Minnesota Sports Forum

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:

thedoper wrote:Shabazz - 12 minutes, 11 pts. But we don't need him playing regular minutes. There seems to be this sentiment that Adelman should be sent off easy because of his history and acumen as a coach in the NBA. But he has completely shit the bed in his time at Minnesota. Injuries aside, we have never overachieved in his tenure. He should be fired, plain and simple. Yet somehow we are waiting for him to announce his intentions. A message should have been sent a long time ago through the whole organization that this under achieving losing and petty fighting (Barea and Love) is not tolerated. Adelman shouldn't have made it to the all star break as I see it.

I think that's another reason Hoiberg accepts an offer to coach the Wolves...job security. Glen Taylor doesn't tolerate incompetence in his other businesses, but he seems reluctant to terminate any Wolves employees. Adelman, and Kahn before him, were allowed to do enormous damage to the franchise, and both were allowed to wreak havoc too long.

To be fair, doesn't Hoiberg have more job security where he is than 99% of millionaire basketball coaches?

The man is a demi-god where he is.

Yeah, but rumor has it Lipoli was a demi-god in Ames during his college years too, but like everyone with a modicum of talent in Ames, he headed north to the big city in search of the big bucks. Hoiberg will do the same if given the opportunity.

Hoiberg would be a demi god to me if he fixed Rubio's shot.

kms789 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Alex and KMS, That's the whole point of playing him - to help answer these questions we have about him and how he blends in with other players and adapts to opposing team's scouting reports. At this point we have nothing to lose. Darko, Flynn, Wes Johnson, and even Derrick Williams had plenty of game time for us to evaluate them. They built up a large enough sample size over time that, unfortunately, we lost hope that they could ever amount to much and then the front office moved on. We just don't know with Shabazz. And he's shown enough improvement in the limited game action he's seen lately that he deserves minutes.

That's the whole difference between fans and coaches. We don't know because we don't see them practice and scrimmage every single day, we don't know their work ethic, we don't know how much film they are studying. The games make up such a small part of what a coaching staff evaluates, but as fans that's all we have. My whole point is they work every day to improve these guys and they know a lot more than we do. I know you really want to evaluate everybody yourself, but up until a week ago this team was fighting for a playoff spot.

I agree, now that everything is out of reach, it wouldn't hurt for them to play more. The difference with all those other guys you mentioned is that playoffs were out of reach most of the season.

I'd have to disagree. Yes the coaching staff has more to look at when they evaluate players but ultimately it comes down to on court performance because winning games is what it's all about. How do you think the on court performance of our bench has been this year? Now how do you think the few times Shabazz actually received playing time have gone? I don't think Shabazz is near a complete player but I do think he would have brought something to our bench that we really needed, the ability to score.

This team hasn't been fighting for a playing spot for awhile. We've been around or below .500 the entire year and it's been pretty clear a team over .500 would be getting the 8th seed. I hate to point this out but teams like the Knicks, Pistons, Cavs, and Hawks are all closer to making the playoffs than we our and they've been playing rookies most of the year.

observerII wrote:Re: Cunningham. Did anyone anywhere check to see the extent of his eye injury last night?

Hopefully not as bad as the pink eye old mate has in your avatar photo.

kms789 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Alex and KMS, That's the whole point of playing him - to help answer these questions we have about him and how he blends in with other players and adapts to opposing team's scouting reports. At this point we have nothing to lose. Darko, Flynn, Wes Johnson, and even Derrick Williams had plenty of game time for us to evaluate them. They built up a large enough sample size over time that, unfortunately, we lost hope that they could ever amount to much and then the front office moved on. We just don't know with Shabazz. And he's shown enough improvement in the limited game action he's seen lately that he deserves minutes.

That's the whole difference between fans and coaches. We don't know because we don't see them practice and scrimmage every single day, we don't know their work ethic, we don't know how much film they are studying. The games make up such a small part of what a coaching staff evaluates, but as fans that's all we have. My whole point is they work every day to improve these guys and they know a lot more than we do. I know you really want to evaluate everybody yourself, but up until a week ago this team was fighting for a playoff spot.

I agree, now that everything is out of reach, it wouldn't hurt for them to play more. The difference with all those other guys you mentioned is that playoffs were out of reach most of the season.

and that mattered why? Did we not just trot out a statistically horrible bench all year? There was no reason not to play him legit bench minutes when we were halfway through the season especially when the few times he did get minutes he looked pretty good. Then people try and throw out these stats about Shabazz saying we weren't that good when he was on the floor based on these stats etc, if you actually watched the games this year you would see the vast majority of his minutes were in garbage time with the end of the bench playing. There are articles questioning Adelman's use of Shabazz outside of the Wolves writers, plenty of fans have seen it, you hear chants at games, every facebook post from the Wolves at the end of a game is flooded with comments hollering about Shabazz, hell our own management wonders aloud why he hasn't played more. You any your tiny group of Adelman supporters have your right to an opinion, but to try and look down on people who want Shabazz to play and instead trot out the same garbage we've played all year is laughable.

I find myself agreeing with both of you! The coaching staff has far more input on Shabazz than we are able to glean, including in games.

But Bloop is also right that our bench has been one of the worst in the NBA. Maybe Shabazz was not the answer, but you think they would try something different. But Adelman seemed to fall back with what was comfortable for him: vets and stability.

The game has passed him by...

Yeah, I was fine with bringing Bazz along slowly. We had a plethora of veteran SFs that deserved playing time ahead of Bazz earlier in the season. It was important to see if Bud, coming off injury, could successfully work himself into shape. That takes time.

But it felt like about a month or so ago, Adelman should have started giving Shabazz some more regular stints. They didn't have to be balls-out 25 MPG 6th man minutes. But just 5-6 minute stints in each half to start. It was clear that Mbah Moute wasn't providing us anything offensively and Bud was struggling after 20+ games. Had those guys been kicking butt, then by all means, they should have received all the bench wing playing time, so long as we were in the playoff race. But that wasn't really the case.....

Q12543 wrote:Yeah, I was fine with bringing Bazz along slowly. We had a plethora of veteran SFs that deserved playing time ahead of Bazz earlier in the season. It was important to see if Bud, coming off injury, could successfully work himself into shape. That takes time.

But it felt like about a month or so ago, Adelman should have started giving Shabazz some more regular stints. They didn't have to be balls-out 25 MPG 6th man minutes. But just 5-6 minute stints in each half to start. It was clear that Mbah Moute wasn't providing us anything offensively and Bud was struggling after 20+ games. Had those guys been kicking butt, then by all means, they should have received all the bench wing playing time, so long as we were in the playoff race. But that wasn't really the case.....

Okay, that makes sense. The whole "he's a senile idiot who has lost his mind" talk just bugs me. Adelman has not had the best year. You could easily make the case that given his age, his wife's health conditions, he just doesn't have it in him to lead/inspire this team. However, he is one of the most successful coaches of all-time, and anybody who has every worked with him agrees that his basketball acumen is second to none. I wish all these fans who are claiming he is so worthless were around in the Wittman and Rambis days, so there would be something to actually compare to.

kms789 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Yeah, I was fine with bringing Bazz along slowly. We had a plethora of veteran SFs that deserved playing time ahead of Bazz earlier in the season. It was important to see if Bud, coming off injury, could successfully work himself into shape. That takes time.

But it felt like about a month or so ago, Adelman should have started giving Shabazz some more regular stints. They didn't have to be balls-out 25 MPG 6th man minutes. But just 5-6 minute stints in each half to start. It was clear that Mbah Moute wasn't providing us anything offensively and Bud was struggling after 20+ games. Had those guys been kicking butt, then by all means, they should have received all the bench wing playing time, so long as we were in the playoff race. But that wasn't really the case.....

Okay, that makes sense. The whole "he's a senile idiot who has lost his mind" talk just bugs me. Adelman has not had the best year. You could easily make the case that given his age, his wife's health conditions, he just doesn't have it in him to lead/inspire this team. However, he is one of the most successful coaches of all-time, and anybody who has every worked with him agrees that his basketball acumen is second to none. I wish all these fans who are claiming he is so worthless were around in the Wittman and Rambis days, so there would be something to actually compare to.

I agree. People will be begging for Adelman if the Wolves get another Rambis.

kms789 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Yeah, I was fine with bringing Bazz along slowly. We had a plethora of veteran SFs that deserved playing time ahead of Bazz earlier in the season. It was important to see if Bud, coming off injury, could successfully work himself into shape. That takes time.

But it felt like about a month or so ago, Adelman should have started giving Shabazz some more regular stints. They didn't have to be balls-out 25 MPG 6th man minutes. But just 5-6 minute stints in each half to start. It was clear that Mbah Moute wasn't providing us anything offensively and Bud was struggling after 20+ games. Had those guys been kicking butt, then by all means, they should have received all the bench wing playing time, so long as we were in the playoff race. But that wasn't really the case.....

Okay, that makes sense. The whole "he's a senile idiot who has lost his mind" talk just bugs me. Adelman has not had the best year. You could easily make the case that given his age, his wife's health conditions, he just doesn't have it in him to lead/inspire this team. However, he is one of the most successful coaches of all-time, and anybody who has every worked with him agrees that his basketball acumen is second to none. I wish all these fans who are claiming he is so worthless were around in the Wittman and Rambis days, so there would be something to actually compare to.

Very fair post, kms, and I agree. Adelman has done so many baffling things this year that have frustrated me to no end, that I have joined in the "senility" talk. But he is such a devoted husband that I suspect the real reason for his lack of focus this year was his wife's illness. I'm not happy that we long-suffering Wolves fans were victims of his decisions this year, but he has my sympathy for the personal issue he is facing.