Wolves at Grizz with Rubio - GDT

[Monster]

This teams biggest issue is they have no long-term plan, or at least are incapable of sticking to it. You can't build or rebuild a team in one and a half seasons, and that is what they have tried for the last decade. Bringing Adelman in was a bigger mistake than Rambis imo. We settled for a .500 ceiling team, rather than waiting it out a season or two longer and finishing the rebuild. Flip screwed up last season as well having no patience when giving up a first for Young, and then compounded the problem with the "Pain deal".

I realize that Zach is struggling, but Sam was clear that starting SG was something that could change. I think it was a motivating tool that Sam used, and nothing more.

Wiggins (as well as Zach) were posting significant numbers at the end of last season, and there is no reason not to believe that will be the case again this season. I think we are getting way too picky on some of our young guys. Based on preseason results I guess we would say Jimmy Butler isn't a starter either because he is shooting 32%, totaling 10pts in 25 minutes.

KAT has been very impressive, and has blown me away with his aggressiveness offensively. He, more than any #1 pick I have seen in the last five years, looks the part of a future superstar.

If I see Rudez getting 10-15 minutes opening night, I will start to worry more. My only concern right now is with our health.

You bring up some good points here good post.

I want to comment on your point about this franchise not sticking to a plan. Part of that is that the plans either haven't worked or were derailed by health concerns or both. Flip's illness is just another example of how the plan has been altered from what it was supposed to be to a certain extent. 3 coaches in the last 3 years that is not what you strive for. Ugh

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

Like Carlos mentioned earlier, I can't take another year of falling in the bottom 5 teams again. Play your best players, the young guys will get plenty of minutes together. If we end up a terrible team again, so be it, but don't tank, i.e., "develop our young players". C'mon Sam-have a good season!

So you can take it for 10 years, but not 11? What's the point in trying to just win games at the expense of development? Our young guys develop less, we still don't make the playoffs, we get a worse draft pick and we go into next season the same as this season needing young guys to take the next step because they didn't get the chance this year. Or we could start the young guys, they struggle for a couple months and then figure it out down the home stretch like they did last year and all that time we would have been building continuity with them so the improvement carries more weight going into next season. Lavine was the worst basketball player in the league last year at one point and had to work himself out of that spot. He can't do that if he's always pulled for Martin to finish games in which he played bad. Wiggins didn't make his jump until most of the starting 5 went down and he had to be the guy. These guys didn't show improvement until well after the period most coaches trying to win would have started bringing them off the bench, but because we were bad and injured they had to play and that's how they improved (we had no practices during some of their best play last year so it was all just from getting the minutes and learning). If they can get better with no practices and bad teammates then they shouldn't need as long this year with practices and better teammates to start showing signs of improvement, but it will take time.

Also, if Rudez and Prince see any time this year not due to injuries I'll be disappointed. We gotta let these young guys play through their mistakes and not pull a Flip and yank them after every mistake. This type of team building takes patience, but with the right guys you end up like OKC who made the jump and haven't been out of the playoffs except for 1 year Durant and Westbrook both missed a lot of the season. For those who want to see us win, do you really want to be watching Ricky/Martin/Wiggins/KG/Pek just to maybe be .500? That's our best lineup to win games and it only has 1 developmental player and 2 long-term pieces in the lineup meaning in the near future 3/5 of those spots would be filled with different guys anyway resetting the continuity back to little. I don't see the point going all out for likely 35 wins at best for any team. I'm not a title or tank guy, but I do think if you aren't making the playoffs you should be playing young guys to try to figure out what you have over trying to win and leaving yourself with question marks in the off season.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

This teams biggest issue is they have no long-term plan, or at least are incapable of sticking to it. You can't build or rebuild a team in one and a half seasons, and that is what they have tried for the last decade. Bringing Adelman in was a bigger mistake than Rambis imo. We settled for a .500 ceiling team, rather than waiting it out a season or two longer and finishing the rebuild. Flip screwed up last season as well having no patience when giving up a first for Young, and then compounded the problem with the "Pain deal".

I realize that Zach is struggling, but Sam was clear that starting SG was something that could change. I think it was a motivating tool that Sam used, and nothing more.

Wiggins (as well as Zach) were posting significant numbers at the end of last season, and there is no reason not to believe that will be the case again this season. I think we are getting way too picky on some of our young guys. Based on preseason results I guess we would say Jimmy Butler isn't a starter either because he is shooting 32%, totaling 10pts in 25 minutes.

KAT has been very impressive, and has blown me away with his aggressiveness offensively. He, more than any #1 pick I have seen in the last five years, looks the part of a future superstar.

If I see Rudez getting 10-15 minutes opening night, I will start to worry more. My only concern right now is with our health.

I hear you on the continuity thing, but that's hard to do when a) people are constantly getting hurt, b) the second best player in franchise history wants out, and c) most of your past draft picks turn out to be busts.

No one's suggesting we give up on Wiggins or Zach of course. But in the interest of patience (something you are advocating), I don't necessarily think it made sense for Mitchell to thrust Zach in the starting role so early. At this point, I actually hope he sticks with it for now. Just like it was too early to pencil him into the starting lineup, I think it's too early to erase his name. Give him a shot in the regular season and see where things stand after 10 games or so.

I agree on KAT. Very promising. He's not close defensively, but I was expecting that. All rookie bigs get eaten alive defensively, especially someone as young as him. I honestly think he has a reasonable chance of being the Center version of Kevin Love, at least on offense: 3's, post ups, and free throws. He won't shoot many 3's this year, but give him another year or two. I really think he could be a stud.

[Carlos Danger]

Like Carlos mentioned earlier, I can't take another year of falling in the bottom 5 teams again. Play your best players, the young guys will get plenty of minutes together. If we end up a terrible team again, so be it, but don't tank, i.e., "develop our young players". C'mon Sam-have a good season!

So you can take it for 10 years, but not 11? What's the point in trying to just win games at the expense of development? Our young guys develop less, we still don't make the playoffs, we get a worse draft pick and we go into next season the same as this season needing young guys to take the next step because they didn't get the chance this year. Or we could start the young guys, they struggle for a couple months and then figure it out down the home stretch like they did last year and all that time we would have been building continuity with them so the improvement carries more weight going into next season. Lavine was the worst basketball player in the league last year at one point and had to work himself out of that spot. He can't do that if he's always pulled for Martin to finish games in which he played bad. Wiggins didn't make his jump until most of the starting 5 went down and he had to be the guy. These guys didn't show improvement until well after the period most coaches trying to win would have started bringing them off the bench, but because we were bad and injured they had to play and that's how they improved (we had no practices during some of their best play last year so it was all just from getting the minutes and learning). If they can get better with no practices and bad teammates then they shouldn't need as long this year with practices and better teammates to start showing signs of improvement, but it will take time.

It hasn't really been 10 years. Last year, they could have been much better but of course all the injuries derailed things. The year before they won 40 games with Love. I think some people are like me and got excited about Wiggins and LaVine coming in last year along with Thad Young, Pek, Martin, Rubio, Brewer. Those are all established players. Not All Stars - no. But established NBA guys who (when healthy) will contribute to good teams. We understood and accepted the organizational change of direction once the injuries hit. It made sense to pack it in and tank for #1. But I can't accept going into the season with the idea of not trying to win because they didn't assemble a good enough team to compete. That's the difference in my mind. I hope what we are seeing now is just a bad sample and this team will be much better and competitive most nights. I can take losing. But there has to be some competitiveness or it's just not worth watching (at least for me).

[Coolbreeze44]

I guess we don't know if Prince actually has a chance to start at the 3 or if Sam is just tinkering. But for the love of God, starting Prince would be the mother of all stupid decisions. Like Q said, he shouldn't even play unless we have injuries or other strange circumstances that necessitate it. I could see him being a situational sub for defense late in games, but getting regular minutes serves no purpose.

I don't care whether we win 15 games or 35 this year. I want to be entertained by a young, up and coming team. And I want to see a team that is better in game 70, than they were in game 20. So figure out the best young group to start with KG, and stick with the plan to develop players this year. I too would like to see Zach given an opportunity to earn and keep the starting 2 job. Apparently he's been off in all the games so far, but so what? Let's see what happens in the regular season, I'm sure his play won't regress from last year.

[KiwiMatt]

I think everyone needs to lower expectations for this season. We are effectively in year two of our (never ending) rebuild. We need to follow the Seattle / OKC blueprint and be patient and focus on developing our young stars.

Cornerstones: Wiggins / Towns / LaVine
Keepers: Rubio / Muhammad / Dieng / Bjelica
Vets: Pek / Martin

That's nine guys I would like to see us stick with. Obviously Pek and Martin are expendable, but Pek's contract will be impossible to move without giving up picks. Martin gives us reliable offence on a reasonable contract, so I would like to see him stay unless he can be moved for a future 1st and / or young player with potential.

[thedoper]

I really want to see progress in wins. I don't care how they tinker with lineups to get there. You have to learn to win as much as any isolated skill in team sports. It is so much about decision making. I want to see a balanced approach of getting the young guys PT but still utilizing the vets when it gives us a chance to win. So the kids can see when poise and decision making come into play in a game.

I agree with the sentiment that Sam got overzealous calling Zach the starter from a few practices. Clearly in terms of contributions on the floor he would be behind Martin and Bazz in terms of in game (not preseason) production as I see it.

All in all I do expect more wins this year and will be disappointed if that is not one of the outcomes of this season. That is mainly because we are trotting out basically the same roster with slight improvements at most positions and another year of development for the kids.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

Like Carlos mentioned earlier, I can't take another year of falling in the bottom 5 teams again. Play your best players, the young guys will get plenty of minutes together. If we end up a terrible team again, so be it, but don't tank, i.e., "develop our young players". C'mon Sam-have a good season!

So you can take it for 10 years, but not 11? What's the point in trying to just win games at the expense of development? Our young guys develop less, we still don't make the playoffs, we get a worse draft pick and we go into next season the same as this season needing young guys to take the next step because they didn't get the chance this year. Or we could start the young guys, they struggle for a couple months and then figure it out down the home stretch like they did last year and all that time we would have been building continuity with them so the improvement carries more weight going into next season. Lavine was the worst basketball player in the league last year at one point and had to work himself out of that spot. He can't do that if he's always pulled for Martin to finish games in which he played bad. Wiggins didn't make his jump until most of the starting 5 went down and he had to be the guy. These guys didn't show improvement until well after the period most coaches trying to win would have started bringing them off the bench, but because we were bad and injured they had to play and that's how they improved (we had no practices during some of their best play last year so it was all just from getting the minutes and learning). If they can get better with no practices and bad teammates then they shouldn't need as long this year with practices and better teammates to start showing signs of improvement, but it will take time.

It hasn't really been 10 years. Last year, they could have been much better but of course all the injuries derailed things. The year before they won 40 games with Love. I think some people are like me and got excited about Wiggins and LaVine coming in last year along with Thad Young, Pek, Martin, Rubio, Brewer. Those are all established players. Not All Stars - no. But established NBA guys who (when healthy) will contribute to good teams. We understood and accepted the organizational change of direction once the injuries hit. It made sense to pack it in and tank for #1. But I can't accept going into the season with the idea of not trying to win because they didn't assemble a good enough team to compete. That's the difference in my mind. I hope what we are seeing now is just a bad sample and this team will be much better and competitive most nights. I can take losing. But there has to be some competitiveness or it's just not worth watching (at least for me).

The problem stems from not making the playoffs for 10 years. This is really year two of the rebuild which is primarily through the draft. Those types of rebuilds are typically a 3+ year process and they involve a lot of losing in the first two years (remember, this is year two, not eleven). Philly is technically a year ahead of us and look at where they are at compared to us.

People seem to want to shortcut it and play to win this year and then next year play different guys (the young guys) more and keep winning and only suffer through 1 bad year in a rebuild and it just doesn't work that way. Sustained succes comes from all-stars and/or continuity and we have neither and will probably have neither next year if we sacrifice development this year for a few extra wins from short-term guys. If you don't want to watch another year of losing then don't. Nobody is forcing you to watch the team and we'll welcome you back next year when we are all happy the team is doing better. It just seems stupid to me to try to shortcut something to benefit in the short-term if it sets back the long-term plan.

We're in year 2 of the rebuild and unless Lebron is walking through the door, this situation isn't getting fixed overnight. Now is the worst time for patience to wear thin and think short-term because you usually only get one shot at this which will have a ripple effect years down the road good or bad. We fucked up the rebuild around Kevin Love because of bad drafting and development, but the nail in the coffin was the short-term success moves we made that put the cap on the team way lower than it needed to be to keep him. Let's not make the same mistake twice and stick to our long-term vision this time.

[Carlos Danger]

The problem stems from not making the playoffs for 10 years. This is really year two of the rebuild which is primarily through the draft. Those types of rebuilds are typically a 3+ year process and they involve a lot of losing in the first two years (remember, this is year two, not eleven). Philly is technically a year ahead of us and look at where they are at compared to us.

People seem to want to shortcut it and play to win this year and then next year play different guys (the young guys) more and keep winning and only suffer through 1 bad year in a rebuild and it just doesn't work that way. Sustained succes comes from all-stars and/or continuity and we have neither and will probably have neither next year if we sacrifice development this year for a few extra wins from short-term guys. If you don't want to watch another year of losing then don't. Nobody is forcing you to watch the team and we'll welcome you back next year when we are all happy the team is doing better. It just seems stupid to me to try to shortcut something to benefit in the short-term if it sets back the long-term plan.

We're in year 2 of the rebuild and unless Lebron is walking through the door, this situation isn't getting fixed overnight. Now is the worst time for patience to wear thin and think short-term because you usually only get one shot at this which will have a ripple effect years down the road good or bad. We fucked up the rebuild around Kevin Love because of bad drafting and development, but the nail in the coffin was the short-term success moves we made that put the cap on the team way lower than it needed to be to keep him. Let's not make the same mistake twice and stick to our long-term vision this time.

Just for the record...there's no law that says you can't develop players and still try to win games. I double checked that to confirm. There are plenty of teams that win without tanking or trying to win big in the lottery. You are making it sound like there is some big master plan and we are right on schedule. I'd be far more comfortable with that thought process if Flip was still in charge of everything. But right now, I'd say we very much lack direction. Look no further than the handling of LaVine as an example. He's anointed the starter job before camp even starts. Four pre-season games later and now he's the back up point guard? Also, if the clear vision is youth/development, then why do we have KG, Prince and Miller? What can they do that Pek, Rubio and Martin can't from a mentoring stand point? You say it's stupid to try and win games? I think the opposite as you in that regard. There is no reason we can't have some young guys i.e Towns and Wiggins surrounded by a few good vet players that still can play enough to matter. Making guys like LaVine earn their way into the starting line up is better for their development than being handed it IMO.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

The problem stems from not making the playoffs for 10 years. This is really year two of the rebuild which is primarily through the draft. Those types of rebuilds are typically a 3+ year process and they involve a lot of losing in the first two years (remember, this is year two, not eleven). Philly is technically a year ahead of us and look at where they are at compared to us.

People seem to want to shortcut it and play to win this year and then next year play different guys (the young guys) more and keep winning and only suffer through 1 bad year in a rebuild and it just doesn't work that way. Sustained succes comes from all-stars and/or continuity and we have neither and will probably have neither next year if we sacrifice development this year for a few extra wins from short-term guys. If you don't want to watch another year of losing then don't. Nobody is forcing you to watch the team and we'll welcome you back next year when we are all happy the team is doing better. It just seems stupid to me to try to shortcut something to benefit in the short-term if it sets back the long-term plan.

We're in year 2 of the rebuild and unless Lebron is walking through the door, this situation isn't getting fixed overnight. Now is the worst time for patience to wear thin and think short-term because you usually only get one shot at this which will have a ripple effect years down the road good or bad. We fucked up the rebuild around Kevin Love because of bad drafting and development, but the nail in the coffin was the short-term success moves we made that put the cap on the team way lower than it needed to be to keep him. Let's not make the same mistake twice and stick to our long-term vision this time.

Just for the record...there's no law that says you can't develop players and still try to win games. I double checked that to confirm. There are plenty of teams that win without tanking or trying to win big in the lottery. You are making it sound like there is some big master plan and we are right on schedule. I'd be far more comfortable with that thought process if Flip was still in charge of everything. But right now, I'd say we very much lack direction. Look no further than the handling of LaVine as an example. He's anointed the starter job before camp even starts. Four pre-season games later and now he's the back up point guard? Also, if the clear vision is youth/development, then why do we have KG, Prince and Miller? What can they do that Pek, Rubio and Martin can't from a mentoring stand point? You say it's stupid to try and win games? I think the opposite as you in that regard. There is no reason we can't have some young guys i.e Towns and Wiggins surrounded by a few good vet players that still can play enough to matter. Making guys like LaVine earn their way into the starting line up is better for their development than being handed it IMO.

I thinks it is abundantly clear how much better a mentor like KG is than simple veterans like Martin and Pek. If they were good mentoring veterans we wouldn't need guys like KG and Miller, but obviously the team felt they weren't those guys and went out to get those guys. Also, what have Martin, Pek and Ricky won to earn the respect and attention of the young guys on their every word? KG and Prince have won titles while Ricky and Pek have never finished above .500. Let's listen to the guys who have never finished above .500 and can never stay on the court for sure.

As far as winning and developing guys goes, if the best five players on the team have 1 development guy in that group, how are you going to win and develop the rest of the team at the same time? We would have to play Ricky/Martin/Wiggins/KG/Pek all around 30 MPG's to even have a chance at winning a decent chunk of games this year which leaves the rest of the team either getting under 20 MPG's or not playing at all in some cases. It's not just Wiggins and Towns that need to be developed. It's Tyus, Lavine, Wiggins, Bazz, AP, Towns and NB to an extent that need to be developed. How are we going to develop 7 players, keep 5 veterans happy, make sure they all play enough somehow and still win games this year? That's too much going on at the same time. Cuts have to be made somewhere and to get more wins those cuts have to come from the development side of the team because the veteran side of the team is better at winning games.

I think too many people are trying to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to winning and developing players well at the same time especially when we are trying to develop 7 players. It's not just 1 or 2 guys (Wiggins and Towns) who can be placed well around veterans to protect them and to aid in their development. It's 7 guys. I said earlier cuts have to be made. I think those cuts are playing the vets less which will result in less winning, but will result in the young guys getting more playing time and developing better. You aren't going .500 in this league when half your team has 3 years or less experience in the league so why sacrifice development time for wins (playing time is development time)?