Another Wiggins Thread

[thedoper]

Even supposedly good shooters come to Minnesota and suck. I'm sure Morris and Beasley would ride the pine here too, only because they wouldn't be getting good shots. Be it our system, personnel, or the stars that dominate the ball we are able to take anyone and make them a worse shooter.

I think there is a tangible positive effect that Jokic has on his teammates numbers. Jokic is a great screen setter, this is a weakness for Towns. Jokic is also an amazing passer even when he isn't registering an assist. This is a part of his game that Towns has yet to excel at either because of lack of opportunity or lack of ability. I think screen setting alone is one way that Jokic makes his teammates better on the offensive side of the floor.

Jokic doesn't have Towns ability to score, but he is much easier to play with and lifts the games of his teammates. I don't really see how this can be argued against.

I hope everyone on our team improves. Wiggins, Towns, Dieng, all of them. Because development is the only way this team will ever compete for anything.The real problem of this team since KG has been our utter lack of ability to develop anyone to exceed expectations. We've had some players who have met expectations to a point (Towns and Love), but I can't remember a diamond in the rough who we've seen really blossom into something greater than the expectations for them in our system. Every other relevant team, (Denver included) seems to have that. Right now Towns is meeting everyone's expectations (albeit barely) so they'd rather talk about players (Wiggins) who have preformed below expectations regardless of whether those expectations were ever realistic. The reality is that everyone on this team has lots of room for improvement. I'm personally optimistic about our talent in a vacuum. I don't think we're that far off from Denver in that aspect. What I'm very skeptical on is our ability to mold that talent, which is where I've seen us get burned for decades on.

Whew, the bold text is a doozy. I'm looking at the rosters side-by-side and it's really not even close. Care to expound this point or should we all ignore it and trudge on? Minnesota has a pretty bare cupboard right now and Denver has an embarrassment of riches.

I think in the margins (bench depth) they're better and at the 4 it's not even close. But if for instance Okogie (not too confident in this) or Culver become players we could close the gap further. On talent alone (like if I were picking 5 to win at pickup) with good health I take Jokic over Towns (barely), Milsap over anyone, Roco over Murray (I know you like Murray, I'm not crazy about him and I love what Roco brings to a team), Wiggins over Harris (i know I'll reap shit for this so you don't have to tell me why I'm wrong), Morris or Beasley = Teague talentwise from what I can tell (could be Denver's guys all the way but I have confidence in Teagues ability in spite of his challenges here the last 2 years) finally of Denver bench over our unproven pile of scraps. Yes Denver is more talented as a whole, but I do think that with a great system and improved play from our starters the gap isn't insane. The huge difference I see isn't basketball talent apart from them having Milsap, it is how Denver plays within their system and Jokic and his ability to elevate players is a huge part of that from what I see.

One other note to show the vast disparity between the two (while trying to ignore the Wiggins/Harris comment)... is that while we can hope that the Wolves players will improve...

Couldn't the same be said for the Nuggets?

Murray is only 22.
Beasley is 23.
Morris is 24.
Harris is 25.
Jokic is 24.

It's very likely all those guys will continue to improve, especially as they play in competitive, meaningful regular season games and playoff series... vs... Wolves playing out the string.

So your point is that because Denver has better player development they will increase the gap more? Probably. I'm not really holding out much hope that the development will happen, even though it seems to be the marketing the team is putting forward. I do believe that there is a huge opportunity that player development could utilize our talent into becoming a better team. It's really the only hope we have, since free agency is an impossibility and trades are only a temporary band aid for this team. The only real debate about this team is whether we are one the worst teams at drafting talent, developing players, or making acquisitions because our record speaks for itself.

This team has exceeded my expectations 2 times. The first season when they finished 6th instead of 7th in their division and one time I was at a game when they beat Shaq's Magic team. Remember last year when everyone predicted the Clippers to be the worst team in the NBA? That would never happen to us.

Fun side fact. Basketball reference has over/under win totals for 16 Timberwolves seasons. We went over in 5 of those 16, we chronically under perform.

[KG4Ever]

Buddy Hield signs a 4 year $86 million deal. That's a bargain as he is a Max or Near Max guy. He's shot north of 42% from the perimeter each of his three years in Sacramento and is shooting better than 87% lifetime from the free throw line--numbers that Wiggins isn't remotely close to achieving. How much are we paying Wiggins to shoot 33.2% from the perimeter and 73.5% from the free throw line?

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Buddy Hield signs a 4 year $86 million deal. That's a bargain as he is a Max or Near Max guy. He's shot north of 42% from the perimeter each of his three years in Sacramento and is shooting better than 87% lifetime from the free throw line--numbers that Wiggins isn't remotely close to achieving. How much are we paying Wiggins to shoot 33.2% from the perimeter and 73.5% from the free throw line?

It's more like $94M when you consider the very likely incentives he'll reach, but yeah, your point is still valid. Hield is a very nice overall player and one of the three best perimeter shooters in the game.

[BizarroJerry [enjin:6592520]]

Buddy Hield signs a 4 year $86 million deal. That's a bargain as he is a Max or Near Max guy. He's shot north of 42% from the perimeter each of his three years in Sacramento and is shooting better than 87% lifetime from the free throw line--numbers that Wiggins isn't remotely close to achieving. How much are we paying Wiggins to shoot 33.2% from the perimeter and 73.5% from the free throw line?

It's more like $94M when you consider the very likely incentives he'll reach, but yeah, your point is still valid. Hield is a very nice overall player and one of the three best perimeter shooters in the game.

Ah yes. The Buddy Hield-Jamal Murray debates. But we took neither. Another draft fail.

David Kahn is somewhere nodding in agreement and feeling better about himself.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Buddy Hield signs a 4 year $86 million deal. That's a bargain as he is a Max or Near Max guy. He's shot north of 42% from the perimeter each of his three years in Sacramento and is shooting better than 87% lifetime from the free throw line--numbers that Wiggins isn't remotely close to achieving. How much are we paying Wiggins to shoot 33.2% from the perimeter and 73.5% from the free throw line?

It's more like $94M when you consider the very likely incentives he'll reach, but yeah, your point is still valid. Hield is a very nice overall player and one of the three best perimeter shooters in the game.

Ah yes. The Buddy Hield-Jamal Murray debates. But we took neither. Another draft fail.

David Kahn is somewhere nodding in agreement and feeling better about himself.

Yeah, I will and have defended Thibodeau's tenure here for what it was. My argument boiled down to him doing more good than bad, but an overall "meh" job considering the hope was for a lot more -- especially on the defensive side of the ball as a coach.

With all of that said, however, there is no defending the choice to choose Kris Dunn over Jamal Murray and Buddy Hield. To me, that was the worst of all his moves in Minnesota because it was so blatantly obvious what type of player the team needed plus the overall skill gap between those two and Dunn was distinguishable.

This franchise would look a lot better with one of those two next to Towns. That's for sure.

[Lipoli390]

Buddy Hield signs a 4 year $86 million deal. That's a bargain as he is a Max or Near Max guy. He's shot north of 42% from the perimeter each of his three years in Sacramento and is shooting better than 87% lifetime from the free throw line--numbers that Wiggins isn't remotely close to achieving. How much are we paying Wiggins to shoot 33.2% from the perimeter and 73.5% from the free throw line?

It's more like $94M when you consider the very likely incentives he'll reach, but yeah, your point is still valid. Hield is a very nice overall player and one of the three best perimeter shooters in the game.

Ah yes. The Buddy Hield-Jamal Murray debates. But we took neither. Another draft fail.

David Kahn is somewhere nodding in agreement and feeling better about himself.

Yeah, I will and have defended Thibodeau's tenure here for what it was. My argument boiled down to him doing more good than bad, but an overall "meh" job considering the hope was for a lot more -- especially on the defensive side of the ball as a coach.

With all of that said, however, there is no defending the choice to choose Kris Dunn over Jamal Murray and Buddy Hield. To me, that was the worst of all his moves in Minnesota because it was so blatantly obvious what type of player the team needed plus the overall skill gap between those two and Dunn was distinguishable.

This franchise would look a lot better with one of those two next to Towns. That's for sure.

Thibodeau did far more bad than good as the team's PBO. Choosing Dunn over Murray or Hield takes the cake as his worst move and one of the worst moves in franchise history with or without hindsight. Taking Patton over John Collins was another terrible gaff, which I noted at the time of the decision. Dealing LaVine, Dunn and swapping our pick for Butler instead of dealing Wiggins straight-up for Butler was another really poor decision. Then of course there's Thibodeau's decision to give Wiggins a max deal. And let's not forget the Gorgui contract, followed just 9 months later by the decision to sign Taj Gibson at $14 million per year to displace Gorgui as our starting PF. I didn't mind the Rubio trade, but signing Teague to 3 years guaranteed at $19 million per year was pretty bone-headed. I almost forgot to mention Thibodeau's ostrich impression as he ignored Butler's obvious dissatisfaction and strong desire to leave until Butler acted out destructively for the whole world to see. Thibodeau's tenure here was a train wreck and has really put the franchise in a bad spot.

Gersson will have to be very savvy and a bit lucky to get the franchise out to the hole Thibodeau dug.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Thibodeau did far more bad than good as the team's PBO. Choosing Dunn over Murray or Hield takes the cake as his worst move and one of the worst moves in franchise history with or without hindsight. Taking Patton over John Collins was another terrible gaff, which I noted at the time of the decision. Dealing LaVine, Dunn and swapping our pick for Butler instead of dealing Wiggins straight-up for Butler was another really poor decision. Then of course there's Thibodeau's decision to give Wiggins a max deal. And let's not forget the Gorgui contract, followed just 9 months later by the decision to sign Taj Gibson at $14 million per year to displace Gorgui as our starting PF. I didn't mind the Rubio trade, but signing Teague to 3 years guaranteed at $19 million per year was pretty bone-headed. I almost forgot to mention Thibodeau's ostrich impression as he ignored Butler's obvious dissatisfaction and strong desire to leave until Butler acted out destructively for the whole world to see. Thibodeau's tenure here was a train wreck and has really put the franchise in a bad spot.

Gersson will have to be very savvy and a bit lucky to get the franchise out to the hole Thibodeau dug.

I agree with you wholeheartedly about the insane overpay to Gorgui Dieng. I had fallen off the Dieng bandwagon long before Thibodeau made that deal because of his goofy and extremely limited offensive game as well as his weak, traffic cone defense. He wasn't even worth half of what he got as far as I'm considered. Total misread of an individual's skills, market value, and overall lack of understanding in roster construction.

1. Drafting Justin Patton over John Collins is terrible, but it's mainly in hindsight. I understand you were all over Collins, and rightfully so, but I urge you to look back at old articles prior to the selections being made. Almost all of them have Jarrett Allen, Thomas Bryant, Collins, and Patton ranked similarly. We know that all four of the others wound up being the far better picks, but it wasn't a slam dunk amongst guys supposedly in the know around that time. Also, we'll never know exactly how good Patton might have been due to the lingering injuries derailing practically the entirety of his young career. When healthy, he looked and played the part of a very skilled, very mobile and rangy big that, in theory, could have been an awesome offensive fit next to Towns. It just didn't work out -- at all. Decision-makers are judged on the results of their moves, though, and this was a failure.

2. Multiple reports since that Jimmy Butler trade was made indicated that Thibodeau actually wanted to deal Andrew Wiggins for Butler straight up, but the idea was shut down immediately by none other than Glen Taylor as he felt like keeping Wiggins would lead to more wins at the time rather than waiting for Zach LaVine to fully recover from injury. Those of us that argued LaVine was the better of those two would have locked arms with Thibodeau had he gotten his way as that would have been a huge win. We'd also be free from the sunken anchor that is Wiggins' overly bloated max contract. If you are to blame anyone for this mistake, it should be the man at the very top of this dysfunctional franchise for interfering with basketball-related matters that did not concern his input.

3. Signing Taj Gibson to a two-year, $28M deal was a massive win for Thibodeau. Gibson earned every penny of that contract and more considering the dirty work he did on a nightly basis. I feel your frustration to a degree because Dieng was already tied up in his deal, but keeping him in the starting lineup was never going to be the solution and displacing him directly led to more wins. The main reason why there's even an argument for this to be a bad move has more to do with Dieng's continued regression and inability to produce. Had Dieng been a stabilizing force off the bench in the way that someone like Domantas Sabonis was last year for the Indiana Pacers, we wouldn't even think twice about this matter. Blame Dieng here, not Thibs.

4a. Trading Ricky Rubio for a first-round pick was a complete and total win. That was pretty damn good value for a middle of the pack point guard with two-years, $29M left on his deal. Keep in mind that the Wolves also took back zero bad money in the deal as the Jazz absorbed his salary. Other comparable deals around this time were Lou Williams to the Houston Rockets for a first-round pick and Corey Brewer, and Kyle Korver to the Cleveland Cavaliers for a first-round pick and expiring contracts. I'd say Minnesota came out fine here. We could discuss whether or not Josh Okogie was the right player to select with that pick, but the trade itself was a good one in terms of value and it's also too early to write Okogie off yet.

4b. As far as signing Jeff Teague to the three-year, $57M deal (July 10, 2017), I think it's been fine. The deal was in line with market value. He hasn't been the All-Star version of himself, but he's been adequate enough to stabilize the position and hold it down as a starter. In no way has he been a bad starting point guard despite his individual weaknesses. Also, we've brought up Darren Collison and his two-year, $20M deal (July 7, 2017) when talking about Teague, but we usually choose to ignore George Hill's three-year, $57M deal (July 4, 2017) as well as Andre Iguodala's three-year, $48M deal (July 1, 2017). What about Kyle Lowry's three-year, $100M deal (July 7, 2017) that same summer? I bring these contracts up because they set the market for Teague.

To conclude a post that I didn't intend on making this long, I'm fully aware of the mistakes Thibodeau made while he was in Minnesota, and it was far from a complete success, but he is also very often criticized for things that either were not his fault or were, in reality, pretty agreeable moves.

[Monster]

It's not just the guys that Denver had putting up stats for them it's the fact that they have a very talented basically redshirted guy in Porter JR and they are likely to do something similar with Bol Bol. They have a guy like Hernagomez that is a pretty Good young rotation player that is a bench guy when everyone is healthy. Denver has been building their team for a few years getting good/worthwhile players outside or Waaaaaaay outside the lottery. The Wolves are now hopefully theoretically on a similar path. What will be interesting to see who Denver prioritizes and if they are able to continue to restock when a few guys eventually move on because they can't pay everyone.

[Lipoli390]

Cam -- Good response on Thibodeau.

But folks in the organization I've talked to have told me it was not Taylor who killed the Wiggins deal for Butler. Thibodeau wanted to win. He thought Wiggins was better than LaVine and didn't want to wait for LaVine's recovery. That should ring true when you think about Thibodeau's win-now impatience.

It was also Thibodeau's decision to give Wiggins the max deal. Glen was reluctant and that's what prompted the silly one-on-one interview Glen had with Andrew after which Glen gave Thibodeau the green light to do what he wanted. Glen let Thibodeau do whatever he wanted - even giving him a lot of rope before trading Jimmy.

The idiocy of the Teague signing was the fact that the Wolves were terrible defensively before the signing and going from Ricky to Jeff was a big step backwards defensively. As for the market, a better 3-point shooting PG, Collison, signed that summer for half of Teague's salary and one less season.

As for Patton, Thibodeau took him higher than any mock draft I recall at the time. And he took him with Collins and Anonoby on the board. And as you need, I didn't need hindsight to know it was a terrible decision.

So we'll have to agree to disagree. As I see it, the evidence shows Thibodeau to have been a terrible PBO.

[WildWolf2813]

I still maintain, if we had traded Wiggins, LaVine would be here on a 5 year max and we'd be hating it too.