Minnesota Sports Forum

FNG wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:39 pm

60WinTim wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:17 pm

FNG wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:14 pm

Great point about the impact Ant has had on Julius. Still, he has a long ways to go to supplant KG as the greatest TWolf. KG is arguably one of the 20 greatest NBA players of all time, and sometimes ranks even higher. Ant would barely crack the top 100. And KG consistently brought dominance at both ends of the court. Ant's ceiling is sky high, and we'll be lucky if he ever approaches KG as greatest Timberwolf. He's already in the top 3 I think, and that's pretty amazing.

I'm struggling to come up with a Timberwolf who would knock ANT out of the top 2?

If you dig deep into the advanced stats, it's difficult to conclude Ant has contributed more than Kevin Love did in his 6 years here. 26 PPG in 2 of those seasons and 15.2 rebounds and 4.4 assists one year! And despite many of us ripping him sometimes for his defense, he was a far better on/off performer in his years here than Ant has been. Ant's trajectory is terrific and he will definitely pass Love to become #2, but the analytics favor Love right now though.

Ok, now you've officially jumped the shark on this!

I was a huge Kevin Love fan and he indeed had an incredible season prior to being traded. But seriously, you are citing his On/Off numbers when instead of guys like SloMo or NAW or DDV or Patrick Beverley off the bench like when Ant sits, he had guys like Derrick Williams and Anthony Randolph come in for him. The better your backups, the less of a fall-off there is. Love benefited in that stat by how crappy his team mates were!

Also, the analytics don't reflect just how much Ant warps a defense to stop him, thus freeing up more open space and mismatches for guys like....Julius Randle. That doesn't show up in Ant's box score or any of the box score derived stats like PER and BPM.

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:33 pm

FNG wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:14 pm

thedoper wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 10:24 am Who's on board now? Any newbies? Antman turned Ju from a universally disliked player to a joyful, productive basketball player. KG would have punched Ju in practice. His only fault is that he really likes sex, which some might argue is not a fault at all.

Great point about the impact Ant has had on Julius. Still, he has a long ways to go to supplant KG as the greatest TWolf. KG is arguably one of the 20 greatest NBA players of all time, and sometimes ranks even higher. Ant would barely crack the top 100. And KG consistently brought dominance at both ends of the court. Ant's ceiling is sky high, and we'll be lucky if he ever approaches KG as greatest Timberwolf. He's already in the top 3 I think, and that's pretty amazing.

Well, if franchise and league tenure is part of the criteria, than of course KG is going to be #1 as Ant is still just 23 YO. But frankly Ant's ascendance along with the franchise sort of towers over KG's workmanlike toiling for all those years, just in terms of playoff success and national accolades.

Agreed, KG had 3 total playoff wins at 23, Ant has 20 and counting.

rapsuperstar31 wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 2:02 pm

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:33 pm

FNG wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:14 pm

Great point about the impact Ant has had on Julius. Still, he has a long ways to go to supplant KG as the greatest TWolf. KG is arguably one of the 20 greatest NBA players of all time, and sometimes ranks even higher. Ant would barely crack the top 100. And KG consistently brought dominance at both ends of the court. Ant's ceiling is sky high, and we'll be lucky if he ever approaches KG as greatest Timberwolf. He's already in the top 3 I think, and that's pretty amazing.

Well, if franchise and league tenure is part of the criteria, than of course KG is going to be #1 as Ant is still just 23 YO. But frankly Ant's ascendance along with the franchise sort of towers over KG's workmanlike toiling for all those years, just in terms of playoff success and national accolades.

Agreed, KG had 3 total playoff wins at 23, Ant has 20 and counting.

Garnett had 17 playoff wins over 12 seasons.



[Note: I chuckled at the Kevin Love stuff. Analytics are great... until they force us into narratives we know are very wrong.]

FNG wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:51 pm

60WinTim wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:46 pm

FNG wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:39 pm

If you dig deep into the advanced stats, it's difficult to conclude Ant has contributed more than Kevin Love did in his 6 years here. 26 PPG in 2 of those seasons and 15.2 rebounds and 4.4 assists one year! And despite many of us ripping him sometimes for his defense, he was a far better on/off performer in his years here than Ant has been. Ant's trajectory is terrific and he will definitely pass Love to become #2, but the analytics favor Love right now though.

Dang! How could I have forgotten about Love!

Probably something to do with the zero playoff appearances...

I see what you did there, Tim

It’s pretty easy to have better on/off stats when you are Klove when you had significant worse teammates. I guess what is better the 3rd best player on a championship team or the best player on 2 WCF teams (possibly farther). Ant has the franchise record playoff wins in games that he has played (Naz and Jaden missed 1 playoffs or they would be tied). Ant also got to 4 wins because of the expansion to 7 games from 5 in the first round.

I think it is really close and I will not argue if someone took Ant over KG or vice versa.


My top 5 wolves ever
1A. KG
1b. Ant
3. Kat
4. Klove
5. Rudy

My question is if the wolves win the title this year is Rudy ahead of Kat and is Jaden is a top 10 wolf ever?

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:54 pm

FNG wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:39 pm

60WinTim wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:17 pm

I'm struggling to come up with a Timberwolf who would knock ANT out of the top 2?

If you dig deep into the advanced stats, it's difficult to conclude Ant has contributed more than Kevin Love did in his 6 years here. 26 PPG in 2 of those seasons and 15.2 rebounds and 4.4 assists one year! And despite many of us ripping him sometimes for his defense, he was a far better on/off performer in his years here than Ant has been. Ant's trajectory is terrific and he will definitely pass Love to become #2, but the analytics favor Love right now though.

Ok, now you've officially jumped the shark on this!

I was a huge Kevin Love fan and he indeed had an incredible season prior to being traded. But seriously, you are citing his On/Off numbers when instead of guys like SloMo or NAW or DDV or Patrick Beverley off the bench like when Ant sits, he had guys like Derrick Williams and Anthony Randolph come in for him. The better your backups, the less of a fall-off there is. Love benefited in that stat by how crappy his team mates were!

Also, the analytics don't reflect just how much Ant warps a defense to stop him, thus freeing up more open space and mismatches for guys like....Julius Randle. That doesn't show up in Ant's box score or any of the box score derived stats like PER and BPM.

Ant does attract a lot of attention. But so did Love when he was making 42% of his threes. And check out some of the advanced analytics: net rating isn't even close between the two of them. And Ant clearly has the advantage of playing with more talented teammates...Love had Darko, Beasley, Ridnour and Smilin' Wes as his other 4 starters one year! I certainly think Ant is the far more exciting player and has a much higher ceiling, but statistically, it's hard for me to make a case for him being a more effective player than Love was during his time here. It's close though...two great Timberwolves!

FNG wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 2:42 pm

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:54 pm

FNG wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:39 pm

If you dig deep into the advanced stats, it's difficult to conclude Ant has contributed more than Kevin Love did in his 6 years here. 26 PPG in 2 of those seasons and 15.2 rebounds and 4.4 assists one year! And despite many of us ripping him sometimes for his defense, he was a far better on/off performer in his years here than Ant has been. Ant's trajectory is terrific and he will definitely pass Love to become #2, but the analytics favor Love right now though.

Ok, now you've officially jumped the shark on this!

I was a huge Kevin Love fan and he indeed had an incredible season prior to being traded. But seriously, you are citing his On/Off numbers when instead of guys like SloMo or NAW or DDV or Patrick Beverley off the bench like when Ant sits, he had guys like Derrick Williams and Anthony Randolph come in for him. The better your backups, the less of a fall-off there is. Love benefited in that stat by how crappy his team mates were!

Also, the analytics don't reflect just how much Ant warps a defense to stop him, thus freeing up more open space and mismatches for guys like....Julius Randle. That doesn't show up in Ant's box score or any of the box score derived stats like PER and BPM.

Ant does attract a lot of attention. But so did Love when he was making 42% of his threes. And check out some of the advanced analytics: net rating isn't even close between the two of them. And Ant clearly has the advantage of playing with more talented teammates...Love had Darko, Beasley, Ridnour and Smilin' Wes as his other 4 starters one year! I certainly think Ant is the far more exciting player and has a much higher ceiling, but statistically, it's hard for me to make a case for him being a more effective player than Love was during his time here. It's close though...two great Timberwolves!

Once again, it seems like you get confused with your stats FNG! Ant has the advantage in Net Rating (as defined as the point differential per 100 possessions while on the floor). Ant has a career net rating of +2.5 while with the Wolves and Love's is -2.1 while with the Wolves, so it's almost a 5 point difference in Ant's favor.

As for the shooting, you are smart enough to know that volume matters almost as much as accuracy. And Kevin Love was not getting blitzed at the top of the arc every time he touched the ball, that's for sure.

I was a huge Kevin Love fan and he truly had a singular season his last year with us, but his total body of work while with the Wolves does not approach the profound impact that Anthony Edwards has had. Also, shouldn't durability/availability matter too!? That's another stain on Love's tenure with the Wolves.

Mike Conley on Ant.

"There's moments where I'll go home and I'll sit there and [think] I could be, right now in this moment, [in the midst of] being a teammate of one of the best players that ever played this game," Conley said to ESPN's Dave McMenamin.

rapsuperstar31 wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 3:14 pm Mike Conley on Ant.

"There's moments where I'll go home and I'll sit there and [think] I could be, right now in this moment, [in the midst of] being a teammate of one of the best players that ever played this game," Conley said to ESPN's Dave McMenamin.

That was quite a statement from Mike. I'm ready to see it play out that way. Ant, show me.

FNG wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 2:42 pm

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:54 pm

FNG wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 1:39 pm

If you dig deep into the advanced stats, it's difficult to conclude Ant has contributed more than Kevin Love did in his 6 years here. 26 PPG in 2 of those seasons and 15.2 rebounds and 4.4 assists one year! And despite many of us ripping him sometimes for his defense, he was a far better on/off performer in his years here than Ant has been. Ant's trajectory is terrific and he will definitely pass Love to become #2, but the analytics favor Love right now though.

Ok, now you've officially jumped the shark on this!

I was a huge Kevin Love fan and he indeed had an incredible season prior to being traded. But seriously, you are citing his On/Off numbers when instead of guys like SloMo or NAW or DDV or Patrick Beverley off the bench like when Ant sits, he had guys like Derrick Williams and Anthony Randolph come in for him. The better your backups, the less of a fall-off there is. Love benefited in that stat by how crappy his team mates were!

Also, the analytics don't reflect just how much Ant warps a defense to stop him, thus freeing up more open space and mismatches for guys like....Julius Randle. That doesn't show up in Ant's box score or any of the box score derived stats like PER and BPM.

Ant does attract a lot of attention. But so did Love when he was making 42% of his threes. And check out some of the advanced analytics: net rating isn't even close between the two of them. And Ant clearly has the advantage of playing with more talented teammates...Love had Darko, Beasley, Ridnour and Smilin' Wes as his other 4 starters one year! I certainly think Ant is the far more exciting player and has a much higher ceiling, but statistically, it's hard for me to make a case for him being a more effective player than Love was during his time here. It's close though...two great Timberwolves!

Love was a fucking sieve on defense, nice rebounder but couldn't do anything else. He was a great player but completely one way. I would say similar guys are like cheap mans Luka or Harden. Ant plays both ways so for me it's not even close.

KG was a mega stud on defense also, which is why he carried so many scrubby teams to the playoffs.

I might put Ant above KG now. It's close.