Minnesota Sports Forum

Q12543 wrote:FNG, I tend to agree with your assessment of DLO. His efficiency, while improved, is still a notch below the other great offensive PGs in the league. And his defense has been horrific. The result has been that basically he plays losing basketball even if his counting stats are pretty good.

Now Cam will hang his hat on the Brooklyn season. Fine. That's one year. The problem is he was just barely a net plus in the one season we all hope he can recreate in terms of team impact. Other PGs of lesser prominence have had a bigger impact on team success. That's just the facts.

I'm not ruling out further maturity and improvement from DLO, he's still pretty young.

Brooklyn_Wolves wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

Brooklyn_Wolves wrote:Another real NBA caliber PF/C is badly needed, and an athletic one at that. Having only KAT and a bunch of nobodies is a joke. A trade is needed. I'm willing to part with Culver as he's got salary to match and some value and potential to interest another team.

You may be right and many would agree with you here, but it just doesn't matter because Rosas would have drafted Wiseman in a heartbeat if this was his main criteria. He simply does not value traditional paint bigs.

Wiseman is a center. So I see why he wouldn't want him. I have in mind someone like Larry Nance. Mobile and uber athletic, able to play 2 positions, shot 35% from 3 on almost 3 attempts last season, good passer. Not exactly an archaic NBA big.

Camden wrote:

Q12543 wrote:FNG, I tend to agree with your assessment of DLO. His efficiency, while improved, is still a notch below the other great offensive PGs in the league. And his defense has been horrific. The result has been that basically he plays losing basketball even if his counting stats are pretty good.

Now Cam will hang his hat on the Brooklyn season. Fine. That's one year. The problem is he was just barely a net plus in the one season we all hope he can recreate in terms of team impact. Other PGs of lesser prominence have had a bigger impact on team success. That's just the facts.

I'm not ruling out further maturity and improvement from DLO, he's still pretty young.

Q, D'Angelo Russell has never played with anyone close to the caliber of player that Karl-Anthony Towns is, and I expect that to make a huge difference. Russell is not a number one guy. In Brooklyn, he was forced to be that and he did the best that he could -- resulting in an unforeseen playoff berth. Last season, he was expected to be a secondary scorer to Steph Curry... and then Curry was out for most of the year. Russell is best suited to be the second option on offense while setting up the rest of the guys and that's a role he just hasn't been fortunate enough to be in until now.

Is Jarrett Allen the best player Russell's played with to this point?

Camden wrote:

Q12543 wrote:FNG, I tend to agree with your assessment of DLO. His efficiency, while improved, is still a notch below the other great offensive PGs in the league. And his defense has been horrific. The result has been that basically he plays losing basketball even if his counting stats are pretty good.

Now Cam will hang his hat on the Brooklyn season. Fine. That's one year. The problem is he was just barely a net plus in the one season we all hope he can recreate in terms of team impact. Other PGs of lesser prominence have had a bigger impact on team success. That's just the facts.

I'm not ruling out further maturity and improvement from DLO, he's still pretty young.

Q, D'Angelo Russell has never played with anyone close to the caliber of player that Karl-Anthony Towns is, and I expect that to make a huge difference. Russell is not a number one guy. In Brooklyn, he was forced to be that and he did the best that he could -- resulting in an unforeseen playoff berth. Last season, he was expected to be a secondary scorer to Steph Curry... and then Curry was out for most of the year. Russell is best suited to be the second option on offense while setting up the rest of the guys and that's a role he just hasn't been fortunate enough to be in until now.

Is Jarrett Allen the best player Russell's played with to this point?

Q12543 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:People just need to get over D Lo's defense. PG defense just doesn't matter in this league. Lillard, Kyrie, Kemba, Steph, Harden and on and on. None of these guys are good defenders and it doesn't hurt their team because they makeup for it on offense. We had Ricky for years and his great defense literally didn't matter while his lack of being able to score off the dribble killed us to close out games.

D Lo is the first all-star caliber playmaker and scorer on the ball we've had in forever. The best two way PG in the NBA for the last decade plus in CP3 hasn't seen any more success because of his defense over these other guys who primarily focus on offense. PG defense is the most overrated skill on this board. Half the teams in the league get away with having bad to mediocre PG D and yet our mindset for some reason is we can't be successful unless our PG can play D. Jeff Teague isn't a good defender and yet that team was able to make the playoffs somehow. We just need to get past that requirement and focus on things that matter.

Khans, while I agree with you that PG defense isn't as important as paint or wing defense, it still matters. It just doesn't matter as much. DLO has been a level of awfulness above many of the names you mentioned above while not having the same offensive chops. In other words, he's worse than Lillard and Harden (for example) on BOTH sides of the ball.

Also, there actually are game-changing defensive point guards out there. Kris Dunn absolutely helped the Bulls become a league average defensive team last year. Patrick Beverley does the same. No, you don't build your team around one, but they do exist out there.

In the end, great offense + some defense is better than great offense + no defense. Unfortunately DLO fits more of the latter description.

KG4Ever wrote:

Camden wrote:

Q12543 wrote:FNG, I tend to agree with your assessment of DLO. His efficiency, while improved, is still a notch below the other great offensive PGs in the league. And his defense has been horrific. The result has been that basically he plays losing basketball even if his counting stats are pretty good.

Now Cam will hang his hat on the Brooklyn season. Fine. That's one year. The problem is he was just barely a net plus in the one season we all hope he can recreate in terms of team impact. Other PGs of lesser prominence have had a bigger impact on team success. That's just the facts.

I'm not ruling out further maturity and improvement from DLO, he's still pretty young.

Q, D'Angelo Russell has never played with anyone close to the caliber of player that Karl-Anthony Towns is, and I expect that to make a huge difference. Russell is not a number one guy. In Brooklyn, he was forced to be that and he did the best that he could -- resulting in an unforeseen playoff berth. Last season, he was expected to be a secondary scorer to Steph Curry... and then Curry was out for most of the year. Russell is best suited to be the second option on offense while setting up the rest of the guys and that's a role he just hasn't been fortunate enough to be in until now.

Is Jarrett Allen the best player Russell's played with to this point?

Caris Lavert, Dinwiddie, Joe Harris and Jarrett Allen are all decent players and DLO was the top scorer but his plus/minus was .3 (the best of his career) but it was atrocious during the playoffs. The Nets were essentially a .500 team (42-40 reg season and 1-4 in playoffs) the year a lot of Eastern Conference teams were tanking for Zion.

kekgeek1 wrote:

KG4Ever wrote:

Camden wrote:

Q12543 wrote:FNG, I tend to agree with your assessment of DLO. His efficiency, while improved, is still a notch below the other great offensive PGs in the league. And his defense has been horrific. The result has been that basically he plays losing basketball even if his counting stats are pretty good.

Now Cam will hang his hat on the Brooklyn season. Fine. That's one year. The problem is he was just barely a net plus in the one season we all hope he can recreate in terms of team impact. Other PGs of lesser prominence have had a bigger impact on team success. That's just the facts.

I'm not ruling out further maturity and improvement from DLO, he's still pretty young.

Q, D'Angelo Russell has never played with anyone close to the caliber of player that Karl-Anthony Towns is, and I expect that to make a huge difference. Russell is not a number one guy. In Brooklyn, he was forced to be that and he did the best that he could -- resulting in an unforeseen playoff berth. Last season, he was expected to be a secondary scorer to Steph Curry... and then Curry was out for most of the year. Russell is best suited to be the second option on offense while setting up the rest of the guys and that's a role he just hasn't been fortunate enough to be in until now.

Is Jarrett Allen the best player Russell's played with to this point?

Caris Lavert, Dinwiddie, Joe Harris and Jarrett Allen are all decent players and DLO was the top scorer but his plus/minus was .3 (the best of his career) but it was atrocious during the playoffs. The Nets were essentially a .500 team (42-40 reg season and 1-4 in playoffs) the year a lot of Eastern Conference teams were tanking for Zion.

So the Wolves should trade Kat because he was terrible in the playoffs for a 5 game sample size

KiwiMatt wrote:Current Depth Chart:

Russel / Rubio / McLaughlin (TBD)
Beasley / Okogie / Nowell
Edwards / Culver / Layman
Hernangomez / Vanderbilt / McDaniels
Towns / Reid / Davis

Camden0916 wrote:

KiwiMatt wrote:Current Depth Chart:

Russel / Rubio / McLaughlin (TBD)
Beasley / Okogie / Nowell
Edwards / Culver / Layman
Hernangomez / Vanderbilt / McDaniels
Towns / Reid / Davis

Like I mentioned in another thread, I think Layman will begin the year above Vanderbilt in the rotation. I don't know how long it'll stay that way, but I think they trust Layman more than Vanderbilt right now and probably for good reason.

That second unit should -- SHOULD -- be a strength of this team. I'm perhaps in the minority on this one, but Culver will be better offensively this year and he's already solid defensively.