Minnesota Sports Forum

D-Mac wrote:

WolvesFan21 wrote:Can we trade DLO for Zach please?

Apparently not, since Camden said no (haha)...

Yeah the Bulls want nothing to with that trade. We'd have to throw in a couple 1sts. Thanks Thibs and Rosas.

Q12543 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Tyrese Haliburton had 23 points, 5 rebounds and 9 assists tonight. In my view, he's clearly established himself as #2 behind LaMello Ball for ROY honors.

The Celtics lost to the Mavs tonight. The Celtics are not 15-16. I wonder if Brad Stevens might find himself unemployed after this season - or may earlier. I'm not sure what's going on the the Celtics, but I still think Stevens is a really good head coach. If the Celtics fire him after this season, the Wolves won't be pursing him. Rosas already has his guy - someone who "shares his philosophy."

Stevens isn't going anywhere... unless there's a lot of unreported drama behind the scenes.

He's made 3 ECFs in 4 seasons... it's a goofy Covid season. They lost Hayward for nothing. Smart is out. Walker has struggled.

Walker has hit that age 30 mark where it seems like a lot of PGs really start to decline - Westbrook, Teague, and Rubio being three others off the top of my head.

I kind of saw some slippage in Milwaukee last night, despite the blowout. May be it was because they were playing us, but I was not impressed by their defense. I thought the recent games against the Knicks and Lakers were big contrasts in terms of defensive intensity by the opponent.

Bottom line is that Philly seems like the most well-rounded team in the conference and Brooklyn can probably just outscore anyone they play. Not sure if Milwaukee or Boston quite have enough juice this year to win the East.

I thought defensively in the first half they were really poor or lacking intensity. We had wide open looks for most of the half and our guys mostly took advantage.

I think maybe you can say they were playing down to the competition a bit. I mean we do have the worst record in the league. Then they turned it on and decided to blow us out.

Q12543 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Tyrese Haliburton had 23 points, 5 rebounds and 9 assists tonight. In my view, he's clearly established himself as #2 behind LaMello Ball for ROY honors.

The Celtics lost to the Mavs tonight. The Celtics are not 15-16. I wonder if Brad Stevens might find himself unemployed after this season - or may earlier. I'm not sure what's going on the the Celtics, but I still think Stevens is a really good head coach. If the Celtics fire him after this season, the Wolves won't be pursing him. Rosas already has his guy - someone who "shares his philosophy."

Stevens isn't going anywhere... unless there's a lot of unreported drama behind the scenes.

He's made 3 ECFs in 4 seasons... it's a goofy Covid season. They lost Hayward for nothing. Smart is out. Walker has struggled.

Walker has hit that age 30 mark where it seems like a lot of PGs really start to decline - Westbrook, Teague, and Rubio being three others off the top of my head.

I kind of saw some slippage in Milwaukee last night, despite the blowout. May be it was because they were playing us, but I was not impressed by their defense. I thought the recent games against the Knicks and Lakers were big contrasts in terms of defensive intensity by the opponent.

Bottom line is that Philly seems like the most well-rounded team in the conference and Brooklyn can probably just outscore anyone they play. Not sure if Milwaukee or Boston quite have enough juice this year to win the East.

As I've mentioned, I'm a lifelong Celtics fan via my dad (pre-Wolves).

And I liked Hayward before he went to Boston. And I liked Walker before he went to Boston.

Let's just say the past three years have been sort of conflicting... neither of those guys have delivered on the promise.

WolvesFan21 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Tyrese Haliburton had 23 points, 5 rebounds and 9 assists tonight. In my view, he's clearly established himself as #2 behind LaMello Ball for ROY honors.

The Celtics lost to the Mavs tonight. The Celtics are not 15-16. I wonder if Brad Stevens might find himself unemployed after this season - or may earlier. I'm not sure what's going on the the Celtics, but I still think Stevens is a really good head coach. If the Celtics fire him after this season, the Wolves won't be pursing him. Rosas already has his guy - someone who "shares his philosophy."

Stevens isn't going anywhere... unless there's a lot of unreported drama behind the scenes.

He's made 3 ECFs in 4 seasons... it's a goofy Covid season. They lost Hayward for nothing. Smart is out. Walker has struggled.

Walker has hit that age 30 mark where it seems like a lot of PGs really start to decline - Westbrook, Teague, and Rubio being three others off the top of my head.

I kind of saw some slippage in Milwaukee last night, despite the blowout. May be it was because they were playing us, but I was not impressed by their defense. I thought the recent games against the Knicks and Lakers were big contrasts in terms of defensive intensity by the opponent.

Bottom line is that Philly seems like the most well-rounded team in the conference and Brooklyn can probably just outscore anyone they play. Not sure if Milwaukee or Boston quite have enough juice this year to win the East.

I thought defensively in the first half they were really poor or lacking intensity. We had wide open looks for most of the half and our guys mostly took advantage.

I think maybe you can say they were playing down to the competition a bit. I mean we do have the worst record in the league. Then they turned it on and decided to blow us out.

I made a similar observation, WF...Beasley has been totally stifled in a couple recent games, but the Bucks may not have watched any video of those because he had all sorts of wide-open looks last night. Generally not a good strategy, because Beas is going to make close to 50% of his wide open shots.

Milwaukee's defense of the past few seasons is geared to protect the rim. Conversely, they've been in the top 4 in giving up three point attempts. It's been part of their defensive strategy... although they are starting to tweak it as teams are simply getting too good from behind the arc (up to 36.8% league average on three pointers this season).

But beyond that... only a cursory video session is needed to scout the Wolves right now. If that.


[Note: I did notice Towns passing up at least a couple of wide open threes in the first half for some reason. The Wolves seem like they could have him pop to the top every possession Lopez was on the floor. Towns ended up with only 6 attempts, which seemed low considering.]

It obviously wasn't working at the time, but suppose Thibs had just stayed the course with KAT, Wig, and Zach. If we had also been able to add Ant and McDaniels, how good would we be right now? I'd take those 5 for the next 5-7 years and see what happens. Interesting to think about.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:It obviously wasn't working at the time, but suppose Thibs had just stayed the course with KAT, Wig, and Zach. If we had also been able to add Ant and McDaniels, how good would we be right now? I'd take those 5 for the next 5-7 years and see what happens. Interesting to think about.

I don't know why the Wolves would use a top overall pick on Anthony Edwards in that scenario, but then again I'm still not sure why they did that anyways and Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine aren't even here so who knows.

But I always wanted to see Karl-Anthony Towns and LaVine develop together. I felt good about their individual development and skill package. Wiggins was always the x-factor in my eyes in terms of "if this guy figures it out" or "if he becomes what he could be" then the Wolves would be quite dangerous. I think it's fair to say he didn't get there, but those three guys were definitely a fun young trio to get excited about.

Anyone remember the Bounce Bros monicker? Good times.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:It obviously wasn't working at the time, but suppose Thibs had just stayed the course with KAT, Wig, and Zach. If we had also been able to add Ant and McDaniels, how good would we be right now? I'd take those 5 for the next 5-7 years and see what happens. Interesting to think about.

Don't know. A lot of variables there.

Contracts. Expectations. Coaches. Et al. I mean... what are the odds the Wolves would have been bad enough to get the #1 to grab Edwards... and why would they with both Wiggins and LaVine?

But to your larger point... let's say the Wolves avoided the Butler trade... and resigned LaVine despite his poor return from knee surgery...

Do they think they'd have made the playoffs yet?

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Milwaukee's defense of the past few seasons is geared to protect the rim. Conversely, they've been in the top 4 in giving up three point attempts. It's been part of their defensive strategy... although they are starting to tweak it as teams are simply getting too good from behind the arc (up to 36.8% league average on three pointers this season).

But beyond that... only a cursory video session is needed to scout the Wolves right now. If that.


[Note: I did notice Towns passing up at least a couple of wide open threes in the first half for some reason. The Wolves seem like they could have him pop to the top every possession Lopez was on the floor. Towns ended up with only 6 attempts, which seemed low considering.]

I noticed the same thing, Abe, and wondered if he just wasn't feeling it last night beyond the arc...he was 1-6 after all, and he was scoring so easily inside, maybe he thought putting up a three was not our best option. I didn't like it though. KAT needs to let it fly every time he is open at the top of the key.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:It obviously wasn't working at the time, but suppose Thibs had just stayed the course with KAT, Wig, and Zach. If we had also been able to add Ant and McDaniels, how good would we be right now? I'd take those 5 for the next 5-7 years and see what happens. Interesting to think about.

Add Doncic instead. Because no Jimmy and Zach not playing we are bottom 5 I think. Doncic would have been a fairly easy trade up target at that point which is what Dallas did (had we not been top 3).

We could literally have Zach, Doncic, Wiggins, KAT and McDaniels. That would be a fun team to watch.