither was given much consideration at 9, or even 14, by most experts.

We're only one year in, and the only draft grade that I can honestly give Flip is an incomplete. But the early returns give me confidence that he can deliver in the much more attractive 2014 draft.