zigzag22 wrote:Not to be "that guy," but Rubio and Wiggins played 42 minutes each tonight. I know some of you don't care about that, but there is literally NO REASON to burn their tires like this in meaningless games. None.
Zig, I don't agree with your assertion that there is no reason to play Rubio and Wiggins so much. There are two very important reasons...1) they give us a better chance to win, and 2) they make the game much more fun to watch. Both of these reasons are important to me. I understand that the first reason is not important to fans who are more interested in ping pong balls than wins, and I will acknowledge that limiting Rubio and Wigs' minutes maximizes our chances of getting more pp balls. But I don't think anyone can argue with the second point. After having been forced to watch this club most of the season without Rubio, I want to see him on the court as much as possible now that he is healthy. And I want Wig out there too.
After the All-Star break, Flip played Pek 36, 34, and 35 minutes in a span of 5 days. We went 2-1 then, improving how record to 13-43.
Fast forward a week and now Pek is (again) dealing with major soreness and is going to miss time. I understand we finally see a light at the end of the tunnel you guys and that THIS rebuild feels a little different, but why are we rushing things? Why are we grinding out core players in March as the last place team in the West?! We can get better and learn and develop and all that important stuff on 30 minutes a night and give those extra minutes to Dieng, Lavine, and Payne.
BizarroJerry wrote:Wish we still had our amnesty so we could cut Pek.
Ditto. Those who remember the old ESPN message board may recall how disgusted I was by Kahn's decision to sign Darko. By that time Darko had already established himself as a complete irreversible NBA bust. As if signing him wasn't bad bough, Kahn gave him a lucrative multi- year deal. I knew it wouldn't end well. As it happens, the Wolves ended up using their one amnesty opportunity to clear Darko's salary from the team's cap to make room for Roy and AK47. I remember the Wolves wasting their previous amnesty opportunity on Hoiberg's relatively inexpensive contract instead of holding it for use on a big contract that needed to be cleared from the team's cap. I remember scratching my head over that one at the time. And that was before the Kahn era. So poor asset management by the Wolves organization trancends the various Presidents of Basketball Operations (McHale, Kahn and Flip). It obviously goes right to the top.
Zigzag, I see playing Pek and playing Ricky/Wiggins different issues. As I said in my previous posts, I have no problem with Flip playing Ricky and Wigs as many minutes as he sees fit in order to win games and make this team entertaining. Pek is a different issue though. Right from the start of the season, Flip has consistently said he wants to limit Pek's minutes, but the 34+ in the first three games after the break didn't follow the strategy. In all fairness to coach Flip, KG didn't play in at least 2 of those games, and Flip was left with only 3 players to fill 84 minutes at C and PF. But shame on PBO Flip for putting the coach in that position. Carrying an extra wing all year who can't get any court time (GR3) rather than making sure the team had enough big men to keep Pek's minutes under control is inexcusable. Flip needed to cut GR3 early in the year (probably right after he realized that Turiaf was not going to give us anything this year) and give his bench time to any big that was available, just so coach Flip could turn to that big man at times like this when he has only 3. Poor roster management.
None of us are medical experts, so we don't know if the extra minutes Pek is playing led to his latest foot issue. A lot of me thinks Pek is going to hurt himself from time to time even if Flip is only giving him KG-like minutes...he's that brittle. But apparently Flip (and I assume our medical staff) think his minutes should be limited, so Flip has to take some responsibility for this latest Pek problem.
Q12543 wrote:This game was about Marc Gasol imposing his will on us, Offensively, he did whatever he wanted to, whenever he wanted to. Defensively he clogged up the paint and made it hard for anyone to score inside.
This is where we need KG to rub off on the bigs the most.
Not sure rub off will be enough. Do Dieng and Payne have the talent? The IQ? That remains to be seen.
Offensively, they will likely never approach KG. He could teach them a lot on defense though and make them good enough to be rotation guys. I still have really high hopes for Gorgui being a really good defensive player. He isn't as quick as KG but he is smart and determined enough to be really good IMO. It seems like our all-star big needs to come in this draft, however.
I'm not so sure Gorgui is all that smart of defender, at least not this year anyway. Leaving his feet for every pump and shot fake; sometimes you just have to wall up and make the opponent make the shot. Keeping his hips open and back-pedaling instead cutting off the dribble-driver on P&R action, even though he routinely gets beat doing what he's been doing. Reaching in on guys in the post when he doesn't need to. Example of this was last night he was persistently reaching on Gasol for no reason, and got hit with a dumb foul sending Gasol to the line for two more points. Sam Mitchell was clearly pissed off at that. How many blatant goaltends have we seen this year by him too?
I like G, and I think he's a really good big off the bench, but I was hoping he'd be able to keep growing and perhaps be our starting center for the future. I'm two feet off that train, though. I never thought I'd be so "down" on him after the way he finished last year.
PS: Dieng's also pretty clumsy. Gets thrown off balance a ton, doesn't catch passes cleanly resulting in tougher looks/misses. It's maddening at times.
Camden wrote:I'm not so sure Gorgui is all that smart of defender, at least not this year anyway. Leaving his feet for every pump and shot fake; sometimes you just have to wall up and make the opponent make the shot. Keeping his hips open and back-pedaling instead cutting off the dribble-driver on P&R action, even though he routinely gets beat doing what he's been doing. Reaching in on guys in the post when he doesn't need to. Example of this was last night he was persistently reaching on Gasol for no reason, and got hit with a dumb foul sending Gasol to the line for two more points. Sam Mitchell was clearly pissed off at that. How many blatant goaltends have we seen this year by him too?
I like G, and I think he's a really good big off the bench, but I was hoping he'd be able to keep growing and perhaps be our starting center for the future. I'm two feet off that train, though. I never thought I'd be so "down" on him after the way he finished last year.
PS: Dieng's also pretty clumsy. Gets thrown off balance a ton, doesn't catch passes cleanly resulting in tougher looks/misses. It's maddening at times.
Yea I wouldn't confuse G as being a smart defender yet necessarily. I think he has basketball smarts however and is capable of learning to be a smart defender which is where KG comes in. I really hope he plays another year. I think G is worth putting in the time with.
Agreed on the Pek comments, he's gonna be an oft-injured unreliable part-time player the rest of his contract. Flip really messed up on that one, but nothing we can do now.
Pek will easily be able to be traded after next season when the cap goes way up. A contender would give him 12 million to come off the bench for 20 minutes a night when it would only take up around 15% of the cap. Not many teams have a low post threat that can carry a second unit offensively.
