Minnesota Sports Forum

Q12543 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:There better be a trade down if we aren't taking Wiseman. If you aren't taking the clear cut best player in the draft you better get something for him. I'll have no faith in this season if we just take Edwards #1.

I totally agree. Like Crazysauce, I see Edwards as another Dion Waiters. That's not what you want from a #1 pick in the draft.

I agree. I'm hoping he's more like Dennis Smith Jr..

I can get on the Edwards train...just not as the number 1 pick with Charlotte sitting there at 3 clamoring for Wiseman. While his mental makeup is not ideal I think he has the tools to become an all-star in this league pretty easily with the right development. Coming here and being the 3rd option could go either way for me. It could make his life easier and bump his efficiency...or he could act like a fish out of water with every touch of the ball resulting in a selfish play to get his next gulp of water. There's no way we can really know that without talking to the kid. But at the end of the day you have multiple teams that want Wiseman so you have to trade down and get someone who helps now to go with Edwards or Haliburton or Okoro or whoever. Edwards and 17 alone don't move the needle this year and we need both immediate help and a long-term developmental play out of this draft. If we don't get immediate help we're just gonna hand GS a top 5 pick again next year and then bring on the Towns wants out talk while we're at it.

BizarroJerry wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:There better be a trade down if we aren't taking Wiseman. If you aren't taking the clear cut best player in the draft you better get something for him. I'll have no faith in this season if we just take Edwards #1.

I totally agree. Like Crazysauce, I see Edwards as another Dion Waiters. That's not what you want from a #1 pick in the draft.

I agree. I'm hoping he's more like Dennis Smith Jr..

Could he be a Bradley Beal?

Heh, something is not quite like the others!

There are some reasons for hope when it comes to Edwards:

1. He's incredibly gifted physically with a rare combination of strength (225lbs) frame and speed. His level of physical talent really does differentiate him substantially from Waiters.

2. He has a high skills level with a very good handle and fairly impressive passing ability that gets overlooked in many of his draft reviews. These skills certainly differentiate him from Wiggins. And while his shooting percentages were low, he has a beautiful looking shot and a super advanced step back move to get his shot off.

3. He has shown a lot of enthusiasm (as his head coach put it) or competitive zeal on a number of occasions in games - at least on the offensive end. This, again, distinguishes him from Wiggins.

4. I actually think he has a pretty high basketball IQ. He appears to have very good instincts when it comes to using screens and positioning himself well for shots.

5. He is very young - maybe the second or third youngest player in this draft class. He just turned 19 this past August. His youth could explain a lot of the inconsistency and some of the motor issues we've seen or heard about.

Bottom line is that, in spite of his red flags, Edwards has potential in the stratosphere. That's why I'll be happy if it's him instead of Ball - assuming Wolves decide to stand pat and keep the top pick. But I'd still far prefer it if the Wolves would trade down and end up with Okongwu, Haliburton, Patrick Williams, Okoro or even Toppin.

BizarroJerry wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:There better be a trade down if we aren't taking Wiseman. If you aren't taking the clear cut best player in the draft you better get something for him. I'll have no faith in this season if we just take Edwards #1.

I totally agree. Like Crazysauce, I see Edwards as another Dion Waiters. That's not what you want from a #1 pick in the draft.

I agree. I'm hoping he's more like Dennis Smith Jr..

Could he be a Bradley Beal?

I wouldn't bet on it. Beal's perimeter shot was a thousand times better as a prospect than Edwards is now. We forget as time goes on, but Beal garnered Ray Allen comparisons soon after he came out of Florida. That is not Edwards. Think more along the lines of Tyreke Evans.

You pick Edwards over Ball. And you pick Wiseman over Edwards. They only reason the Wolves should pick Ball 1st overall is with a prearrange trade down with another team. I would be livered if we end up taking and keeping Ball. I am intrigued by Edwards and wouldn't be too upset if we take him 1st, but prefer Wiseman.

Best case for me is:
#1 - James Wiseman
#17 - Sadiq Bey, RJ Hampton or Tyrell Terry (in that order if available)

KiwiMatt wrote:You pick Edwards over Ball. And you pick Wiseman over Edwards. They only reason the Wolves should pick Ball 1st overall is with a prearrange trade down with another team. I would be livered if we end up taking and keeping Ball. I am intrigued by Edwards and wouldn't be too upset if we take him 1st, but prefer Wiseman.

Best case for me is:
#1 - James Wiseman
#17 - Sadiq Bey, RJ Hampton or Tyrell Terry (in that order if available)

I like Sadiq too. If it's Edwards and Bey i can live with it. Hope they can trade #33.

Regardless if we keep Beasley and draft Edwards or keep Beasley and draft someone else...assuming we do one of those two things, we still have a massive logjam at the 2: Beasley/Edwards, Culver, Nowell, Evans, and Okogie are all "natural" 2's. Yes, Culver and Okogie can play some 3, but it's not ideal.

As for "natural" 3's, Layman might be the only one on the roster. And with 4's the only ones under contract are Johnson and Vanderbilt.

So we have some re-balancing to do: we need fewer 2's and more 3/4s.

Q12543 wrote:Regardless if we keep Beasley and draft Edwards or keep Beasley and draft someone else...assuming we do one of those two things, we still have a massive logjam at the 2: Beasley/Edwards, Culver, Nowell, Evans, and Okogie are all "natural" 2's. Yes, Culver and Okogie can play some 3, but it's not ideal.

As for "natural" 3's, Layman might be the only one on the roster. And with 4's the only ones under contract are Johnson and Vanderbilt.

So we have some re-balancing to do: we need fewer 2's and more 3/4s.

I seriously doubt we bring Beasley back if we take Edwards. That'd be a decent chunk of money to a guy splitting a lot of game time with our top prospects.

Camden wrote:

BizarroJerry wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:There better be a trade down if we aren't taking Wiseman. If you aren't taking the clear cut best player in the draft you better get something for him. I'll have no faith in this season if we just take Edwards #1.

I totally agree. Like Crazysauce, I see Edwards as another Dion Waiters. That's not what you want from a #1 pick in the draft.

I agree. I'm hoping he's more like Dennis Smith Jr..

Could he be a Bradley Beal?

I wouldn't bet on it. Beal's perimeter shot was a thousand times better as a prospect than Edwards is now. We forget as time goes on, but Beal garnered Ray Allen comparisons soon after he came out of Florida. That is not Edwards. Think more along the lines of Tyreke Evans.

That's a bit overstated. Beal only hit 34% of his 5 three point attempts per game in college. That's certainly better than Edward' 29.4% on 7.7 attempts. So Beal was a better three-point shooter on significantly fewer attempts. At the same time, Edwards got to the line more than Beal and shot a slightly better percentage from the line. So it's not like Beal was Steph Curry as a shooter coming out of college. And he sure wasn't anything close to the second coming of Ray Allen who hit over 40% of his three-point attempts in all three of his college seasons, hitting 46.6% of his three-point attempts his junior year. So yes, Beal's college shooting stats were better than Edwards', but they weren't in a different league. And note that Edwards scored over 19 points per game compared to Beal's 15 points.

lipoli390 wrote:

Camden wrote:

BizarroJerry wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:There better be a trade down if we aren't taking Wiseman. If you aren't taking the clear cut best player in the draft you better get something for him. I'll have no faith in this season if we just take Edwards #1.

I totally agree. Like Crazysauce, I see Edwards as another Dion Waiters. That's not what you want from a #1 pick in the draft.

I agree. I'm hoping he's more like Dennis Smith Jr..

Could he be a Bradley Beal?

I wouldn't bet on it. Beal's perimeter shot was a thousand times better as a prospect than Edwards is now. We forget as time goes on, but Beal garnered Ray Allen comparisons soon after he came out of Florida. That is not Edwards. Think more along the lines of Tyreke Evans.

That's a bit overstated. Beal only hit 34% of his 5 three point attempts per game in college. That's certainly better than Edward' 29.4% on 7.7 attempts. So Beal was a better three-point shooter on significantly fewer attempts. At the same time, Edwards got to the line more than Beal and shot a slightly better percentage from the line. So it's not like Beal was Steph Curry as a shooter coming out of college. And he sure wasn't anything close to the second coming of Ray Allen who hit over 40% of his three-point attempts in all three of his college seasons, hitting 46.6% of his three-point attempts his junior year. So yes, Beal's college shooting stats were better than Edwards', but they weren't in a different league. And note that Edwards scored over 19 points per game compared to Beal's 15 points.

Beal shot 38.6 percent from three on solid volume as a 19-year old rookie. I don't see any way Edwards is able to replicate that next year, and maybe ever. And, while it's not quantifiable, Beal's shot had less wrong with it than Edwards' does. Edwards often has poor balance and tends to fade backwards on his jumper versus staying straight up. The release looks fluid, but the power distribution is wrong, which is why his shots tend to fall short at the front of the rim. Now, we can argue whether that's fixable or not (it is), but Beal was way ahead of Edwards at this point, in my opinion.