Rudy Gobert to the Timberwolves

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Respectfully, that response is how I know you're not fully comprehending, or perhaps remembering, my position.

Trading for Rudy Gobert wasn't something I was interested in, personally. I noted that Minnesota would have severe cap complications just a couple years from now -- using approximately 70-percent of the allotted cap on just Karl-Anthony Towns and Gobert in the future. I mentioned that the assets required to get him would be significant as well, however, I didn't expect the cost to be four future first-round picks -- mainly because I expected Jaden McDaniels to be a requirement in any trade of that magnitude. I've acknowledged that the trade as we know it was an overpay in my estimation although not severely when you compare it to other recent trades for star players like Anthony Davis and James Harden, for example. Both before [the trade] and after, I've been very clear that I would NOT have made the trade that Tim Connelly did.

With that said, I'm also keenly aware of the elite production Gobert brings to a team. He's arguably the greatest defensive player of this generation -- with only Kawhi Leonard and Draymond Green in contention -- and he literally led the league in rebounding last season. Those are the two key areas of the game that the Timberwolves absolutely had to get better at if they were going to take another step in their progression and they got the best possible player they could get to give them that boost. It's not difficult to see that the Timberwolves should be much improved yet again this upcoming season.

It's possible to do two things at once. You can logically maintain the stance that the Timberwolves gave up too much to get Gobert. But in the same breath you have to acknowledge that Gobert is an elite player that immediately makes the Timberwolves much, much better. It's a calculated risk on Connelly's part because he'll be held responsible one way or the other, but he certainly appears to have ownership's support. I fail to understand anyone who considers Connelly lazy, stupid, etc. for making the move he made here. He essentially planted the flag in Minnesota as if to say that the Timberwolves aren't fucking around anymore. After decades of watching this organization lose, embarrass themselves, rebuild, and lose some more, you kind of have to admire that.

[Q-is-here]

TC would have had to fool a lot of people for a lot of years. He made the lateral move title and day to day function wise, this isn't a new GM like McHale, or Thibs or Rosas, or many that have come before him. He made Denver. I understand the skepticism, but I'm ready to roll with TC. We've been a lopsided team in regards to a combination of lack of talent, lack of overall depth, lack of an entire position player at one position on the entire roster, or lack of two way players. This year we have a shortage in none of those things.
Let's roll

One criticism of start of the new TC regime:
How am I supposed to enjoy summer now with the start of the season months away?
No seriously, I'm open to suggestions...

You don't have to wait! Tonight our https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeBTFjSUNMMboys take the court! You can watch on ESPN3.

[Q-is-here]

Respectfully, that response is how I know you're not fully comprehending, or perhaps remembering, my position.

Trading for Rudy Gobert wasn't something I was interested in, personally. I noted that Minnesota would have severe cap complications just a couple years from now -- using approximately 70-percent of the allotted cap on just Karl-Anthony Towns and Gobert in the future. I mentioned that the assets required to get him would be significant as well, however, I didn't expect the cost to be four future first-round picks -- mainly because I expected Jaden McDaniels to be a requirement in any trade of that magnitude. I've acknowledged that the trade as we know it was an overpay in my estimation although not severely when you compare it to other recent trades for star players like Anthony Davis and James Harden, for example. Both before [the trade] and after, I've been very clear that I would NOT have made the trade that Tim Connelly did.

With that said, I'm also keenly aware of the elite production Gobert brings to a team. He's arguably the greatest defensive player of this generation -- with only Kawhi Leonard and Draymond Green in contention -- and he literally led the league in rebounding last season. Those are the two key areas of the game that the Timberwolves absolutely had to get better at if they were going to take another step in their progression and they got the best possible player they could get to give them that boost. It's not difficult to see that the Timberwolves should be much improved yet again this upcoming season.

It's possible to do two things at once. You can logically maintain the stance that the Timberwolves gave up too much to get Gobert. But in the same breath you have to acknowledge that Gobert is an elite player that immediately makes the Timberwolves much, much better. It's a calculated risk on Connelly's part because he'll be held responsible one way or the other, but he certainly appears to have ownership's support. I fail to understand anyone who considers Connelly lazy, stupid, etc. for making the move he made here. He essentially planted the flag in Minnesota as if to say that the Timberwolves aren't fucking around anymore. After decades of watching this organization lose, embarrass themselves, rebuild, and lose some more, you kind of have to admire that.

I think D-Loser actually understands this, but has decided he just wants to be a troll about it and create a caricature of a bumbling, lazy front office exec that has no clue. No one credible actually believes this to be true, including folks that disagree with the trade.

[D-Mac [enjin:19736340]]

Respectfully, that response is how I know you're not fully comprehending, or perhaps remembering, my position.

Trading for Rudy Gobert wasn't something I was interested in, personally. I noted that Minnesota would have severe cap complications just a couple years from now -- using approximately 70-percent of the allotted cap on just Karl-Anthony Towns and Gobert in the future. I mentioned that the assets required to get him would be significant as well, however, I didn't expect the cost to be four future first-round picks -- mainly because I expected Jaden McDaniels to be a requirement in any trade of that magnitude. I've acknowledged that the trade as we know it was an overpay in my estimation although not severely when you compare it to other recent trades for star players like Anthony Davis and James Harden, for example. Both before [the trade] and after, I've been very clear that I would NOT have made the trade that Tim Connelly did.

With that said, I'm also keenly aware of the elite production Gobert brings to a team. He's arguably the greatest defensive player of this generation -- with only Kawhi Leonard and Draymond Green in contention -- and he literally led the league in rebounding last season. Those are the two key areas of the game that the Timberwolves absolutely had to get better at if they were going to take another step in their progression and they got the best possible player they could get to give them that boost. It's not difficult to see that the Timberwolves should be much improved yet again this upcoming season.

It's possible to do two things at once. You can logically maintain the stance that the Timberwolves gave up too much to get Gobert. But in the same breath you have to acknowledge that Gobert is an elite player that immediately makes the Timberwolves much, much better. It's a calculated risk on Connelly's part because he'll be held responsible one way or the other, but he certainly appears to have ownership's support. I fail to understand anyone who considers Connelly lazy, stupid, etc. for making the move he made here. He essentially planted the flag in Minnesota as if to say that the Timberwolves aren't fucking around anymore. After decades of watching this organization lose, embarrass themselves, rebuild, and lose some more, you kind of have to admire that.

I think D-Loser actually understands this, but has decided he just wants to be a troll about it and create a caricature of a bumbling, lazy front office exec that has no clue. No one credible actually believes this to be true, including folks that disagree with the trade.

Yeah ok I'm a troll. So it's ok for you to disrespectfully call me a troll (when I've obviously shown myself not to be) but if I call TC lazy, irresponsible and idiotic, then I'm way out of line. Cool guys.

Anyway, I came on here to say that the #1 thing about Kat, in my opinion, has always been that he's an offensive mismatch for the other teams defense. In the past if you stick someone big on him (like Gobert) he can go outside, but if you guard him with a smaller guy he can destroy you in the post. That mismatch is now gone because of this trade. I think that's the big reason why everyone around the league thinks this trade was so odd. Now with Kat being relegated to the perimeter, he'll no longer have a quickness advantage over the PF guarding him. Ok so let's get Kat the ball in the post, well not only will the bigger center switch onto him, but this pushes gobert to the perimeter where he is no threat. Not only this but now the lane will be more clogged for ant to drive. In the past, with our center being a threat from the perimeter, this opened the lane for Ant. Now gobert will be clogging the lane for ant and when ant passes to Kat, Kat will no longer have a quickness advantage to drive either. Finch is a good coach and I'm sure he can figure somethings out, but it's a very odd fit and far from ideal on that end.

This is why I've always preferred a guy like portis or turner next to Kat. A pairing like this would allow Kat to maintain his mismatch while also helping a lot on the defensive end. I know this is all basketball 101 to many of you, but the fact that TC not only made this move, but paid what he did, really makes me question if he understands this. I get that everyone is at the stage where they want to be optimistic about this, but let's get real, this could go horribly wrong.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Offense isn't where the fit gets wonky, though. Minnesota will score enough points almost on talent alone. Keep in mind that Chris Finch was able to form the eighth-best offense last season with Jarred Vanderbilt playing alongside Karl-Anthony Towns for much of it. Rudy Gobert is flat out better than Vanderbilt at everything offensively.

The main question will be whether or not Towns can handle defending on the perimeter more often (without fouling) and whether or not the Timberwolves will be mobile enough to consistently rotate on perimeter shooters. That's where the unknown lies -- not offensively. This team can score with the best of them even without the players they traded away.

[D-Mac [enjin:19736340]]

Offense isn't where the fit gets wonky, though. Minnesota will score enough points almost on talent alone. Keep in mind that Chris Finch was able to form the eighth-best offense last season with Jarred Vanderbilt playing alongside Karl-Anthony Towns for much of it. Rudy Gobert is flat out better than Vanderbilt at everything offensively.

The main question will be whether or not Towns can handle defending on the perimeter more often (without fouling) and whether or not the Timberwolves will be mobile enough to consistently rotate on perimeter shooters. That's where the unknown lies -- not offensively. This team can score with the best of them even without the players they traded away.

I agree with you that the wolves will be just fine on offense, probably a bit better as Gobert does exactly what vando did only much better, but my contention is for everything we gave up and for everything we're committing to pay Gobert, we should have acquired someone that's at least a good fit on offense. I think we could have acquired someone else who's a better fit (turner, Portis, jalen smith, Collins, ayton) for much less, therefore saving our assets to make our one big move later.

I totally agree that defense is a concern because of what you said, but I'm hoping Gobert can make up for Kats shortcomings (and then some) on that end. I just think offense is a weird fit. Just because we're still good on offense, doesn't mean we shouldn't have become great or elite for what we gave up. I really don't think we needed to add a Great defensive big (Gobert) next to Kat, to become a good defensive team, I think a good defensive big (who fit better on offense) like all the guys I mentioned, would have made us plenty good on defense (especially with Jaden in the starting lineup). I feel like we killed an ant with an elephant gun (no pun intended) with this move on defense and we didn't really do much to actually improve significantly on offense.

[Leado01]

Offense isn't where the fit gets wonky, though. Minnesota will score enough points almost on talent alone. Keep in mind that Chris Finch was able to form the eighth-best offense last season with Jarred Vanderbilt playing alongside Karl-Anthony Towns for much of it. Rudy Gobert is flat out better than Vanderbilt at everything offensively.

The main question will be whether or not Towns can handle defending on the perimeter more often (without fouling) and whether or not the Timberwolves will be mobile enough to consistently rotate on perimeter shooters. That's where the unknown lies -- not offensively. This team can score with the best of them even without the players they traded away.

I agree with you that the wolves will be just fine on offense, probably a bit better as Gobert does exactly what vando did only much better, but my contention is for everything we gave up and for everything we're committing to pay Gobert, we should have acquired someone that's at least a good fit on offense. I think we could have acquired someone else who's a better fit (turner, Portis, jalen smith, Collins, ayton) for much less, therefore saving our assets to make our one big move later.

I totally agree that defense is a concern because of what you said, but I'm hoping Gobert can make up for Kats shortcomings (and then some) on that end. I just think offense is a weird fit. Just because we're still good on offense, doesn't mean we shouldn't have become great or elite for what we gave up. I really don't think we needed to add a Great defensive big (Gobert) next to Kat, to become a good defensive team, I think a good defensive big (who fit better on offense) like all the guys I mentioned, would have made us plenty good on defense (especially with Jaden in the starting lineup). I feel like we killed an ant with an elephant gun (no pun intended) with this move on defense and we didn't really do much to actually improve significantly on offense.

I'm pretty certain the analysis was done long before the trade. The tell that the analysis was done was Finch's interview citing McDaniels and Nowell as keys to our growth.

Gobert is an elite center as a defender, an extremely efficient scorer (league leader in shooting percentage), and (perhaps most importantly) a screen setter. We no longer will need 4 passes to get the offense set. Our team defense approach now has a true anchor to protect the rim and our length and buy-in to team defense makes second and third passes all the more dangerous for our opponents.

We are relevant.

This is interesting.

[Monster]

I have an apology to make. It's to Kevin Love. In a post a few days ago I said we hadn't had a really good screen setter for many years but I thought I forgot someone. It was Love. Not only did he set good screens he had an excellent feel for what to do afterwards to actually score and be a threat to score. Dieng set solid screens but he wasn't the best at being a threat to score after doing so. Some of that was his flawed game but some of that was he didn't have that feel of what to do and also he likes his jumper too much. Taj Gibson was pretty good in the screen game but he didn't have an outside shot and he wasn't a lob threat. He had good few but didn't have the best game to go with it. He could score but he wasn't exactly a guy teams worried about beating them over and over again in the screen game and some of that was he was undersized as essentially a center on offense. This last season was the best I've ever seen Towns set screens. Before it was basically just sort of a spot he would kinda get to before looking to score or be at another spot on the floor. Most of the time he didn't even have a guy make contact with him. It was a big hole in his game and bizarre for a guy that's so skilled. 2 years ago he seemed to be coming along in this area and this last season he was making people feel him on screens.

Gobert is one of the best in the league at setting screens for people and then also moving to an area of the floor so teams have to account for him and/or put himself in position to get an easy bucket. Sure he can't score getting the ball and making a move much but that's fine he has a certain skill set that does help an offense.

In some ways I would compare that to a 3 point shooter who is in constant motion having picks set for him but also just weaving through the court getting picks on player and getting open for 3 point shots. Teams have to try and account for that guy. Let's use JJ Redick as an example of the savvy constant in motion 3 point shooter. JJ IMO had a little more to his game than just catch and shoot 3's but nearly 80% of his career FG attempts were outside of 16 feet from the basket. JJ was a terrific 3 point shooter over 41% on his career and also shot a pretty good percentage on the long 2's he took and when he got fouled he hit around 90% of his FTs. For a perimeter player he had a fairly nice TS% around 60% for his career. Gobert is 67%. One big thing Gobert also does is get to the line at about twice the rate JJ did which is pretty significant especially since he is likely drawing fouls on bigs he is facing. As a video someone posted earlier shots at the rim are really efficient even more so than 3's. Gobert converts them at super high rate and also deters them at an elite level.

If you want someone that shoots 3's why not have Towns do it? He is a very good 3 point shooter why not have him shoot more of them? Plus that's going to give him chances to attack close outs and get to the rim...or set up Gobert for some easy baskets.

Some of the suggested guys we could have put next to Towns are either centers like Gobert but with significantly less impact (but lower cost) or are basically PF/C types like Towns is. If we are gonna be like hey Bobby Portis (who wasn't attainable) can guard on the perimeter why can't Towns not suck at it? It wasn't that long ago Portis was considered a terrible defender. Quite frankly there is more evidence that Towns is better guarding on the perimeter than there is that he is good at being a rim protector. Also for all the stuff you can say about Towns in that Memphis series I thought his defense was actually pretty good and he was on the perimeter quite a bit of the time.

My case is that Gobert absolutely does fit this roster. Was the price too high? Yes I think so but I wouldn't have been saying damn Clint Capala what a horrible fit for this roster. I would have been thrilled to get him...depending on the price! :)

[D-Mac [enjin:19736340]]

I have an apology to make. It's to Kevin Love. In a post a few days ago I said we hadn't had a really good screen setter for many years but I thought I forgot someone. It was Love. Not only did he set good screens he had an excellent feel for what to do afterwards to actually score and be a threat to score. Dieng set solid screens but he wasn't the best at being a threat to score after doing so. Some of that was his flawed game but some of that was he didn't have that feel of what to do and also he likes his jumper too much. Taj Gibson was pretty good in the screen game but he didn't have an outside shot and he wasn't a lob threat. He had good few but didn't have the best game to go with it. He could score but he wasn't exactly a guy teams worried about beating them over and over again in the screen game and some of that was he was undersized as essentially a center on offense. This last season was the best I've ever seen Towns set screens. Before it was basically just sort of a spot he would kinda get to before looking to score or be at another spot on the floor. Most of the time he didn't even have a guy make contact with him. It was a big hole in his game and bizarre for a guy that's so skilled. 2 years ago he seemed to be coming along in this area and this last season he was making people feel him on screens.

Gobert is one of the best in the league at setting screens for people and then also moving to an area of the floor so teams have to account for him and/or put himself in position to get an easy bucket. Sure he can't score getting the ball and making a move much but that's fine he has a certain skill set that does help an offense.

In some ways I would compare that to a 3 point shooter who is in constant motion having picks set for him but also just weaving through the court getting picks on player and getting open for 3 point shots. Teams have to try and account for that guy. Let's use JJ Redick as an example of the savvy constant in motion 3 point shooter. JJ IMO had a little more to his game than just catch and shoot 3's but nearly 80% of his career FG attempts were outside of 16 feet from the basket. JJ was a terrific 3 point shooter over 41% on his career and also shot a pretty good percentage on the long 2's he took and when he got fouled he hit around 90% of his FTs. For a perimeter player he had a fairly nice TS% around 60% for his career. Gobert is 67%. One big thing Gobert also does is get to the line at about twice the rate JJ did which is pretty significant especially since he is likely drawing fouls on bigs he is facing. As a video someone posted earlier shots at the rim are really efficient even more so than 3's. Gobert converts them at super high rate and also deters them at an elite level.

If you want someone that shoots 3's why not have Towns do it? He is a very good 3 point shooter why not have him shoot more of them? Plus that's going to give him chances to attack close outs and get to the rim...or set up Gobert for some easy baskets.

Some of the suggested guys we could have put next to Towns are either centers like Gobert but with significantly less impact (but lower cost) or are basically PF/C types like Towns is. If we are gonna be like hey Bobby Portis (who wasn't attainable) can guard on the perimeter why can't Towns not suck at it? It wasn't that long ago Portis was considered a terrible defender. Quite frankly there is more evidence that Towns is better guarding on the perimeter than there is that he is good at being a rim protector. Also for all the stuff you can say about Towns in that Memphis series I thought his defense was actually pretty good and he was on the perimeter quite a bit of the time.

My case is that Gobert absolutely does fit this roster. Was the price too high? Yes I think so but I wouldn't have been saying damn Clint Capala what a horrible fit for this roster. I would have been thrilled to get him...depending on the price! :)

We'll be better next year simply because of the big increase in talent. Will this team be as good as the sum of its parts? Absolutely not. Why? Because we just invested 450 mil in the center position! I'm sorry, KAt is not a 4 under any circumstances. Kat is especially not a 4 in today's nba. Draymond Green just said this same thing about this pairing.

Over the next 5 years, the wolves will be known as the team that had good assets and owners that were willing to spend, but wasted everything by not having the patience and/or knowledge to acquire pieces that actually fit. Sure, we'll make the playoffs every year, but that's it. It's almost like that was the goal here... like jester said, just make the playoffs every year.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

The Timberwolves definitely got better, and they significantly increased their chances of winning a championship, but they're so lazy and stupid for getting better! Karl-Anthony Towns is one of the most versatile bigs of all-time, but he's not a four and it just won't work because I said so! If only they knew what I knew! Morons!

This is how you sound, Loser.