Minnesota Sports Forum

lipoli390 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:At some point... where a player is drafted has ZERO relevance.

Teams don't care where a guy is drafted if he hasn't played well... AND hasn't improved.

Yes, at some point draft position has zero relevance. That's obvious. But I don't think Culver is at that point yet. He was drafted two years ago and has shown at times that he can play well at this level. Admittedly, he's been trending downward towards zero. I just don't think he's there yet in the minds of every NBA organization. NBA front offices are filled with big egos who think they can see things others don't and get things out of young players that others can't.

What specifically is it about Culver do you think NBA teams covet?

Creating?
Defense?
Size?
Motor?
Et al.

From the stats are fun column...

An "average" GameScore (sorta like PER) is 10.0.
Culver has reached being an average player only 15 times in 97 career games... and only 4 times this past season.

Meanwhile, he's had a negative GameScore (very rare) 16 times... including 10 times this past season.

By comparison, Okogie has 38 +10 games... and 18 negative ones. So Culver isn't as good defensively or offensively as Josh Okogie, at least according to that stat. Culver also had negative WS this season. He's the only Timberwolves player to reach that lofty status and one of the only guys who actually was in a rotation in the entire league to reach it.

For good measure... Culver was the only guy outside of Allen Crabbe to have a negative WS on last year's team, too.

Quite probably the worst player on teams that went 42 - 94... who actually got worse. The one thing you NEVER want to see... a rookie who had a bad year get worse.

I don't think we've seen many 22 year olds recover from that. He has negative value.



[Note: The last player to post a negative WS that received any sort of real playing time was Adrien Payne over 52 games back in 2016. He played in 13 more NBA games over two seasons before he was out of the league. Zach LaVine was the guy before that... and he recovered nicely.]

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:At some point... where a player is drafted has ZERO relevance.

Teams don't care where a guy is drafted if he hasn't played well... AND hasn't improved.

Yes, at some point draft position has zero relevance. That's obvious. But I don't think Culver is at that point yet. He was drafted two years ago and has shown at times that he can play well at this level. Admittedly, he's been trending downward towards zero. I just don't think he's there yet in the minds of every NBA organization. NBA front offices are filled with big egos who think they can see things others don't and get things out of young players that others can't.

What specifically is it about Culver do you think NBA teams covet?

Creating?
Defense?
Size?
Motor?
Et al.

From the stats are fun column...

An "average" GameScore (sorta like PER) is 10.0.
Culver has reached being an average player only 15 times in 97 career games... and only 4 times this past season.

Meanwhile, he's had a negative GameScore (very rare) 16 times... including 10 times this past season.

By comparison, Okogie has 38 +10 games... and 18 negative ones. So Culver isn't as good defensively or offensively as Josh Okogie, at least according to that stat. Culver also had negative WS this season. He's the only Timberwolves player to reach that lofty status and one of the only guys who actually was in a rotation in the entire league to reach it.

For good measure... Culver was the only guy outside of Allen Crabbe to have a negative WS on last year's team, too.

Quite probably the worst player on teams that went 42 - 94... who actually got worse. The one thing you NEVER want to see... a rookie who had a bad year get worse.

I don't think we've seen many 22 year olds recover from that. He has negative value.



[Note: The last player to post a negative WS that received any sort of real playing time was Adrien Payne over 52 games back in 2016. He played in 13 more NBA games over two seasons before he was out of the league. Zach LaVine was the guy before that... and he recovered nicely.]

Lol. I never suggested any NBA teams "covet" anything that Culver has to offer. But I do think there are some NBA teams that haven't completely abandoned their assessment of Culver as a top 5 or top 10 prospect just two years ago and who, therefore, still see some significant upside. Therefore I think there are probably some teams that would give up a future 2nd-round pick for a one-year trial run with Culver. Obviously that doesn't suggest that anyone "covets" him. As we know, there are a lot of teams that sell 2nd-round picks for cash. So it's not a reach to envision some teams being willing to give up a second round pick for a trial run with Culver.

lipoli390 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:At some point... where a player is drafted has ZERO relevance.

Teams don't care where a guy is drafted if he hasn't played well... AND hasn't improved.

Yes, at some point draft position has zero relevance. That's obvious. But I don't think Culver is at that point yet. He was drafted two years ago and has shown at times that he can play well at this level. Admittedly, he's been trending downward towards zero. I just don't think he's there yet in the minds of every NBA organization. NBA front offices are filled with big egos who think they can see things others don't and get things out of young players that others can't.

What specifically is it about Culver do you think NBA teams covet?

Creating?
Defense?
Size?
Motor?
Et al.

From the stats are fun column...

An "average" GameScore (sorta like PER) is 10.0.
Culver has reached being an average player only 15 times in 97 career games... and only 4 times this past season.

Meanwhile, he's had a negative GameScore (very rare) 16 times... including 10 times this past season.

By comparison, Okogie has 38 +10 games... and 18 negative ones. So Culver isn't as good defensively or offensively as Josh Okogie, at least according to that stat. Culver also had negative WS this season. He's the only Timberwolves player to reach that lofty status and one of the only guys who actually was in a rotation in the entire league to reach it.

For good measure... Culver was the only guy outside of Allen Crabbe to have a negative WS on last year's team, too.

Quite probably the worst player on teams that went 42 - 94... who actually got worse. The one thing you NEVER want to see... a rookie who had a bad year get worse.

I don't think we've seen many 22 year olds recover from that. He has negative value.



[Note: The last player to post a negative WS that received any sort of real playing time was Adrien Payne over 52 games back in 2016. He played in 13 more NBA games over two seasons before he was out of the league. Zach LaVine was the guy before that... and he recovered nicely.]

Lol. I never suggested any NBA teams "covet" anything that Culver has to offer. But I do think there are some NBA teams that haven't completely abandoned their assessment of Culver as a top 5 or top 10 prospect just two years ago and who, therefore, still see some significant upside. Therefore I think there are probably some teams that would give up a future 2nd-round pick for a one-year trial run with Culver. Obviously that doesn't suggest that anyone "covets" him. As we know, there are a lot of teams that sell 2nd-round picks for cash. So it's not a reach to envision some teams being willing to give up a second round pick for a trial run with Culver.

Think about this...Anthony Bennett was dumped by the Wolves after 2 years in the NBA and even if he shouldn't have been picked #1 he was still a high draft pick. I actually think he was/is actually somewhat talented and was a very good fit for the league especially where it went. I think for him it was mostly a mental thing. What makes Culver more interesting especially as an over 6 million dollar trial compared to some other 22 year old guy possibly even from the G-league? It's not like the draft Culver was in is considered to be a stellar one after the top picks.

At some point I asked myself what was Derrick Williams good at when it was his 3rd year in the league. Their really wasn't much I think they could have brought in a number roof guys or just played Hummel more and it wouldn't have changed much. Abe put some interesting numbers to what we are looking at with Culver. I didn't watch him enough this year to get a good feel for how good bad or just meh he was but I think we need to be realistic too. It only takes one team though...there may be some other factors about Culver that may limit the pool of teams even farther.

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:At some point... where a player is drafted has ZERO relevance.

Teams don't care where a guy is drafted if he hasn't played well... AND hasn't improved.

Yes, at some point draft position has zero relevance. That's obvious. But I don't think Culver is at that point yet. He was drafted two years ago and has shown at times that he can play well at this level. Admittedly, he's been trending downward towards zero. I just don't think he's there yet in the minds of every NBA organization. NBA front offices are filled with big egos who think they can see things others don't and get things out of young players that others can't.

What specifically is it about Culver do you think NBA teams covet?

Creating?
Defense?
Size?
Motor?
Et al.

From the stats are fun column...

An "average" GameScore (sorta like PER) is 10.0.
Culver has reached being an average player only 15 times in 97 career games... and only 4 times this past season.

Meanwhile, he's had a negative GameScore (very rare) 16 times... including 10 times this past season.

By comparison, Okogie has 38 +10 games... and 18 negative ones. So Culver isn't as good defensively or offensively as Josh Okogie, at least according to that stat. Culver also had negative WS this season. He's the only Timberwolves player to reach that lofty status and one of the only guys who actually was in a rotation in the entire league to reach it.

For good measure... Culver was the only guy outside of Allen Crabbe to have a negative WS on last year's team, too.

Quite probably the worst player on teams that went 42 - 94... who actually got worse. The one thing you NEVER want to see... a rookie who had a bad year get worse.

I don't think we've seen many 22 year olds recover from that. He has negative value.



[Note: The last player to post a negative WS that received any sort of real playing time was Adrien Payne over 52 games back in 2016. He played in 13 more NBA games over two seasons before he was out of the league. Zach LaVine was the guy before that... and he recovered nicely.]

Lol. I never suggested any NBA teams "covet" anything that Culver has to offer. But I do think there are some NBA teams that haven't completely abandoned their assessment of Culver as a top 5 or top 10 prospect just two years ago and who, therefore, still see some significant upside. Therefore I think there are probably some teams that would give up a future 2nd-round pick for a one-year trial run with Culver. Obviously that doesn't suggest that anyone "covets" him. As we know, there are a lot of teams that sell 2nd-round picks for cash. So it's not a reach to envision some teams being willing to give up a second round pick for a trial run with Culver.

Think about this...Anthony Bennett was dumped by the Wolves after 2 years in the NBA and even if he shouldn't have been picked #1 he was still a high draft pick. I actually think he was/is actually somewhat talented and was a very good fit for the league especially where it went. I think for him it was mostly a mental thing. What makes Culver more interesting especially as an over 6 million dollar trial compared to some other 22 year old guy possibly even from the G-league? It's not like the draft Culver was in is considered to be a stellar one after the top picks.

At some point I asked myself what was Derrick Williams good at when it was his 3rd year in the league. Their really wasn't much I think they could have brought in a number roof guys or just played Hummel more and it wouldn't have changed much. Abe put some interesting numbers to what we are looking at with Culver. I didn't watch him enough this year to get a good feel for how good bad or just meh he was but I think we need to be realistic too. It only takes one team though...there may be some other factors about Culver that may limit the pool of teams even farther.

Bennett had character issues coming out of college. Derrick Williams became known around the League as a partier who didn't work on his game. I've heard that from people inside the Wolves organization. By all accounts, Culver is a high character guy who puts the work in. I have no doubt there are some teams that would give up a future second-round pick for a one-year trial with Culver at $6.4M. Again, teams trade 2nd round picks for cash. If I were GM of a rebuilding team like the Pistons, I'd give up a future second-round pick for a one-year trial with Culver. When you're in the early rebuild stage you don't worry about finding and paying free agents; you focus on accumulating young talent with upside and seeing who pans out.

lipoli390 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:At some point... where a player is drafted has ZERO relevance.

Teams don't care where a guy is drafted if he hasn't played well... AND hasn't improved.

Yes, at some point draft position has zero relevance. That's obvious. But I don't think Culver is at that point yet. He was drafted two years ago and has shown at times that he can play well at this level. Admittedly, he's been trending downward towards zero. I just don't think he's there yet in the minds of every NBA organization. NBA front offices are filled with big egos who think they can see things others don't and get things out of young players that others can't.

What specifically is it about Culver do you think NBA teams covet?

Creating?
Defense?
Size?
Motor?
Et al.

From the stats are fun column...

An "average" GameScore (sorta like PER) is 10.0.
Culver has reached being an average player only 15 times in 97 career games... and only 4 times this past season.

Meanwhile, he's had a negative GameScore (very rare) 16 times... including 10 times this past season.

By comparison, Okogie has 38 +10 games... and 18 negative ones. So Culver isn't as good defensively or offensively as Josh Okogie, at least according to that stat. Culver also had negative WS this season. He's the only Timberwolves player to reach that lofty status and one of the only guys who actually was in a rotation in the entire league to reach it.

For good measure... Culver was the only guy outside of Allen Crabbe to have a negative WS on last year's team, too.

Quite probably the worst player on teams that went 42 - 94... who actually got worse. The one thing you NEVER want to see... a rookie who had a bad year get worse.

I don't think we've seen many 22 year olds recover from that. He has negative value.



[Note: The last player to post a negative WS that received any sort of real playing time was Adrien Payne over 52 games back in 2016. He played in 13 more NBA games over two seasons before he was out of the league. Zach LaVine was the guy before that... and he recovered nicely.]

Lol. I never suggested any NBA teams "covet" anything that Culver has to offer. But I do think there are some NBA teams that haven't completely abandoned their assessment of Culver as a top 5 or top 10 prospect just two years ago and who, therefore, still see some significant upside. Therefore I think there are probably some teams that would give up a future 2nd-round pick for a one-year trial run with Culver. Obviously that doesn't suggest that anyone "covets" him. As we know, there are a lot of teams that sell 2nd-round picks for cash. So it's not a reach to envision some teams being willing to give up a second round pick for a trial run with Culver.

Think about this...Anthony Bennett was dumped by the Wolves after 2 years in the NBA and even if he shouldn't have been picked #1 he was still a high draft pick. I actually think he was/is actually somewhat talented and was a very good fit for the league especially where it went. I think for him it was mostly a mental thing. What makes Culver more interesting especially as an over 6 million dollar trial compared to some other 22 year old guy possibly even from the G-league? It's not like the draft Culver was in is considered to be a stellar one after the top picks.

At some point I asked myself what was Derrick Williams good at when it was his 3rd year in the league. Their really wasn't much I think they could have brought in a number roof guys or just played Hummel more and it wouldn't have changed much. Abe put some interesting numbers to what we are looking at with Culver. I didn't watch him enough this year to get a good feel for how good bad or just meh he was but I think we need to be realistic too. It only takes one team though...there may be some other factors about Culver that may limit the pool of teams even farther.

Bennett had character issues coming out of college. Derrick Williams became known around the League as a partier who didn't work on his game. I've heard that from people inside the Wolves organization. By all accounts, Culver is a high character guy who puts the work in. I have no doubt there are some teams that would give up a future second-round pick for a one-year trial with Culver at $6.4M. Again, teams trade 2nd round picks for cash. If I were GM of a rebuilding team like the Pistons, I'd give up a future second-round pick for a one-year trial with Culver. When you're in the early rebuild stage you don't worry about finding and paying free agents; you focus on accumulating young talent with upside and seeing who pans out.

I'm with Lip here. I want to say 1st I'm cherry picking stats and if I had to make a prediction Culver will never get meaningful minutes on a playoff team.

Here is the thing though. Stats after all star break last year.
9.8/3.5/1.5 on 49/42/44 splits (obviously the FT are dreadful)

Stats before he gets hurt this year
8.5/5/1 on 46/26/61 splits. FTs improved, FG% solid, bad 3pt shooting but good rebounding.

Now after he returned from injury he was bad and then got hurt again. Once he returned again he was dreadful again but he ended up getting surgery on his ankle I believe but there wasn't a big injury that happened to him during a singular game, so I'm going with the conclusion Culver was dealing with a legit nagging injury once he returned.

In no way do I think Culver is ever going to be great but there is a 24 game size of legit solid NBA rotation player.

I think a team would gamble on the #6 pick in the draft, when he has dealt with injuries, had no summer league or offseason and by all accounts is a really hard worker and character guy.

I'm going to go further to say I think the Wolves would be dump Culver to just dump Culver. Wolves were the 6th worst team last year and they need to hope young guys like Culver can pan out. Not trade them to trade them. Obviously you trade Culver if it creates space for a for sure rotation piece or he is part of a bigger deal.

Isn't it even scarier that Culver is seemingly a high character guy and has still been one of the worst players in the league the past two years.

There are two ways to look at it.

1. Man. That guy who sucks could be so good if only he wasn't a knucklehead. The tools are there. Maybe he matures.
2. Man. This guy works so hard, does the right things, but he just sucks. Maybe he suddenly becomes a better basketball player somehow.

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:At some point... where a player is drafted has ZERO relevance.

Teams don't care where a guy is drafted if he hasn't played well... AND hasn't improved.

Yes, at some point draft position has zero relevance. That's obvious. But I don't think Culver is at that point yet. He was drafted two years ago and has shown at times that he can play well at this level. Admittedly, he's been trending downward towards zero. I just don't think he's there yet in the minds of every NBA organization. NBA front offices are filled with big egos who think they can see things others don't and get things out of young players that others can't.

What specifically is it about Culver do you think NBA teams covet?

Creating?
Defense?
Size?
Motor?
Et al.

From the stats are fun column...

An "average" GameScore (sorta like PER) is 10.0.
Culver has reached being an average player only 15 times in 97 career games... and only 4 times this past season.

Meanwhile, he's had a negative GameScore (very rare) 16 times... including 10 times this past season.

By comparison, Okogie has 38 +10 games... and 18 negative ones. So Culver isn't as good defensively or offensively as Josh Okogie, at least according to that stat. Culver also had negative WS this season. He's the only Timberwolves player to reach that lofty status and one of the only guys who actually was in a rotation in the entire league to reach it.

For good measure... Culver was the only guy outside of Allen Crabbe to have a negative WS on last year's team, too.

Quite probably the worst player on teams that went 42 - 94... who actually got worse. The one thing you NEVER want to see... a rookie who had a bad year get worse.

I don't think we've seen many 22 year olds recover from that. He has negative value.



[Note: The last player to post a negative WS that received any sort of real playing time was Adrien Payne over 52 games back in 2016. He played in 13 more NBA games over two seasons before he was out of the league. Zach LaVine was the guy before that... and he recovered nicely.]

Lol. I never suggested any NBA teams "covet" anything that Culver has to offer. But I do think there are some NBA teams that haven't completely abandoned their assessment of Culver as a top 5 or top 10 prospect just two years ago and who, therefore, still see some significant upside. Therefore I think there are probably some teams that would give up a future 2nd-round pick for a one-year trial run with Culver. Obviously that doesn't suggest that anyone "covets" him. As we know, there are a lot of teams that sell 2nd-round picks for cash. So it's not a reach to envision some teams being willing to give up a second round pick for a trial run with Culver.

Think about this...Anthony Bennett was dumped by the Wolves after 2 years in the NBA and even if he shouldn't have been picked #1 he was still a high draft pick. I actually think he was/is actually somewhat talented and was a very good fit for the league especially where it went. I think for him it was mostly a mental thing. What makes Culver more interesting especially as an over 6 million dollar trial compared to some other 22 year old guy possibly even from the G-league? It's not like the draft Culver was in is considered to be a stellar one after the top picks.

At some point I asked myself what was Derrick Williams good at when it was his 3rd year in the league. Their really wasn't much I think they could have brought in a number roof guys or just played Hummel more and it wouldn't have changed much. Abe put some interesting numbers to what we are looking at with Culver. I didn't watch him enough this year to get a good feel for how good bad or just meh he was but I think we need to be realistic too. It only takes one team though...there may be some other factors about Culver that may limit the pool of teams even farther.

He was good at missing dunks. Like, spectacularly good. Seriously, remember all those times he rose up in the paint, cocked the ball, and just clanked it off the back of the iron, usually with the ball bouncing all the way back out past the 3 point line or further? I remember joking that he might be the Vince Carter of almost dunking.

I basically forgot about him when we traded him, but the boys down at YouTube have confirmed the issue continued later in his career too. Check out this one in Sacramento.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNKqYiPrfJw&ab_channel=frankdenfrankden

And in case you're wondering, he's been keeping that up over here in Europe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pNtXl2zGSE

SameOldNudityDrew wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:At some point... where a player is drafted has ZERO relevance.

Teams don't care where a guy is drafted if he hasn't played well... AND hasn't improved.

Yes, at some point draft position has zero relevance. That's obvious. But I don't think Culver is at that point yet. He was drafted two years ago and has shown at times that he can play well at this level. Admittedly, he's been trending downward towards zero. I just don't think he's there yet in the minds of every NBA organization. NBA front offices are filled with big egos who think they can see things others don't and get things out of young players that others can't.

What specifically is it about Culver do you think NBA teams covet?

Creating?
Defense?
Size?
Motor?
Et al.

From the stats are fun column...

An "average" GameScore (sorta like PER) is 10.0.
Culver has reached being an average player only 15 times in 97 career games... and only 4 times this past season.

Meanwhile, he's had a negative GameScore (very rare) 16 times... including 10 times this past season.

By comparison, Okogie has 38 +10 games... and 18 negative ones. So Culver isn't as good defensively or offensively as Josh Okogie, at least according to that stat. Culver also had negative WS this season. He's the only Timberwolves player to reach that lofty status and one of the only guys who actually was in a rotation in the entire league to reach it.

For good measure... Culver was the only guy outside of Allen Crabbe to have a negative WS on last year's team, too.

Quite probably the worst player on teams that went 42 - 94... who actually got worse. The one thing you NEVER want to see... a rookie who had a bad year get worse.

I don't think we've seen many 22 year olds recover from that. He has negative value.



[Note: The last player to post a negative WS that received any sort of real playing time was Adrien Payne over 52 games back in 2016. He played in 13 more NBA games over two seasons before he was out of the league. Zach LaVine was the guy before that... and he recovered nicely.]

Lol. I never suggested any NBA teams "covet" anything that Culver has to offer. But I do think there are some NBA teams that haven't completely abandoned their assessment of Culver as a top 5 or top 10 prospect just two years ago and who, therefore, still see some significant upside. Therefore I think there are probably some teams that would give up a future 2nd-round pick for a one-year trial run with Culver. Obviously that doesn't suggest that anyone "covets" him. As we know, there are a lot of teams that sell 2nd-round picks for cash. So it's not a reach to envision some teams being willing to give up a second round pick for a trial run with Culver.

Think about this...Anthony Bennett was dumped by the Wolves after 2 years in the NBA and even if he shouldn't have been picked #1 he was still a high draft pick. I actually think he was/is actually somewhat talented and was a very good fit for the league especially where it went. I think for him it was mostly a mental thing. What makes Culver more interesting especially as an over 6 million dollar trial compared to some other 22 year old guy possibly even from the G-league? It's not like the draft Culver was in is considered to be a stellar one after the top picks.

At some point I asked myself what was Derrick Williams good at when it was his 3rd year in the league. Their really wasn't much I think they could have brought in a number roof guys or just played Hummel more and it wouldn't have changed much. Abe put some interesting numbers to what we are looking at with Culver. I didn't watch him enough this year to get a good feel for how good bad or just meh he was but I think we need to be realistic too. It only takes one team though...there may be some other factors about Culver that may limit the pool of teams even farther.

He was good at missing dunks. Like, spectacularly good. Seriously, remember all those times he rose up in the paint, cocked the ball, and just clanked it off the back of the iron, usually with the ball bouncing all the way back out past the 3 point line or further? I remember joking that he might be the Vince Carter of almost dunking.

I basically forgot about him when we traded him, but the boys down at YouTube have confirmed the issue continued later in his career too. Check out this one in Sacramento.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNKqYiPrfJw&ab_channel=frankdenfrankden

And in case you're wondering, he's been keeping that up over here in Europe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pNtXl2zGSE

Oh yes he was spectacular! I wonder what his FG percentage was on dunks for his career.

In the last few days I've listened to a few Wolves podcasts and Dane Moore and Brit Robson seem to think the Wolves maybe Finch in particular are more open to a more traditional big next to Towns than they were previously. The said this partly because the end of season press conference. I looked for those and I can't find them anywhere but Dane Moore did have audio of some quotes about the subject on a podcast. Rosas mentioned that the offense had been successful so maybe they could add some defense and not sacrifice too much.

I think if the Wolves are more open to playing a more traditional big next to Towns then FA could bring a read only impactful player. Noel keeps jumping to mind and even if he gets a pay raise from what he made this year he isn't out of the realm of possibility. Dane also mentioned sign and trades as a possible way to add players.

I think Naz Reid is another possible option long term if they are more open to playing 2 bigs together. Yes he has to be better defensively but there is a lot to like there.

I think this board is probably about where we should be on Vanderbilt liking him but not planning on him being a starter etc. I think it's worth mentioning that before this season he had played 115 minutes in the league and I would guess at least half of that was garbage time. This season he played 1139 minutes so nearly 10x as many minutes as he played his entire career before this season. He is still a pretty inexperienced guy and so I think there is some legit potential there and he turned 22 in April. He isn't a guy I plan to be the answer but I'd like to keep him around as a guy that could grow into that role and if he is resigned to the right contract even if he is just a rotation guy he could be worth that in terms of salary. It looks like all the advanced stats say he was a positive defensive player and that's a nice thing to see for a guy that played 14 games in college (238 mins) 24 G-league games (601 minutes for 4 different teams) and 28 NBA games before this season. He simply hasn't played a lot of basketball games before this season and he did some good things. There should be some legit optimism about his potential but again we certainly are not banking on it. Rosas mentioned getting lots of bites at the apple to and Vanderbilt seems like a pretty worthwhile guy to keep around at the right price.

There are a number of PFs that would be a nice upgrade or fit to this team that were not top pick or in some cases even 1st round picks. Dallas has 2 guys in Kleber and Finney Smith that were undrafted that would be nice to have on the roster. It's not unreasonable to hope the Wolves could find a guy to plug the hole at PF from a small trade, signing or develop on their own.

Glad to hear there might be some openness by the front office of adding a legit big next to KAT. I think we need more bulk and strength than length and bounciness (e.g. Noel), as we seem to get outmuscled more than anything. McDaniels and KAT have enough nimbleness to stay with most opposing forwards. It's the Embiids, Jokics, Valancunias, etc. that just kill us because KAT is simply weaker than those guys and can't afford to get in foul trouble.