Minnesota Sports Forum

lipoli390 wrote:

Phenom's_Revenge wrote:Bennett is Horace Grant
LaVine is Jordan
Wiggins is Pippen

And I guess that makes Rubio, BJ Armstrong and Dieng will be Will Perdue.

Lol. :). Thanks for the levity, phenom.

Levity?!? I think he was completely serious...

~

60WinTim wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Phenom's_Revenge wrote:Bennett is Horace Grant
LaVine is Jordan
Wiggins is Pippen

And I guess that makes Rubio, BJ Armstrong and Dieng will be Will Perdue.

Lol. :). Thanks for the levity, phenom.

Levity?!? I think he was completely serious...

~

We'll have to let Phenom speak for himself. I was reacting to the BJ Armstrong and a Will Perdue references. Actually, I think phenom was semi serious about the Jordan, Pippen and Horace Grant references.

lipoli390 wrote:

60WinTim wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Phenom's_Revenge wrote:Bennett is Horace Grant
LaVine is Jordan
Wiggins is Pippen

And I guess that makes Rubio, BJ Armstrong and Dieng will be Will Perdue.

Lol. :). Thanks for the levity, phenom.

Levity?!? I think he was completely serious...

~

We'll have to let Phenom speak for himself. I was reacting to the BJ Armstrong and a Will Perdue references. Actually, I think phenom was semi serious about the Jordan, Pippen and Horace Grant references.

WAT?!? He's not Steve Kerr?

TheGrey08 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

60WinTim wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Phenom's_Revenge wrote:Bennett is Horace Grant
LaVine is Jordan
Wiggins is Pippen

And I guess that makes Rubio, BJ Armstrong and Dieng will be Will Perdue.

Lol. :). Thanks for the levity, phenom.

Levity?!? I think he was completely serious...

~

We'll have to let Phenom speak for himself. I was reacting to the BJ Armstrong and a Will Perdue references. Actually, I think phenom was semi serious about the Jordan, Pippen and Horace Grant references.

WAT?!? He's not Steve Kerr?

Steve kerr comes later on the bulls 2nd 3 peat team along with rodman, harper and kukoc. I wonder who can be paxon on our team?

To me the reality is that we don't know what we are getting for Love besides Wiggins plus some players or assets or both basically other stuff. In some ways at this point I don't really care what else we get back Wiggins is the prize hopefully we get something else or a way to bring in a PF that can make the team competitive.

I'll mention where I am at on Bennett here though. A few weeks ago (at some point before the draft) if you had asked me what I thought about Bennett (AB) I would have laughed like you said a pretty funny joke. Then there were some articles that talked him up and one guy even compared him to Kevin Love. What a joke I thought. I still do (the article was only comparing skills to Love not saying he would be that good) but after doing a little looking I thought hey there is some hope for the guy afterall. Look at his game logs from last year he did have some nice performances. He had 3 double doubles if I remember right (more than Derrick Williams rookie year in less playing time) and had a decent rebond rate. Then I found out about alll his health issues and decided maybe he shouldn't be written off. I suppose even before this I hadn't written him off either he was a young player and I knew he had some issues before the season. Anyway to add a little more to his credit then he showed up for SL in good shape and I did watch him some. His jumper looks good he moved his feet well as a help defender and rebounded out of his area some stretches. When I watch SL I don't care much about shooting percentages and take stats only so seriously in general. Guys can look good or bad in 4-8 of real regular season games so its a small sample. I look at what skills they really show and I saw Bennett's jumper that looked promising and his rebounding added with good athletic ability plus overall skill for a guy his size. I also look if they look like they can play ball. Obviously we have seen guys look like ballers in limited regular season action but I look more at skills and flow in SL. That's why I was so impressed with LaVine.

Where do I stand with Bennett? He is a prospect how good of one partly depends as has been mentioned and discussed on his idea of being a SF. He drops down a lot if he sticks with that. I'd put him at nearly worthless if he really only sees himself at PF. If he decides he would play PF then he might actually be worthwhile.

I've dogged that draft class pretty hard but its only the first year and Noel who was supposed to go #1 didn't even play Bennett wasn't healthy some of the time and looked awful and a guy like McLemore and some other guys looked lost. It was different in SL. Sure its SL but especially McLemore looked like a legit player last year he looked like he was WAY WAY over his head. So maybe that draft turns out to be solid afterall we will see. I wouldn't mind getting Bennett if he plays PF but I also would be fine flippiing him if that opportunity presents itself. I'm not sold on him but I don't think he should be dismissed as a prospect either.

lipoli390 wrote:

60WinTim wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Phenom's_Revenge wrote:Bennett is Horace Grant
LaVine is Jordan
Wiggins is Pippen

And I guess that makes Rubio, BJ Armstrong and Dieng will be Will Perdue.

Lol. :). Thanks for the levity, phenom.

Levity?!? I think he was completely serious...

~

We'll have to let Phenom speak for himself. I was reacting to the BJ Armstrong and a Will Perdue references. Actually, I think phenom was semi serious about the Jordan, Pippen and Horace Grant references.

HA! You got me Lip!

monsterpile wrote:To me the reality is that we don't know what we are getting for Love besides Wiggins plus some players or assets or both basically other stuff. In some ways at this point I don't really care what else we get back Wiggins is the prize hopefully we get something else or a way to bring in a PF that can make the team competitive.

I'll mention where I am at on Bennett here though. A few weeks ago (at some point before the draft) if you had asked me what I thought about Bennett (AB) I would have laughed like you said a pretty funny joke. Then there were some articles that talked him up and one guy even compared him to Kevin Love. What a joke I thought. I still do (the article was only comparing skills to Love not saying he would be that good) but after doing a little looking I thought hey there is some hope for the guy afterall. Look at his game logs from last year he did have some nice performances. He had 3 double doubles if I remember right (more than Derrick Williams rookie year in less playing time) and had a decent rebond rate. Then I found out about alll his health issues and decided maybe he shouldn't be written off. I suppose even before this I hadn't written him off either he was a young player and I knew he had some issues before the season. Anyway to add a little more to his credit then he showed up for SL in good shape and I did watch him some. His jumper looks good he moved his feet well as a help defender and rebounded out of his area some stretches. When I watch SL I don't care much about shooting percentages and take stats only so seriously in general. Guys can look good or bad in 4-8 of real regular season games so its a small sample. I look at what skills they really show and I saw Bennett's jumper that looked promising and his rebounding added with good athletic ability plus overall skill for a guy his size. I also look if they look like they can play ball. Obviously we have seen guys look like ballers in limited regular season action but I look more at skills and flow in SL. That's why I was so impressed with LaVine.

Where do I stand with Bennett? He is a prospect how good of one partly depends as has been mentioned and discussed on his idea of being a SF. He drops down a lot if he sticks with that. I'd put him at nearly worthless if he really only sees himself at PF. If he decides he would play PF then he might actually be worthwhile.

I've dogged that draft class pretty hard but its only the first year and Noel who was supposed to go #1 didn't even play Bennett wasn't healthy some of the time and looked awful and a guy like McLemore and some other guys looked lost. It was different in SL. Sure its SL but especially McLemore looked like a legit player last year he looked like he was WAY WAY over his head. So maybe that draft turns out to be solid afterall we will see. I wouldn't mind getting Bennett if he plays PF but I also would be fine flippiing him if that opportunity presents itself. I'm not sold on him but I don't think he should be dismissed as a prospect either.

Nice take Monster. I hope Flip sees Bennett as Love's replacement at PF. I mentioned in a different post how I think it's important to have some guys who can play multiple positions, but Bennett's strength is needed with our skinny team (Rubio, Lavine, Wiggins, Martin, Brewer) and some people complain he's a jump shooter and doesn't hit the glass, but from what you've seen it sounds like he'll be a good rebounder as well. I haven't watched any SL games.

I have to add a +1 to monster and Lloyd's posts. I would like to see Bennett as our starting PF this year. Yes, he had a terrible rookie year, but he clearly has an NBA body, has been through his adjustment year, was a monster in college, and has showed up this summer in shape and ready to play. Coming off shoulder surgery and being overweight and out of shape, he had a laughably bad start to the season...11 for 46 in his first month! But it's interesting to me that in the only two games all year that he played 30+ minutes, he went 15-8 and 19-10. I'm not faulting the Cavs for not giving him more minutes early...he just wasn't ready. But later when he got his minutes, and again in SL, he showed me that he is an eventual double double guy, with the potential to occasionally go off for bigger games. He's a big body, and his 7'1" wingspan and adequate footspeed and athleticism makes me think Sam Mitchell can turn him into a plus defender at PF.

He will have rookie-like moments this year to be sure, but I'm ready to think long-term, and I would rather see him starting at PF on opening night than Young or TT.

longstrangetrip wrote:I have to add a +1 to monster and Lloyd's posts. I would like to see Bennett as our starting PF this year. Yes, he had a terrible rookie year, but he clearly has an NBA body, has been through his adjustment year, was a monster in college, and has showed up this summer in shape and ready to play. Coming off shoulder surgery and being overweight and out of shape, he had a laughably bad start to the season...11 for 46 in his first month! But it's interesting to me that in the only two games all year that he played 30+ minutes, he went 15-8 and 19-10. I'm not faulting the Cavs for not giving him more minutes early...he just wasn't ready. But later when he got his minutes, and again in SL, he showed me that he is an eventual double double guy, with the potential to occasionally go off for bigger games. He's a big body, and his 7'1" wingspan and adequate footspeed and athleticism makes me think Sam Mitchell can turn him into a plus defender at PF.

He will have rookie-like moments this year to be sure, but I'm ready to think long-term, and I would rather see him starting at PF on opening night than Young or TT.

I am not sure I am ready for Bennett to be the starter this year but the problem wit TT and Young is they will need to get paid after this year and the question is whether either are worth paying the money. Its very possible both guys turn out to be fringe starter types. Is TT the next Jason Thompson/Drew Gooden type handy bench big or something better? Is Young a guy that can be a legit PF or is he just a really nice 6th man type like maybe Donyell Marshall became? I'm still intruiged by Young but I'm losing steam on getting him unless we get him for nearly nothing which seems unlikely. I might value Bennett more than Young right now because Young is probably going to get at least what he is making now if not more after this year. Its possible he takes a step towards becoming a better player this year too and fits in great with the team too. Yep still conflicted on him. Getting Young and Bennett would be fun because I could see those guys playing together in the frontcourt.

60WinTim wrote:I just finished watching some highlights and the DX scouting report on Bennett. I am MUCH more upbeat about him being included in the trade that I was before. Not so much for this upcoming year -- we still need a starting PF -- but he can be part of our young core that can grow.

I expect Flip to get Wiggins and Bennett, and then complete a deal to get a starting PF using expiring contracts and the pick we get from Cleveland (the non-guaranteed contract might play a role as well!).

It's possible the starting PF arrives as part of a 3-team deal with Cleveland, but I doubt it. I think Flip needs to move at least two of his expiring contracts for the starting PF, so the need to use the excess Love salary-matching will not be there.

Tim -- Check out Bennett's highlights from last season. Although his overall stats last season were terrible, this highlight footage shows what he is capable of at the NBA level. Some really impressive examples. And as you watch, keep in mind that he was in bad physical shape (15 pounds heavier than he is now). I'm looking forward to getting Bennett as part of this deal.