Minnesota Sports Forum

The best organizations find the right players. It doesn't matter to me as a fan how you do it, just that you do it. I don't care who was predicted over whom by what experts. The scoreboard says the Jazz found Gobert and Mitchell and we didn't. If you want to apologize for your front office (Like Minnesota sports fans have been doing for decades) that's within your right as a fan. But it's my right to critique the job our GM's do after the fact, even if I didn't disclose the right path before it. I don't get paid to do that.

With Butler, Thibs has limited our potential to become a contender even though he is our best player. As i see it, his only chance is to turn Butler into multiple assets so we can continue to build around KAT. He shot for the moon too soon with Jimmy. It was the right idea but it came at a high cost and at the wrong time.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:The best organizations find the right players. It doesn't matter to me as a fan how you do it, just that you do it. I don't care who was predicted over whom by what experts. The scoreboard says the Jazz found Gobert and Mitchell and we didn't. If you want to apologize for your front office (Like Minnesota sports fans have been doing for decades) that's within your right as a fan. But it's my right to critique the job our GM's do after the fact, even if I didn't disclose the right path before it. I don't get paid to do that.

With Butler, Thibs has limited our potential to become a contender even though he is our best player. As i see it, his only chance is to turn Butler into multiple assets so we can continue to build around KAT. He shot for the moon too soon with Jimmy. It was the right idea but it came at a high cost and at the wrong time.

If Butler is our best player why build around KAT now? So we can miss the playoffs some more and have KAT want to leave like all our past stars? We can build around KAT once he's actually established himself as a legit #1. Until then let's work on having a winning culture.

thedoper wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:The best organizations find the right players. It doesn't matter to me as a fan how you do it, just that you do it. I don't care who was predicted over whom by what experts. The scoreboard says the Jazz found Gobert and Mitchell and we didn't. If you want to apologize for your front office (Like Minnesota sports fans have been doing for decades) that's within your right as a fan. But it's my right to critique the job our GM's do after the fact, even if I didn't disclose the right path before it. I don't get paid to do that.

With Butler, Thibs has limited our potential to become a contender even though he is our best player. As i see it, his only chance is to turn Butler into multiple assets so we can continue to build around KAT. He shot for the moon too soon with Jimmy. It was the right idea but it came at a high cost and at the wrong time.

If Butler is our best player why build around KAT now? So we can miss the playoffs some more and have KAT want to leave like all our past stars? We can build around KAT once he's actually established himself as a legit #1. Until then let's work on having a winning culture.

You can't do both, you either turn Butler into players and picks or you ride and die with him. His trade value will go down the longer you have him. That is likely.

I'm not sure how well he has healed and recovered from his knee injury. As well as his past inability to stay healthy is a concern.

If we could get a top 3 pick plus player I would highly consider it. I'm willing to go younger with the hopes of hitting on an elite player.

Also, I'm still on the fire Thibs wagon This talk about trading KAT because he can't coach him just seals the deal for me.

Yes, is it worth maintaining a winning culture if you never get out of the first round? It's not for me. I would always be maneuvering with championship contention as the goal.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Yes, is it worth maintaining a winning culture if you never get out of the first round? It's not for me. I would always be maneuvering with championship contention as the goal.

Where was this championship play previous to the Butler trade? And what would it be now? Our best play is to stay relevant and keep KAT engaged until Golden State starts their decline. Then you take your big shot. If we need to move Butler eventually do it, but not while KAT and Wiggins haven't been able to show that they can lead a winning team. The reality is talent is what's important, and having Butler exceeds the talent we had previous to him being here. Everyone wants us to get better, I just don't see how letting Wiggins and KAT lose more is going to get us there.

thedoper wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Yes, is it worth maintaining a winning culture if you never get out of the first round? It's not for me. I would always be maneuvering with championship contention as the goal.

Where was this championship play previous to the Butler trade? And what would it be now? Our best play is to stay relevant and keep KAT engaged until Golden State starts their decline. Then you take your big shot. If we need to move Butler eventually do it, but not while KAT and Wiggins haven't been able to show that they can lead a winning team. The reality is talent is what's important, and having Butler exceeds the talent we had previous to him being here. Everyone wants us to get better, I just don't see how letting Wiggins and KAT lose more is going to get us there.

I guess where we disagree is I don't think we're relevant right now. If we were i would say to stay the course.

I think we should all remember even the great Warriors were not built in a day. I mean they won 23 games (where there fans were booing their own off the court) then they went out and added an All NBA center the next year in Bogut. They won 47 games (the same as the wolves this year), now this was without Draymond Green being nothing at as a rookie. But they started the winning culture, they went on to add Iggy via trade getting rid of all their bad contracts to obtain him. They took a mini step and won 51 games and lost in the 1st round of the playoffs. Then they took off and they fired Jackson and hired Kerr. They added Speights, Livingston and Barbosa for a combined 10 million.

They developed a winning culture 1st, they had nothing from Draymond in his 1st year and played 20 minutes in the 2nd year. Players developed internally while adding above average vet talent. They also were able to add role players on the cheap.

In the end the Wolves need to have their young guys need to continue to develop from KAT to Amile Jefferson. Adding our vets helps with the winning culture and should give the Wolves guys experiences on what they need to work on. Maybe Thibs is the Mark Jackson in this situation, but I would rather be in the situation we are in now where players are learning how to win than hoping 5 other young guys figure out how to win in the waste land of lottery pick after lottery pick.

So the narrative is that Thibs has traded youth and potential for vets and cut out the long term upside of this team. Personally think thats somewhat flawed. Why?

1. Patton no matter how you feel about the pick slipped on a wet spot on the floor in his first practice with the team and jacked up his foot. That's not Thibs fault and its like classic Wolves luck right there. Patton was a long play from the beginning anyway. Now its like Thibs and Layden are being punished by fans for not going after young talent because Patton got hurt and is a guy nobody considers a factor anymore (which is understandable). Maybe he would have sucked and regardless it's not looking good for his future but He was a somewhat nice prospect in a pretty deep draft of players and he clearly has some nice talent. Maybe he ends up being healthy and ends up being a worthwhile player. It's nto 100% that the guy is just done. Not getting my hopes up, but yeah.

2. Tyus Jones may not play as much as well all would like but every year we hear about Some Thibs vet taking is spot on the roster or taking his minutes andbasically it really hasn't happened. Trading away some of the young talent allowed Tyus to have a larger role. People continue to forget this. Tyus is a legit prospect on this roster and Thibs has been willing to play the guy.

3. Thibs brought in vets last offseason but he also prioritized some young players on the roster as well. He wanted Bazz back as a young experienced player he thought could be part of the roster going forward. It failed pretty much every way it could (except financially) but the idea made sense. MGH most people here didn't give a shit about the guy thinking he was basically camp fodder. Maybe he turns into or is nothing and is worthless. What if he sticks around and is the next solid NBA rotation player to carve out a place in the league from humble beginnings? Thibs could have easily signed some older vet to play instead. Nope he kept a young guy he clearly values on some level. Amile Jefferson. They gave him an NBA contract to reward or give him incentive to stick around beyond this year. They could have signed some other vet guy for the playoffs. Moving Dunn and Lavine opened up a roster spot and that spot likely was for a younger player. People are all giving the Celtics credit for guy sliek Smart and Rozier and rightly so but it wasn't like those guys were the players they were in later years. If you asked most people about Rozier a few months ago most people would say the guy is just a whatever player. Some guys take time to develop and they dont' have to be playing minutes to do that.

4. Thibs traded Rubio for a 1st round pick. If he didn't do that we would be sitting here in a draft with some nice wings hoping one of them fell to #48 or hoping we could buy a pick or work some magic to get up to the end of the 1st round or maybe beginning of the 2nd. Where is the praise for getting a pick that could provide a young player for this roster? Good teams turn those picks into good players. That should be the expectation not assuming the worst.

So basically here is the ledger of youth leaving last year and what it had at the end:

Lavine Dunn the pick that became Markkanen

Patton MGH Jefferson plus a 1st round pick from the Rubio trade.

Obviously some of those guys look a lot more intruiging than others but its not like the Wolves didn't add any youth or chances at getting good young players. It's also worth noting that the 2 players that left this team in the Butler trade played a combined 67 games last season. Is nobody concerned about their long term health? I would be and I am. Maybe I'm crazy but can't we let some things play out a bit longer? Nah people have basically made up their minds (I'm certainly guilty at times too).

Re: Butler trade.

we got the best player in the deal and thats usually a good thing. We dont get him without thibs which also means we dont get TAJ. Both guys were worth the $$ and assets we gave up. The only problem I have with this deal is I thought the vets (Butler, Taj, and Teague) would come in to help propel KAT and Wiggs, but instead they basically dropped Kat and wiggs a few pegs in their development in terms of learning to lead the team and gaining experience as "the man" in important situations. How many times this year did we have to endure watching the team completely ignore KAT and wiggs in 4th quarters? Too many to count.

RE: Mitchell

he would not be the same player under Thibs. Snyder is a great coach and he knows what hes doing.

Re: KAT

I saw it all year with Butler and Taj's growing frustrations with KAT as the defensive anchor. Thibs sees it well. However, these guys should be helping KAT get it on the defensive side of the ball by trying to get through to him instead of hoping he just gets it. If KAt is having troubles, you find a different way to relay the information. Not continue to scream the same things over and over and then look to trade him when you are poor at teaching. You get rid of thibs before KAT 10 out of 10 times.

Hypothetically. If sixers call and offer fultz and the 10th pick for jimmy. Will you go for it?