Minnesota Sports Forum

60WinTim wrote:

Camden wrote:

alexftbl8181 wrote:

Camden wrote:If it does come down to Hummel or GRIII getting cut, it for damn sure better be Hummel.

In the end, it doesn't matter either way. Were talking 15th guy, garbage time minutes player.

I'd rather have a 20-year old former five-star recruit with multiple tools than a 25-year old shooter who can't make shots. 6th man, 10th man, 15th man... Doesn't matter. I want the best talent/player possible on the roster.

So you would cut Anthony Bennett? :)

If he plays like he did last year, absolutely. $5-7M for a non-rotation player. Let's all hope he's a different player.

Anyone think Flip is talking up JJ and Bud to try to salvage some trade value? It would pretty much force them to stay here if he was already hesitant about the roles they could play on this team. I just don't get how Flip is going to manage this team. The only guys right now I could see not playing much if at all while accepting that role is Ronny, Hummel, GR3 and possibly LaVine. That still leaves 12 guys for 9-10 spots in the actual rotation.

Bud finally looks healthy and we need shooters. He's off my "must trade" list for now. Barea's still the odd man out, but I could see nights where he'd be useful.

bleedspeed177 wrote:If JJ and Bud are killing it. More power to them. If they truly are I expect to see them starting on Tuesday. Rubio and Martin need to earn the starting spots. Bud is young enough to grow with this team. If he can start at SG it makes it easier to trade Martin.

I completely agree, bleed. I think our starting lineup is less set than any year that I can remember, because we have exceptional depth and no real superstars. This allows Flip to reward the type of behaviors he wants to see in this team, and the safest time to do that is in the preseason. I love Rubio, but I have also noticed that his name has hardly been mentioned this week...by Flip, Zgoda or anybody. Maybe Flip is trying to send him a message. And maybe Martin's tweaked groin gives Flip the opportunity to start somebody else at SG, and bud may be the most likely option.

I don't think there is really any starting position that isn't up for grabs.

PG: I would have thought that Ricky would be the obvious choice here, but Flip's saying nothing about him, and I'm not sure what that means.

SG: Martin is the logical choice, but starting him doesn't jive with Flip's stated emphasis on defense. Plus many of us like the idea of Martin providing instant offense off the bench. Martin's groin injury might force Flip's hand here, and I'm not sure it's not for the best. I think Bud starts on Tuesday.

SF: Most of us have been awarding the starting job to Wiggins, but reports from Mankato are that he is quite raw on offense (although already very good on defense). Flip keeps praising Brewer and Shabazz, so I wouldn't be shocked to see either one starting.

PF: As much as I like Bennett and as much as Flip keeps praising him, I think Thad is the clear starter here. He's a veteran with several years starting at the position, and knowing his character, is likely busting his ass in practice. He was brought in here to be the starter, and something extreme would have to happen to change that.

C: I don't think it really matters, as Flip seems focused on limiting Pek's minutes. But Pek is the closest thing we have to a go-to guy on offense, so absent continuing Achilles' issues, he has to begin the year as the starting center.


My best guess right now for Tuesday night:

Rubio
Bud
Brewer
Young
Pek

alexftbl8181 wrote:

Camden wrote:If it does come down to Hummel or GRIII getting cut, it for damn sure better be Hummel.

In the end, it doesn't matter either way. Were talking 15th guy, garbage time minutes player.

Barring injuries, the 15th guy isn't even getting garbage minutes...he's wearing a tie and sitting in the second row. If two guys get hurt, he might get some garbage minutes. I would argue that the Wolves think more highly of the guy that gets sent to D League than the guy they keep as 15th man, because the D League guy will be getting game action 3 times a week. Some might argue that the 14th and 15th man get the advantage of practicing with the big guys, but the fact of the matter is that there aren't many practices once the season starts. I think the Wolves value GR3 long-term more than Robbie, so I think they will try to persuade GR3 to take a D League assignment to start the season.

Camden wrote:Bud finally looks healthy and we need shooters. He's off my "must trade" list for now. Barea's still the odd man out, but I could see nights where he'd be useful.

Yep, Bud looked like a totally different guy at Dunks After Dark, and apparently is hitting his shot regularly in Mankato. I think he can really help us early in the season, and maybe become a valuable commodity at the trade deadline if Flip wants to free up some space for LaVine and Wiggins (and maybe even GR3)

khans2k5 wrote:Anyone think Flip is talking up JJ and Bud to try to salvage some trade value? It would pretty much force them to stay here if he was already hesitant about the roles they could play on this team. I just don't get how Flip is going to manage this team. The only guys right now I could see not playing much if at all while accepting that role is Ronny, Hummel, GR3 and possibly LaVine. That still leaves 12 guys for 9-10 spots in the actual rotation.

Thats a theory worth considering but IMO Flip seems like a straight shooter he isn't going to do some BS about "My players are tearing it up in TC you GOTTA get these guys."

I'll bet close to anything that Martin is our starting SG come regular season opener. He might miss a pre-season game due to that little injury he got last week, but it shouldn't be serious. 19 PPG last year. Just lost a 26 PPG scorer. He needs to be in the lineup.

Found this post that was on RealGM, but was definitely worth reading and sharing with you all here. It's very lengthy, though, and if the board decides that I should delete it to remove clutter then I will.

"Warning: This is going to be long.

I've noticed the Vegas over/under on Minny is around 26 games, and every casual NBA fan I talk to has the impression the team is going to more-or-less bottom out this year. I see this as part of a misunderstanding about how basketball works that essentially simplifies the game to a "sum of the parts" contest in which the "parts" aren't even given the correct values (mostly because of not considering replaceability/irreplaceability).

There's a great article from fivethirtyeight.com that was recently linked to on this board that discussed different stats in the replaceability/irreplaceability context. (This basically means what percentage of the time another player could make a shot, or get a rebound, or a steal, or any other stat anyway if Player X didn't do it.) One of the article's conclusions was that Rubio contributes in ways that are among the least replaceable, while his deficiencies are among the most replaceable (i.e. other guys on the court can cover for his weaknesses rather easily, thus rendering them less problematic than they seem).

Another factor to consider is Rubio's elite impact-based advanced metrics. People often complain about this family of stats, and a common argument concerning Rubio has been that he benefited from playing so much with Love... but then Rubio had similarly elite impact-based advanced metrics in FIBA. So, either Rubio has a very high-level positive impact or he's just getting lucky repeatedly with all these impact-based advanced metrics. I'd go with Occam's razor here. And if Rubio is (way) more valuable than is generally thought, then Love almost has to be less valuable. And I think it's reasonable to expect at least some improvement from Rubio this season compared to last, which would bump up his positive impact even further.

Enough NBA players can score that scoring, on an individual level is more opportunity based and not nearly as much of an indication of individual player value as is commonly thought. In fact, from a statistical perspective it's over 80% replaceable. This shows us why, for example, Denver didn't suffer from the loss of Melo the way almost everyone expected. In our case, we have two guys (in Martin and Pekovic) who score over 20 points per 36; and there are always other guys who come pretty cheap in FA or via trades who can put up buckets (but usually hurt you in other areas of the game) if you really find your team short on scorers.

Interior defense, however, doesn't come easy... and we used to probably have the worst interior defense in the league. Love was in the bottom five in the league according to a Sloan Analytics study ranking bigs by opponent FG% within a certain number of feet of the rim (I think it might be 5 feet, but don't remember for sure) and Pek was awful, too, even though I don't remember his exact ranking. However, with Pek you can make a sort-of intuitive argument that he's so strong that he partially makes up for that particular analysis because guys simply get close to the hoop less against him (and then when they do, the percentage is high because it's usually because they're past him or he's off balance or something). I don't fully buy that explanation for Pek, but with Love there isn't any logical explanation other than that he's just awful on defense.

Now, you might say that Love makes up for this to some extent through great defensive rebounding. However, rebounding, like scoring, is over 80% replaceable. Part of the reason for this (and something particularly relevant in Love's case) is that if players rebound correctly, it means they box out. Essentially, they form a protective circle around the ball, blocking the other team's players, and then whoever is closest to the ball makes a quick move and grabs it up... however, many players "cheat" this by going for the ball constantly. Teams with coaches like Popovich and Thibodeau don't let their guys do this, but many coaches seem to either not notice or not care.

And Adelman never seemed to care or notice that Love did this often. I'm not saying Love's not a very good rebounder... nobody gets 12 rpg without having a great nose for the ball. However, I am saying that 12 rebounds by Love aren't the same as, for example, 12 rebounds by Tim Duncan. Love essentially claimed "other players'" rebounds by breaking from his box-out early. (The tendency of players to naturally break a little slower or faster than each other, even when not "cheating" on purpose, is a major reason rebounds are so replaceable and also points to why RPG or even RB% only tells part of the story, and you can't know the rest without carefully watching a team's rebounding dynamic.)

Of course, Love's scoring and rebounding won't be replaced 100% by our current roster, but IMO those categories will be fairly easy to replace enough so they're not major problems. Martin averaged 21.5 points per 36 on .553 TS% and Pek averaged 20.4 points per 36 on .584 TS% last season. Two guys who can put up points at that rate is more than enough when you combine them with a great passer/facilitator like Rubio and a number of other players who know their roles and are at least semi-efficient scorers.

IMO the main thing Love brought us that we're going to miss is three-point shooting. You optimally want to spread the floor with at least three outside shooters in most situations, and it looks like we're going to have one elite three-point shooter in Martin, one competent three-point shooter in Rubio (for all his shooting woes overall, his .331 3P% last season actually was competent)... and then unless we use Budinger much more than I expect, we have problems. Maybe Penberthy will make a big difference, and/or Young can get into the 33-35% range now that he has less defensive attention than he had to deal with in Philly... and/or maybe Wiggins can add an occasional open three to his arsenal sooner than we expect... but this is definitely an apparent weakness going into the season, and it's an area where Love's importance was perhaps underrated (while being overrated in just about every other area IMO).

The thing is, though... we didn't just give away Love. We got Wiggins and Young, switched coaches to Saunders, who while not an elite coach by most estimates is probably above-average, and even more importantly tends to utilize a defense-heavy and PG-centric system that naturally fits our roster.

Perhaps, the most positive change, in a broad sense, is that the team has a clear identity for the first time in a while. Our rotation last year was an awkward split between players who put tremendous focus on defensive pressure (Rubio, Brewer, Dieng), guys who seemed to take defense off (Barea, Martin, Love), and guys who tried but had defensive limitations (Budinger, Dante, Pek).

Now, we will have two strong perimeter defenders on the court at almost all times. Rubio can guard 1 or 2 and Brewer and Wiggins can both guard 2 or 3 (and possibly even 1 sometimes, depending on matchups). This allows us to hide Martin, the same way Thibodeau has had success hiding guys like Rose, Augustin and Korver. Young is undersized, but he's still a good defender with quick hands who makes the opponent work, and his presence will be a clear defensive upgrade on Love. All of this will make things way easier on Pek, since he won't have to help nearly as much as he did last season. And Dieng will probably play almost half the game anyway, which gives us a strong interior defensive presence during that time.

This team is filled with fast, athletic, young guys who will constantly pressure the other team, hustle, move, and play unselfishly. Martin and Pek have their roles as designated scorers (with Mo Williams also being a scoring spark off the bench), but everyone else fits into the "constant pressure" mold, which will cover for Martin's and Pek's weaknesses, while Martin and Pek cover for the other players' scoring weaknesses. This squad just fits.

Chemistry matters to an extent where San Antonio can go 62-20 with their best players all missing multiple RS games and then win a title without having anybody play at a top-10-in-the-league level. (Duncan and Parker tied for 12th in MVP voting last season.) And our team should have great chemistry this coming season. To be honest, I think this is only partially by design and, thus, partially just by luck that, for example, CLE drafted Wiggins (who fits into our team identity) instead of Parker (who may have a great career, but would likely create an unclear identity similar to the Love era). Our two cornerstones (Rubio and Wiggins) are elite defenders, unselfish players, and constant hustle guys with good attitudes and intangibles. Every core guy seems to want to be here, and even our role players are net-positive guys who really fit into what we're doing. For example, Brewer's advanced metrics show that he has a positive impact, and that makes sense, as he's a team player who gives his all during 20 mpg and stays within his role.

We actually have a TEAM this season.

I'm predicting 45 wins, and then a true breakout next year.

P.S. And I didn't even write about the benefits of getting rid of the corner offense, because other posters have done that often and eloquently enough that I think pretty much everyone on this board is sold on the benefits of changing to a more P&R-based system.

P.P.S. I know I didn't mention Lavine or Shabazz. I understand many forum members are very high on those guys; however, I'm just unsure if they'll really get time this season, considering the wing glut. I wrote about guys we can be pretty confident will have a major role, and if Lavine or Shabazz (or anyone else I didn't focus on) plays well enough to earn significant time, it will probably mean our team's even better than I'm expecting."

-- Gideon

Cam -- thank you for finding someone who is able to quantify my gut feeling the Wolves will be taking a step forward, not backward!