Damning Stats

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Since you've brought it up before, let's just add the quotes from Joakim Noah earlier this season too.

"He always told me I would miss him when he was gone," Noah said. "He was right."

"Thibs is great. I'm really happy for him. He cares about winning. Our run in Chicago, I'll never forget. Some of the best times in my life. I got a lot of love for Thibs.''

"A lot of great memories more than disappointment,'' Noah added. "We came close to winning a championship. It didn't happen. They were great times overall.''

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

I think the question with Thibs and his starters is one of fit as much as anything. It's not about Thibs being a good coach or bad coach or our starting unit being talented or not talented. But is there some sort of mis-match between how Thibs wants to run things, his tactics, his button-pushing, etc. and the players he has?

Something is not right when the same 5 guys are worse by double digits in Net Rating. That is just amazing to me, especially with a young group of guys that are allegedly working their tails off during the offseason.

[Coolbreeze44]

I think the bellowing would be more tolerable if we were 16-6.

I certainly didn't see this slow of a start coming, but I always felt there would be a bit of an adjustment period. I still expect to see this team become much more competitive and win more regularly THIS season. Wish I could tell you when that will happen, but I haven't completely given up on this season.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

I think the bellowing would be more tolerable if we were 16-6.

I certainly didn't see this slow of a start coming, but I always felt there would be a bit of an adjustment period. I still expect to see this team become much more competitive and win more regularly THIS season. Wish I could tell you when that will happen, but I haven't completely given up on this season.

I'm with you here about the slow start and adjustment period even though we felt differently about Thibs before he was hired. And the yelling from the sideline doesn't bother me. A lot of it is just "get him" or "move move move" type stuff and working the officials. I still think this month is when we'll see some turnaround. Hopefully I'm not asking too much of some early 20's players, though.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

The only bellowing I don't like from Thibs is when he calls for clear outs for Towns and Wigs. You can hear on some possessions he just cancels the play and tells them to get the ball to Towns or Wiggins and clear out of the way. Run the play you called and stop canceling it just because you get a 1v1 matchup you like. It's funny when it happens with Ricky holding the ball because he doesn't really clear out at first until Thibs barks at him 2-3 times to get out of the way.

[Duke13]

Passivity at it finest once again!! Lol. Good catch Cam.

[Duke13]

Anyone have some inside sources on how hard the Wolves practiced on Wednesday?? That's gotta be it.

[Monster]

A few other "lineup" stats. In each case, I am picking some arbitrary minimum threshold of minutes played together:

Best 5-man lineup
Aldrich/Bjelica/Dunn/LaVine/Muhammad
Offensive Rating - 116.9
Defensive Rating - 100.7
Net Rating - +16.2

Best 4-man lineup
Bjelica/Dunn/LaVine/Muhammad
Offensive Rating - 107.6
Defensive Rating - 91.2
Net Rating - +16.4

Top 3 3-man lineups with Net Rating
Aldrich/Bjelica/Dunn - +16.0
Aldrich/Bjelica/Muhammad - +13.8
Bjelica/LaVine/Muhammad - +10.9

Top 3 2-man lineups with Net Rating
Aldrich/Bjelica - +16.4
Aldrich/Muhammad - +9.2
Bjelica/Dunn - +8.0

So...are you saying Thibs should consider playing with fewer than 5 players on the court?

In all seriousness thanks Q for posting the numbers from these posts.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Remember the much-maligned defense we had a few years ago when we won 40 games? Oh, those were the good ole' days:

This year's starting 5 defensive rating - 112.6

Pekovic-Love-Brewer-Martin-Rubio - 103.2

OMG, the short-armed ground bound duo of Love+Pek and the matador known as Martin managed to be nearly 10 points better!

[TAFKASP]

^^^ That hurts, bad.