Minnesota Sports Forum

Yeah, it's a good observation Phenom. Part of the thrill of this past season was getting Ant and Jaden some pressure cooker exposure early in their career. That started with the Clipper play-in game and then continued with the Memphis series.

If we had stayed mostly pat this offseason, there was a chance we could be fighting like hell just to make the top six and avoid the play-in tournament again in a now healthy Western Conference.

Getting Gobert is absolutely a win-now move and helps reinforce a culture of high expectations and getting these young guys playoff reps! It's a refreshing change for a franchise that at times went to embarrassing lengths to tank for a higher draft pick.

D-Loser wrote:I think how you view DLo affects how you view this trade too. I would have preferred to leave our trade options open for either a PG or a big. A lot of you are good extending Dlo on a reasonable contract as a long term piece, leaving a big as your likely trade target. I would have waited to see how ant and jaden develop (and to a lesser degree Kessler, nowell and bolmaro) to see what position I wanted to target with the one big move. Maybe it's the next player like Murray, maybe it's Lonzo ball, maybe it's Ayton, who knows. We should have let our young guys develop this year and started looking at our big move next offseason.

- Not everything is about D'Angelo Russell. Currently, he's on an expiring contract and is far from a guarantee to remain in Minnesota after this season. This trade certainly impacts D-Lo, but he really has little to do with it.

- Most people here have either made it known that they want Russell traded during the off-season or think the Timberwolves should move on from him next summer. In reality, there's few people here who share my view that Minnesota should extend him so I wouldn't say there's a "lot." Some of those same people that want to move on from Russell are in favor of the Rudy Gobert trade, or at least don't hate it as much as you do.

- I'm not sure why you keep saying "one big move." Acquiring Gobert is a big move, but there's little reason to think that this is it over the next five years or so. They could pivot in any number of ways in the future should they choose to do so and that includes trading for another [different] star player.

D-Loser wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

D-Loser wrote:

Q-was-here wrote:

D-Mac wrote:

Q-was-here wrote:

Perfectdraft wrote:Sounds like many believe he will remain healthy and highly athletic over the next 4 years. I hope comes true. I will continue to root for it, despite feeling its very unlikely.

Have a great summer all...

Age of key bigs on recent Championship teams:

2022 - Draymond Green - 32
2021 - Brook Lopez - 33
2020 - Dwight Howard - 34
2019 - Marc Gasol - 34

Dirk was 32 when he won a title as Dallas' best player. Do you want me to go back to the Showtime Laker titles and their big man, Kareem Abdul Jabbar? He won his first title with the Lakers at age 33 and was only getting started!

In fact, the more I look at the data, the more I think it's almost a requirement that you have at least one age 30+ vet big man in the rotation!

Rudy Gobert will still be 30 during next year's playoffs.

How many of those teams over the last 4 years gave up the equivalent of 7-8 first round picks for those guys when they were 30? I can't believe you're really going to use THOSE 4 guys as examples of why we should go All In on a 30 year old Rudy Gobert. 2020 Dwight Howard is your justification for this being a good trade? He made 2.5 mil this year for the lakers. How long did Gasol last after 2019? I think you're only weakening your argument with these comparisons... so just keep posting and I'll grab some popcorn :)

Also gobert and dirk are polar opposites as players... hope you didn't pull a muscle on that reach.

As Cam said, that wasn't my point D-Loser. I was responding to Perfectdraft's concern about Gobert's age and potential declining athleticism and injury concerns. Obviously the last four winners of the NBA title had to rely on bigs older than Gobert is now by multiple years. And I think Gobert is better than all four of them, including Draymond Green.

But I think you were playing dumb, as you are wont to do, just so that you could natter on about what a bad trade it was.

Are you guys a tag team or something? I mean you're both good posters, but I really think you're both wrong on this. Yep, I get what you're saying, I think Gobert could (and better) still be on the level of those 4 guys in 4 years, but what's your point? 5 years from now we're going to have to extend a declining big man just to justify the fact that we just lost our unprotected pick (2027) for the terrible trade we made for him 5 years earlier. It sure would be nice to draft some cheap talent at this point, to put around ant, jaden and kat. Meanwhile in Utah, Kessler has developed into a fringe all star in 2028. Yeah maybe this doesn't happen, but maybe all of our picks don't land in the late 20's either. The timing was bad on this trade (ant and jaden aren't ready) and so was the age of the guy we acquired (at least for the price we paid) But TC and ownership shoved a square peg into a round hole and I think the fan base is going to regret it later.

I mean let's look at it another way too... we likely only get ONE shot at adding another star (via free agency or trade) during the entire prime years of Ant, Jaden and Kat, and TC decided to blow it all right away. On this. I mean this is truly pathetic. It's not necessarily about losing 4 picks that might be in the 20's... what it's really about is not saving these assets for the right deal. This is irresponsible, impatient, lazy and yes, idiotic.

I'm curious if the Wolves did the deal for what you laid out as not an overpay or let's even say a 1 draft pick less than that you wouldn't want Gobert or is it just the price paid?

I like gobert and I kinda like the idea of starting another big next to kat, so I guess it's just the price. If gobert was 26, I'd say sure lets go for it. But he's not. I just think it's a massive overpay for a 30 year old gobert (making 40-50 mil/year over the next 4 years).

Thanks for answering. The age and money is why I wouldn't have done the deal either. However as I have posted examples of other deals I would not have done have worked out well for their teams including the Warriors giving up what seemed like quite. About at that time to sign a 29 year old Iggy. I'm generally a bit risk adverse and I LOVE value. I also have to admit to myself that sometimes I should be more aggressive. Sometimes quality is better than quality as well and known quality instead of the unknown. I think I said when a Gobert trade was being discussed that if I knew Gobert would stay healthy for the next 3-4 years I would be much more into the deal and be willing to spend the money on Gobert. I wouldn't have been willing to pay this price but I would have been more on board. Every move or not making a move does have risks and consequences both good and bad.

I do think that sometimes Gobert is underrated in terms of how much he is valued. I am guilty of this as well.

What I think what could make this deal succeed aside from obviously Gobert being a really good player for the length of his contract and possibly very good fit on the team is if Connelly correctly evaluated and kept (and able to keep) the right players on the roster and adding Gobert also helps make those players better. I'm not just talking about edwards or Towns or McDaniels but also Nowell or Moore or even Naz Reid or Minott... I know Russell is really polarizing but let's just say for fun Connelly was right to keep him around. And to be clear on this theoretical idea is because Russell is actually awesome but because he is actually a reasonably good basketball player and also a pretty decent human. Connelly has more info on that stuff than we do although if someone searched this forum for Russell posts they may think we collectively know an absolute ton about Russell! Lol :) I'm not saying Connelly is keeping Russell for sure (seems like Russell is here for now though but if he got traded a few months or even weeks from now I would not be shocked either) or that he is absolutely right to do so or even Moore etc but if he does get his evaluation right on many of the guys still on the roster then the worry about losing all those draft picks may not be as big of a deal. He may also be able to move someone for value at some point which he has been able to do in his previous job at Denver.

I tend to get over some of the moves that I disagree with more quickly than others. I'm more interested in moving forward. As many terrible decisions as the Wolves Franchise has made the past number of years they are in a pretty good position at this point. That's the beauty of sports (and sometimes even life) is that there is a chance to still succeed despite making poor decisions. I still think Connelly even if he gave up draft picks like Candy is a good talent evaluator until proven otherwise. Finch seems to be a really good coach and one that isn't just a system guy but one that is more about adapting to his players while connecting with them but also actually holding them accountable. It's not hard to imagine Lore and Arod being better ownership than Glen Taylor. It's not all butterflies and cotton candy or whatever but it does feel like that the Wolves are far from a joke now. I'm trying to get how that feels but I'm not sure I am used to it. :)

There is some really great discussion here. Lip - I really liked your comment on Groupthink potentially driving poor decisions in deal-making. I think there are probably a lot of cognitive biases driving our judgements on this deal. I find it really interesting trying to value what we actually gave up in this deal.

It seems that other sports are a bit more quant-based in terms of valuing draft picks. The NFL has a number of draft charts that show an exponentially increasing value of draft picks the higher they go. Australian Rules football has similar. In the NFL, it's a general rule of thumb that a future pick is worth around 1 round less than a current pick (i.e. trade a future 2nd to get a current 3rd). I think there are some inefficiencies in those systems as well, but I think there is some value we can use in considering the Wolves deal for Gobert.

I don't think anyone is too concerned about the players we gave up. There has been some discussion that they could have been used in other value generating trades, but I think we all agree that they carried a relatively low value. So it seems to come down to giving up the 5 first round picks (inc Kessler). It's very easy to see that and think it's a huge amount to give up, but that instinct may be driven by some common biases we have. Our tendency to be over-optimistic probably overvalues late picks. Our tendency to think in linear rather than exponential means we probably overvalue late picks relative to early ones. Our tendency called the availability heuristic means we overvalue examples that we can think of easily. Eg. Rudy Gobert was the 27th pick in the draft and therefore late round picks can be great successes - but I can't remember all of the other 27th picks that failed so we tend to overvalue later picks based on what we can recall.

So what were our 5 draft picks actually worth? Of course it depends on where we finish in future years. But if they are relatively low picks (which we should reasonably project given the roster now), the cumulative value of 5 later draft picks is likely much lower than what we may intuitively feel.

D-Loser wrote:

jester1534 wrote:Starting line up in 2020 to open the season

Josh Okogie
Karl-Anthony Towns
Malik Beasley
DLO
Jake Layman (Love those baby Blues)

And we're arguing that 2022 Gobert trade is too much enjoy the ride and hope McDaniels and Ant become the stars we need them to be.

Do you just want to be decent or do you want to have an extended championship window? I just feel like we really screwed up the timing, but I'll hope I'm wrong once the season rolls around.

Considering since I was in my teenagers we've made the playoffs twice. I would rather watch good basketball with a chance of winning it all. I guess my point was just two years ago this team wasn't even close. Now they've a starting 5 that will last next 4 years and we complain about it.

Q-was-here wrote:Yeah, it's a good observation Phenom. Part of the thrill of this past season was getting Ant and Jaden some pressure cooker exposure early in their career. That started with the Clipper play-in game and then continued with the Memphis series.

If we had stayed mostly pat this offseason, there was a chance we could be fighting like hell just to make the top six and avoid the play-in tournament again in a now healthy Western Conference.

Getting Gobert is absolutely a win-now move and helps reinforce a culture of high expectations and getting these young guys playoff reps! It's a refreshing change for a franchise that at times went to embarrassing lengths to tank for a higher draft pick.

Not trying to be difficult, but a lot of the experts still have us fighting like hell to get into the top 6 now. I think before the trade we would have been picked 8-10. Im thinking somewhere between 4-6 now, but I wouldn't be shocked to see us still be 7. Who knows, we could finish top 3, but I just don't see enough consistency in our guard play.

D-Mac wrote:

Q-was-here wrote:Yeah, it's a good observation Phenom. Part of the thrill of this past season was getting Ant and Jaden some pressure cooker exposure early in their career. That started with the Clipper play-in game and then continued with the Memphis series.

If we had stayed mostly pat this offseason, there was a chance we could be fighting like hell just to make the top six and avoid the play-in tournament again in a now healthy Western Conference.

Getting Gobert is absolutely a win-now move and helps reinforce a culture of high expectations and getting these young guys playoff reps! It's a refreshing change for a franchise that at times went to embarrassing lengths to tank for a higher draft pick.

Not trying to be difficult, but a lot of the experts still have us fighting like hell to get into the top 6 now. I think before the trade we would have been picked 8-10. Im thinking somewhere between 4-6 now, but I wouldn't be shocked to see us still be 7. Who knows, we could finish top 3, but I just don't see enough consistency in our guard play.

If the Wolves don't finish in the top 5 next season, then that's a bad look for Connelly and this deal unless the Wolves advance at least past the first round. If the wolves finish 6th or 7th that would be a REALLY bad look. Finch repeatedly said that our youngest players, Ant, McDaniels and Nowell, were keys to having a successful season. Edwards and McDaniels are particularly young. Are they both ready to take a big step forward? If so, and if KAT and Gobert remain relatively healthy all season, then this should be a really good team.

If I were going to trade this package for anyone, it would be to get Chet here.

Shumway wrote:There is some really great discussion here. Lip - I really liked your comment on Groupthink potentially driving poor decisions in deal-making. I think there are probably a lot of cognitive biases driving our judgements on this deal. I find it really interesting trying to value what we actually gave up in this deal.

It seems that other sports are a bit more quant-based in terms of valuing draft picks. The NFL has a number of draft charts that show an exponentially increasing value of draft picks the higher they go. Australian Rules football has similar. In the NFL, it's a general rule of thumb that a future pick is worth around 1 round less than a current pick (i.e. trade a future 2nd to get a current 3rd). I think there are some inefficiencies in those systems as well, but I think there is some value we can use in considering the Wolves deal for Gobert.

I don't think anyone is too concerned about the players we gave up. There has been some discussion that they could have been used in other value generating trades, but I think we all agree that they carried a relatively low value. So it seems to come down to giving up the 5 first round picks (inc Kessler). It's very easy to see that and think it's a huge amount to give up, but that instinct may be driven by some common biases we have. Our tendency to be over-optimistic probably overvalues late picks. Our tendency to think in linear rather than exponential means we probably overvalue late picks relative to early ones. Our tendency called the availability heuristic means we overvalue examples that we can think of easily. Eg. Rudy Gobert was the 27th pick in the draft and therefore late round picks can be great successes - but I can't remember all of the other 27th picks that failed so we tend to overvalue later picks based on what we can recall.

So what were our 5 draft picks actually worth? Of course it depends on where we finish in future years. But if they are relatively low picks (which we should reasonably project given the roster now), the cumulative value of 5 later draft picks is likely much lower than what we may intuitively feel.

Had to look up Australian Rules football, watched youtube video explain the rules and that looks like a fun sport. Thanks for mentioning it, I had never heard of it before.

The 5 players traded had value along with the four 1st round draft picks. I thought it was an overpay, the main reason being Kessler in the trade. If he pans out as a defensive difference making center in the NBA, then we paid way to much. Also consider Kessler's 4.6 blocks per game last year while averaging 25.6 mins. That performance while in the SEC is impressive.

Take Gobert's age, salary, and report that it was either him or Mitchell and there disdain for one another and you have to wonder how many years will Gobert perform at a high level? Can you build a championship roster paying two centers all that money? Does KAT get exposed at PF? Just a different view point, but I think we over payed with no competition in the Gobert sweepstakes.

All that said and I still like Gobert in MN and can see your point of us overvaluing later picks based on what we recall.

Another reason why I like this trade. From the 2013 draft so nine years only 1 player is on the team that drafted him and that is Giannis. 1 player out of 60 might play a decade with 1 team. We don't live in the era of players sticking together for decades. The warriors are the exception. When you feel like you have talent you go for it in my opinion.

Sure the wolves could not of done this trade and kept drafting players been around picks 12 to 24, Kat gets frustrated with not getting out of the 1st round. Asks out in 2 years. Wolves then need to try and rebuild when Ant is on a max. We are in year 5 of Ant, no Kat or second star and Ant wants out and all of a sudden wolves suck again because we kept living in good but not great.

Playing it safe might of worked out but it could of gone really bad also.

In the era of the player empowerment when you have talent you should go for it because they can ask out at anytime and you suck again