Re: GDT: Knicks at Wolves
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2023 8:46 am
This is why last year Edwards' VORP was low last year (2.1 which was second on team behind SloMo's 2.2). People would point to that and say "how can VORP be so good if it shows SloMo is better than Edwards". But VORP is a cumulative stat. So if you only flash once in a while, you won't accumulate as much VORP as a Steady Eddy who shows up every night. Edwards is still really young. He's shown incremental increases each year. But it's probably good to keep some vets around him (like Conley) to make sure he brings it every night instead of every once in a while.Q-is-here wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 8:16 amThe good news is we saw what Ant can do in the playoffs last year. He seems to rise to the occasion in the bright lights, but goes into these multi-game lulls during the regular season. To your point, we finally have an ensemble of players that can compete and win without being overly reliant on one guy, but it just feels like Ant is underachieving a bit versus expectations coming into the season.FNG wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 7:57 amI just finished the replay, Tim, and I can answer your question. We played well in the first half, but we essentially played without Ant who was mostly invisible. But Ant came out hot right from the start of the 3rd quarter, and everything changed.
Here's my overly-simplistic analysis of where the Wolves are right now. When Ant doesn't show up, as he didn't for 4 1/2 games prior to his brilliant second half tonight, we are still good enough to barely win games. But when Ant plays at the level we all know he can, we are an elite team able to beat any team in the league. As some of us have said, we don't really know if this is Ant's or KAT's team. But we do know that we need tonight's second half Ant to compete for a championship.
Welcome back, Ant!
I still question whether he is in top physical shape. He has been coming up short on a lot of his jumpers of late and that tells me his legs are a bit tired. I'd be willing to bet his diet hasn't changed much since he was a rookie....