Minnesota Sports Forum

KG4Ever wrote:The trade was even worse as Butler kept us from getting another lottery pick that could have gotten us Michael Porter. Also, keeping pick would have given us an opportunity to draft Donovan Mitchell who I would take any day over Butler.

Also we use so much hindsight on not drafting Mitchell. We were never drafting Mitchell. If we didn't do the trade we had our SG on the future in Lavine. We had a weakness in PF. Markannann was always going to be the pick.

Also it is not Butler fault for us not getting the pick. It is flips fault for trading a pick for Payne who was out of the league before his rookie contract was up.

KG4Ever wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:

KG4Ever wrote:Gibson was mediocre in the plus/ minus stats and was worse than Belly last year. Dieng as a starter in previous years was vastly superior in plus/minus stats. Gibson certainly wasn't horrible but he's old and not a building block for the future. I just think he was a waste of money and took minutes away from younger guys.

You realize that the Wolves were 6.2 pts/per 100 possessions better when he was on the court when compared when he was off. What was in the 82nd percentile in the NBA. Also the Wolves were 4.5 pts better then there opponents when he was on the court what was in the 78th percentile in the NBA.

Compared to Belly were the wolves were 2.4 worse with Belly on the court compared to off what was in the 38th percentile. Then the wolves were 1 pt better then there opponents, what was in the 59th percentile.

Comparing the Gogui 2 years ago, we were decent, The wolves were 4.4 pts better when he was on the court compared to off. They outscored there opponents by .5 pts when Gogui was on the court.

In terms of RPM, Gibson wasn't all that great. You realize Gibson played with Butler and KAT and so this inflated his on court numbers compared to the reserves who played with Crawford, Bazz and Rose some of the worst plus minus guys in the league. Gibson was a tad above average, but I would rather not have had him. He's old and irrelevant to making a serious title run. I'd rather accumulate young talent and miss playoffs than fight for 7th or 8th seed.

You also realize the RPM takes into consideration of years past numbers. Its not a single season stat. In no way do I think Gibson is apart of our long term future but he was by far our most consistent player on the team last year.

kekgeek1 wrote:

KG4Ever wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:

KG4Ever wrote:Gibson was mediocre in the plus/ minus stats and was worse than Belly last year. Dieng as a starter in previous years was vastly superior in plus/minus stats. Gibson certainly wasn't horrible but he's old and not a building block for the future. I just think he was a waste of money and took minutes away from younger guys.

You realize that the Wolves were 6.2 pts/per 100 possessions better when he was on the court when compared when he was off. What was in the 82nd percentile in the NBA. Also the Wolves were 4.5 pts better then there opponents when he was on the court what was in the 78th percentile in the NBA.

Compared to Belly were the wolves were 2.4 worse with Belly on the court compared to off what was in the 38th percentile. Then the wolves were 1 pt better then there opponents, what was in the 59th percentile.

Comparing the Gogui 2 years ago, we were decent, The wolves were 4.4 pts better when he was on the court compared to off. They outscored there opponents by .5 pts when Gogui was on the court.

In terms of RPM, Gibson wasn't all that great. You realize Gibson played with Butler and KAT and so this inflated his on court numbers compared to the reserves who played with Crawford, Bazz and Rose some of the worst plus minus guys in the league. Gibson was a tad above average, but I would rather not have had him. He's old and irrelevant to making a serious title run. I'd rather accumulate young talent and miss playoffs than fight for 7th or 8th seed.

You also realize the RPM takes into consideration of years past numbers. Its not a single season stat. In no way do I think Gibson is apart of our long term future but he was by far our most consistent player on the team last year.

So you're saying Gibson "helped us" lose the opportunity to draft Porter and perhaps also "helped" save Thibs's job. And yet has no value for our long term future. Too funny.

kekgeek1 wrote:

KG4Ever wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:

KG4Ever wrote:Gibson was mediocre in the plus/ minus stats and was worse than Belly last year. Dieng as a starter in previous years was vastly superior in plus/minus stats. Gibson certainly wasn't horrible but he's old and not a building block for the future. I just think he was a waste of money and took minutes away from younger guys.

You realize that the Wolves were 6.2 pts/per 100 possessions better when he was on the court when compared when he was off. What was in the 82nd percentile in the NBA. Also the Wolves were 4.5 pts better then there opponents when he was on the court what was in the 78th percentile in the NBA.

Compared to Belly were the wolves were 2.4 worse with Belly on the court compared to off what was in the 38th percentile. Then the wolves were 1 pt better then there opponents, what was in the 59th percentile.

Comparing the Gogui 2 years ago, we were decent, The wolves were 4.4 pts better when he was on the court compared to off. They outscored there opponents by .5 pts when Gogui was on the court.

In terms of RPM, Gibson wasn't all that great. You realize Gibson played with Butler and KAT and so this inflated his on court numbers compared to the reserves who played with Crawford, Bazz and Rose some of the worst plus minus guys in the league. Gibson was a tad above average, but I would rather not have had him. He's old and irrelevant to making a serious title run. I'd rather accumulate young talent and miss playoffs than fight for 7th or 8th seed.

You also realize the RPM takes into consideration of years past numbers. Its not a single season stat. In no way do I think Gibson is apart of our long term future but he was by far our most consistent player on the team last year.

All these stats have their flaws but sometimes it's worth going over to the far right of the RPM column to wins. Taj was 12 overall for PFs and 74th in the whole NBA there. Of course the flaw is that guys that play more have more chance to impact wins. Guys that don't play as much tend to play more against bench players. Taj was a pretty good player last year even if his impact is a bit overrated by some the guy was pretty good and has been for years. This wasn't some fluke. You could argue Dieng's low numbers (and maybe some of the higher numbers the previous year) are somewhat of a fluke. He was bad last year but not one of the worse players in the league bad (in terms of RPM).

If this team has to hope for more lottery picks in addition to the ones they already had it's a problem. The good franchises which we should be aspiring to be find good players outside of that realm. I like Okogie and KBD plus the other guys we added. Let's see what we have going forward.

kekgeek1 wrote:

KG4Ever wrote:The trade was even worse as Butler kept us from getting another lottery pick that could have gotten us Michael Porter. Also, keeping pick would have given us an opportunity to draft Donovan Mitchell who I would take any day over Butler.

Also we use so much hindsight on not drafting Mitchell. We were never drafting Mitchell. If we didn't do the trade we had our SG on the future in Lavine. We had a weakness in PF. Markannann was always going to be the pick.

Also it is not Butler fault for us not getting the pick. It is flips fault for trading a pick for Payne who was out of the league before his rookie contract was up.

"We were never drafting Mitchell"

Is that an indictment on Thibs as a talent evaluator? If Mitchell is the BPA you draft him. Top organizations draft BPA. The Wolves historically have only taken the BPA twice: KG and KAT and I thought both those were obvious picks. If we want to win a title we need to draft more BPAs.

KG4Ever wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:

KG4Ever wrote:The trade was even worse as Butler kept us from getting another lottery pick that could have gotten us Michael Porter. Also, keeping pick would have given us an opportunity to draft Donovan Mitchell who I would take any day over Butler.

Also we use so much hindsight on not drafting Mitchell. We were never drafting Mitchell. If we didn't do the trade we had our SG on the future in Lavine. We had a weakness in PF. Markannann was always going to be the pick.

Also it is not Butler fault for us not getting the pick. It is flips fault for trading a pick for Payne who was out of the league before his rookie contract was up.

"We were never drafting Mitchell"

Is that an indictment on Thibs as a talent evaluator? If Mitchell is the BPA you draft him. Top organizations draft BPA. The Wolves historically have only taken the BPA twice: KG and KAT and I thought both those were obvious picks. If we want to win a title we need to draft more BPAs.

Mitchell became the best player. At the time he was ranked lower by multiple people and organizations. If we use hindsight flip is one of the worst GMs in history. Because in one draft he selected bazz over greak Freak, gorgui over Gobert and sold a pick that was andre Roberson.

Congrats to the Jazz organization for selecting Mitchell but at the time Mitchell was considered not the 7th best player

With first said Thibs has not been good with his picks. Dunn was before average from where he was picked. Patton has been hurt. Probably my biggest gm issue with thibs.

Just think it is super unfair to use hindsight to say we could have drafted Mitchell when he was ranked lower on everyone's board.

kekgeek1 wrote:With first said Thibs has not been good with his picks. Dunn was before average from where he was picked. Patton has been hurt. Probably my biggest gm issue with thibs.

Just think it is super unfair to use hindsight to say we could have drafted Mitchell when he was ranked lower on everyone's board.

Thibs and Layden haven't knocked it our of the Park that's for sure in the draft. However I also think it's tough to actually really rip their drafting either. According to a lot of the basketball reports supposedly Dunn FELL to them. This board with some smart folks was pretty split on who to take there. Cam is pretty unhappy we didn't take Murray but taking either Dunn or Buddy was very defendable. I'm saying that and I wasn't a fan of Dunn as a high upside guy and that's what i wanted which was why I would have taken Murray. Patton got hurt basically hours after he gets to work for the new organization. That just feels like some bad Minnesota luck right there. Would I have picked another player there? Yes but I also thought he was a guy right in that range. He might actually be ready for training camp so maybe we will see him get some minutes in preseason.

This board was split on Markkanen and I think even LST who is still a detractor would say Markkanen had a pretty solid rookie season. That would have been the Wolves pick and even though the front court defense would be a concern his shooting would have been a serious boon to this roster. He looks like he would have been a good pick and a likely NBA starter. Even if he wasn't a guy younthought you could win a championship with he would likely have plenty of value as a trade chip in a deal.

The idea that we should have taken Mitchell is unfair and hilarious hindsight. I remember telling people here he was rising and many weren't buying it at all. I don't remember anyone saying we should pick him or trade down to get him. Keep in mind the guys selected before Mitchell.

7 Markkanen
8 Frank N
9 Dennis Smith Jr
10 Zach Collins
11 Malik Monk
12 Luke Kennard

At the time it seemed there were simply more talented players above Mitchell. Luke Kennard might The the exception but he was also lighting up workouts. To look at it another way a year later how many of the guys 8-12 would you for sure rather have over Markkanen? DSJ I still believe in his talent but he didn't do all that well as a rookie. To me who you would want probably depends on your roster as well as beauty in the eye of the beholder.

So let's see if Okogie and KBD show something this season. I really like those picks. Maybe at least Patton gets healthy and goes bonkers putting up numbers in Iowa. There is a chance Thibs and Layden have some eye for young talent after all. Only time will tell.

KG4Ever wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:

KG4Ever wrote:The trade was even worse as Butler kept us from getting another lottery pick that could have gotten us Michael Porter. Also, keeping pick would have given us an opportunity to draft Donovan Mitchell who I would take any day over Butler.

Also we use so much hindsight on not drafting Mitchell. We were never drafting Mitchell. If we didn't do the trade we had our SG on the future in Lavine. We had a weakness in PF. Markannann was always going to be the pick.

Also it is not Butler fault for us not getting the pick. It is flips fault for trading a pick for Payne who was out of the league before his rookie contract was up.

"We were never drafting Mitchell"

Is that an indictment on Thibs as a talent evaluator? If Mitchell is the BPA you draft him. Top organizations draft BPA. The Wolves historically have only taken the BPA twice: KG and KAT and I thought both those were obvious picks. If we want to win a title we need to draft more BPAs.

Imo, thibs took his bpa in every draft.

We were deep at pg, yet he took dunn.
We were deep at c, yet he took patton.

Neither pick was at a position of need.

Okogie and diop were probably also bpa who also happened to be at a position of need.

kekgeek1 wrote:
You also realize the RPM takes into consideration of years past numbers. Its not a single season stat. In no way do I think Gibson is apart of our long term future but he was by far our most consistent player on the team last year.

Kek, where have you got that information? I'm pretty sure it is based on only of stats from one season. The fact that Dieng ranked in defensive RPM to top 6 in 2016-17 among centers and bottom 6 in 2017-18, makes me to think that it wouldn't be possible if it would consider also previous seasons. Some other players have had similar dramatic changes in their ranking too. For example Kosta Koufos dropped from 8th in DRPM among all centers to 50th between 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. Still I wouldn't take too seriously those one year RPM numbers just because they seem to be so noisy. It is difficult to trust for stat that gives so polarizing numbers for some players.

I also think that getting Gibson and Butler were really good moves even if they both would leave after this season. I cannot think single player in past 30 years that would have missed playoffs in his first four seasons and then won championship as team's top 2 player. Of course this is mostly because almost all championship teams have had at least one top 5 player in league and they tend to be so good that their team cannot fail to get playoffs. But it is pretty surprising that even the top players of teams like Boston and Detroit that were not build through draft had got some playoffs experience in their early years. So I think playoff experience from last year might end up being more important for this franchise than another first round draft pick.