Minnesota Sports Forum

Womp womp, the Pistons pulled a uno reverse on us, on to the next one

The Wolves can't make up these games they've blown to bad teams, they just can't.

Even sprinkled with some good veteran players, they are a very immature team. They don't place serious emphasis on each possession. And I'm referring to both ends of the floor. Ant picks and chooses when to focus, sometimes he gives great effort and sometimes he doesn't. Finchie enables multiple players to take bad shots early in the shot clock. Nowell knows he might get a stern look but that's about it. DLO is a joke on defense, but he's the only guy who can get us into an offensive set. That is when he feels like it. I have no idea what TC was thinking when he didn't address the PG position in the offseason.

The whole team gives off an air of carelessness and a lack of urgency. And it's our supposed better players who are most guilty of it. Losing to this Pistons team is inexcusable. Blame whoever you like, but I still think the culture is a big problem.

Abe's Aborted Late Night DVR Review:

- Turned this one off two minutes in the 2nd half. I'd seen enough. The energy level was bad. And without Edwards, Slo MO, Towns and McLaughlin... I wasn't enjoying seeing whatever it was I was watching.

- Just found out that Edwards went back in? Obviously, it didn't inspire the troops enough.

- Two very bad losses to arguably the worst team in the league. Woof.

Enough is enough. Move D'LO, Nowell, whatever else for a PG who cares. You cannot win with inconsistency from the PG position. One day he cares and puts up 30. One quarter he cares and puts up 15. But the laziness the rest of the time just isn't conducive to a winning program. There is enough scoring punch elsewhere, need a commander.

D'Lo does not make anyone better.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Even sprinkled with some good veteran players, they are a very immature team. They don't place serious emphasis on each possession. And I'm referring to both ends of the floor. Ant picks and chooses when to focus, sometimes he gives great effort and sometimes he doesn't. Finchie enables multiple players to take bad shots early in the shot clock. Nowell knows he might get a stern look but that's about it. DLO is a joke on defense, but he's the only guy who can get us into an offensive set. That is when he feels like it. I have no idea what TC was thinking when he didn't address the PG position in the offseason.

The whole team gives off an air of carelessness and a lack of urgency. And it's our supposed better players who are most guilty of it. Losing to this Pistons team is inexcusable. Blame whoever you like, but I still think the culture is a big problem.

Can't say I disagree with anything you wrote, Cool. I'll just add that culture is ultimately a reflection of the players on the roster, especially those in the rotation. I thought we had a terrific culture last season -- hustle and high effort every game that turned into a record 10 games over .500 and a highly competitive playoff series against the 2nd seed in the West. Same head coach as last season, but the roster is materially different based on off-season moves by our front office. It's a combination of the moves our front office made (the Gobert deal) and the moves they didn't make (failure as you noted to address the PG position). There is simply no getting around the incompetence of this current front office last summer. The net result is a bad team.

Camden wrote:

crazysauce wrote:Lot of excuses in this thread. Nevermind the fact the pistons don't have cunningham, Stewart and duren. Pathetic performance pathetic team

Well-coached teams don't lose to pathetic opponents as often as we have. Simple as that.

Did Finch forget how to coach between last season and this one? Maybe this roster, collectively, just isn't very good. Fire Finch and hire Snyder. Maybe that will make a difference. Or maybe it won't.

lipoli390 wrote:

Camden wrote:

crazysauce wrote:Lot of excuses in this thread. Nevermind the fact the pistons don't have cunningham, Stewart and duren. Pathetic performance pathetic team

Well-coached teams don't lose to pathetic opponents as often as we have. Simple as that.

Did Finch forget how to coach between last season and this one? Maybe this roster, collectively, just isn't very good. Fire Finch and hire Snyder. Maybe that will make a difference. Or maybe it won't.

5:56 down 20 to DET, that's brutal. Finch still has Ant in the game after the hip issue, still has TP in after the ankle issue and still has Rudy in after the big elbow. It's a very flawed group, been saying it all year. When will they make some moves cause they need a shake up in the worst kind of way.

lipoli390 wrote:

Camden wrote:

crazysauce wrote:Lot of excuses in this thread. Nevermind the fact the pistons don't have cunningham, Stewart and duren. Pathetic performance pathetic team

Well-coached teams don't lose to pathetic opponents as often as we have. Simple as that.

Did Finch forget how to coach between last season and this one? Maybe this roster, collectively, just isn't very good. Fire Finch and hire Snyder. Maybe that will make a difference. Or maybe it won't.

Sure, Chris Finch forgot how to coach. Maybe this roster, collectively, just isn't very good. Respectfully, both seem like oversimplifications of what we're witnessing, though.

MAYBE this roster doesn't suit Chris Finch and what he wants to implement.

MAYBE Chris Finch has been unable and/or unwilling to adapt his system to the personnel he's been given.

MAYBE the players on the roster are unable or unwilling to run the system Chris Finch has implemented.

In any of those conclusions mentioned above, the individual that should first be held responsible is Chris Finch. Either his direction and leadership from a management position has been misguided (ding, ding, ding), or his direction and leadership just isn't being followed -- ie. the team has tuned him out. Either are damning given his current role.

Also, we can appropriately commend Chris Finch for the excellent job he did with last season's team and still acknowledge that he's dropped the ball with this year's team. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Sometimes good coaches fail to adapt. That's what I think has happened here.

Lastly, criticism of Chris Finch does not, nor should not, absolve Tim Connelly of blame. But we should also recognize that it's possible Connelly's vision -- whatever that is -- hasn't been carried out through Finch to this point. I would absolutely suggest that to be true.

Tactical unit wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Camden wrote:

crazysauce wrote:Lot of excuses in this thread. Nevermind the fact the pistons don't have cunningham, Stewart and duren. Pathetic performance pathetic team

Well-coached teams don't lose to pathetic opponents as often as we have. Simple as that.

Did Finch forget how to coach between last season and this one? Maybe this roster, collectively, just isn't very good. Fire Finch and hire Snyder. Maybe that will make a difference. Or maybe it won't.

5:56 down 20 to DET, that's brutal. Finch still has Ant in the game after the hip issue, still has TP in after the ankle issue and still has Rudy in after the big elbow. It's a very flawed group, been saying it all year. When will they make some moves cause they need a shake up in the worst kind of way.

Yep, it's a flawed group. That truth couldn't be more obvious. I like the idea of shaking up the roster, but unfortunately don't see how this organization can shake up the roster in a meaningful and potentially positive way this season without trading Edwards, McDaniels or Gobert. No other tradable player on this roster will bring any significant value in return. Trading Edwards would be really dumb. That leaves the other two. I wouldn't trade McDaniels even though I'm disappointed in his progress to date and still troubled by his relatively poor rebounding given his length and athleticism. That leaves Rudy. But I don't see Connelly trading Rudy this season or even next summer.

I've seen this movie before. Wolves ownership makes a dumb front office hiring decision. The front office executive they hire turns out to be incompetent. The incompetent front office executive compounds bad decisions with more bad decisions and fires the head coach to buy time but the team just keeps struggling. The best players on the team become disgruntled and want out. Finally ownership fires the head executives, but then hires another bad one. This is the story of our hapless Wolves franchise. We had a glimmer of hope with Rosas, but his sexual impulses got the best of him before he could finish building what looked like a promising young team. Now we have Tim Connelly who said he wanted to stay out of the way and not screw things up. Then true to his word (NOT), he did anything but stay out of the way and instead screwed things up. So here we are. We're three games under .500. We might finish three games over .500 by the end of the season, but the end result will be another lottery pick for the Utah Jazz.