Patience with the Young guys

[Lipoli390]

We're all frustrated with the Wolves. I've noticed that the frustration has been vented at Edwards and McDaniels - the former for failings to take a huge leap forward and the latter for his lackluster rebounding. I'm not going to push back against anyone's frustration with the team generally or with veterans like KAT and Gobert. But I thought I'd start this thread as a reminder to remain patient with the young guys.

First, I'll note that while neither Edwards nor McDaniels has taken a huge leap forward, both have actually improved statistically over last season. His scoring is up from 21.3 points to 22.6. His rebounds are up from 4.8 to 5.9, a particularly good sign because it's an effort stat and a type of production this team desperately needs. His FG shooting has improved from 44.1% to 45.7% and his 3-point shooting is only 1 percentage point worse than last season. He's also getting to the line a little more, especially recently. McDaniels has increased his scoring from 9.2 points to 11.4 per game, his FG shooting has increased from 46% to 53.5% and his three-point shooting is up significantly form 31.7% to 35.7%. His blocks have increased from 0.8 to 1.4 - the same average as Gobert, which probably says more about Rudy than McDaniels but it's a nice contribution from Jaden. I should also mention Nowell. While his numbers aren't up from last season, he's shown flashes of an elite scorer and his defense seems to have improved.

Second, I'll underscore the fact that these guys - Edwards, McDaniels and Nowell are still very young. Edwards just turned 21. McDaniels is 22 and Nowell is still only 23. Ant and Jaden are in their 3rd season while Nowell is in his 4th after not getting a lot of minutes his first couple seasons. NBA history is replete with players who didn't hit their stride until their 4th, 5th or sometimes their 6th season in the League. That's especially true for players like Ant, Jaden and Jaylen who had only one or two seasons of college ball. Anfernee Simons is a recent example. He went from averaging 7.8 points in his 3rd season to 17.3 in his 4th. He has since taken another big leap forward in this, his 5th season at age 23, averaging 23.2 points. It took Chauncey Billups until his 6th season to hit his stride and he kept improving in successive seasons after that.

So I'm hoping the Wolves front office hangs on to all of our talented young players, including Edwards, McDaniels, Nowell and Minott. They're all really talented and very young - ages 19 to 23. Meanwhile, the Wolves have graded away the majority of their draft picks the remainder of this decade. So my message to Connelly is simple: Dial back and be true to your word when you said their are no shortcuts to success. And please be patient with the young guys we have! If the KAT-Gobert experiment works in spite of what we've seen so far, then great. If it doesn't, as I suspect it won't, the good news is that we have a significant pool of young talent to give this team life after KAT and Gobert.

[Monster]

I'll add my guy Wendell Moore Jr to the fray Of young guys to be patient with. In the asset thread someone said he can't even get minutes on this roster with guards that haven't been very good. TyTy Washington can't get minutes for a supposed tanking Rockets team and is down in the g-league balling out. It's really not surprising that Moore isn't getting minutes. The Wolves have other guys clearly ahead of him and vets that could play and in Rivers case is playing. Guys develop in the G-league and Moore has at the very least been shooting the ball with very high percentages. He likely wasn't drafted to be a star player but a complimentary player around good players.

I'll also point out that while he didn't do it in college AJ Lawson seems to have upped his rebounding at the next level. IF he ever ends up making it to the NBA it will be interesting if that translates at all. Of course the main thing for him is about shooting that's the real value he theoretically brings. At this point I consider Lawson much more of a long shot to be a true contributor than anyone else on the Wolves roster. I and everyone else is much more interested in Garza who looks like potentially could be a pretty nice pickup (relatively speaking) for the Wolves.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Lip...

A lot of your take depends on which stats we want to use. Consider...

- Edwards is playing a couple more minutes per game this season. Per 36 minutes... he's averaging the same PPG as last season (22.4) and it's only slightly more than his rookie season (21.7).

- His shooting stats are about the same. Rebounds slightly up, assists slightly down. TOs up.

- His advanced stats are more concerning. They're down across the board.

- But the eye/ear test is the most concerning. Here's what we've seen from Edwards in Year 3: (1) He arrived to camp out of shape. (2) He went the first 13 games with only one dunk. It was noticeable and was teetering on alarming, in part because we've seen it with another prized young player in recent years. (3) He became a meme for standing on the court with his hands on his hips and not moving for an entire possession. (4) A few games into a season when the entire Wolves organization is banking on two bigs playing together... Edwards said "The smaller we go, the better it is for me." This was during his non-dunking and hip holding period. (5) He's openly conceded he sucks on the back end of back-to-backs, struggled to bring the energy in afternoon games, et al. It's great he's taking accountability... but how often do we have to hear these things from a young guy before they become hollow.

- He might flourish during this stretch and we'll be ecstatic with the team's prized future star again. We'll learn a lot more in the next month. But right now... in Year 3... I don't think we've seen enough improvement to be hellbent on him being THE guy for this franchise. In fact, any stagnation should be cause for concern. The BEST players almost always show more growth than what we've seen so far from Edwards. Especially when you consider he didn't really show much statistical growth from the 2nd half of his rookie season into his 2nd season.

Almost all of his improvement came because he sucked balls for his first 30 or 40 games and was arguably the least efficient starter in the league. His remarkable turnaround was incredibly impressive. But since then... it's been a bit of a plateau.

I'm ready (and hopeful) we'll see another leap soon. If not, it's probably the better bet to temper expectations a bit.

[Carlos Danger]

Lip...

A lot of your take depends on which stats we want to use. Consider...

- Edwards is playing a couple more minutes per game this season. Per 36 minutes... he's averaging the same PPG as last season (22.4) and it's only slightly more than his rookie season (21.7).

- His shooting stats are about the same. Rebounds slightly up, assists slightly down. TOs up.

- His advanced stats are more concerning. They're down across the board.

- But the eye/ear test is the most concerning. Here's what we've seen from Edwards in Year 3: (1) He arrived to camp out of shape. (2) He went the first 13 games with only one dunk. It was noticeable and was teetering on alarming, in part because we've seen it with another prized young player in recent years. (3) He became a meme for standing on the court with his hands on his hips and not moving for an entire possession. (4) A few games into a season when the entire Wolves organization is banking on two bigs playing together... Edwards said "The smaller we go, the better it is for me." This was during his non-dunking and hip holding period. (5) He's openly conceded he sucks on the back end of back-to-backs, struggled to bring the energy in afternoon games, et al. It's great he's taking accountability... but how often do we have to hear these things from a young guy before they become hollow.

- He might flourish during this stretch and we'll be ecstatic with the team's prized future star again. We'll learn a lot more in the next month. But right now... in Year 3... I don't think we've seen enough improvement to be hellbent on him being THE guy for this franchise. In fact, any stagnation should be cause for concern. The BEST players almost always show more growth than what we've seen so far from Edwards. Especially when you consider he didn't really show much statistical growth from the 2nd half of his rookie season into his 2nd season.

Almost all of his improvement came because he sucked balls for his first 30 or 40 games and was arguably the least efficient starter in the league. His remarkable turnaround was incredibly impressive. But since then... it's been a bit of a plateau.

I'm ready (and hopeful) we'll see another leap soon. If not, it's probably the better bet to temper expectations a bit.

I was just going to lay out something similar in the "Asset Inventory Thread", but you've hit on most of what I was going to write. I'll just add three things:

1.) He came into this year fat/out of shape. Not a good look.

2.) While it's true some guys take a while to develop, how many times have we as wolves fans been down that road of waiting? I think three years is usually enough time to know what you have. KG was an All Star year two (age 20). Towns was an All Star year 3 (age 22). Kevin Love was an All Star year 3 (age 22). Ant could very well be an All Star this year as well. But if he's not, does his stock already start going down? IDK.

3.) I'm surprised several people think he's completely untouchable. We moved on from Derrick Williams in year three. I think this is a big year for Ant to show more than potential. We all want him to be "the guy". Can he?

[FNG]

While I agree with Lip's main point that there is some talent in our young players and we should be patient, I lean more toward Abe's analysis of Ant's 3rd year progress...both statistically and eye test. He has not been close to the player I was anticipating to see this year at either end of the court.

I also don't know that this board has been unhappy with Jaden this year. He's a guy who didn't make ESPN's preseason top 125 list, but night in and night out he does a good job defending the opponents' best player. And look at what has happened to our defense the last two games with Jaden out! We all recognize where he needs to improve (fouling, 3-point shooting, rebounding), but I have to say that on balance I'm happier with Jaden than our other youngsters.

[Q-is-here]

Yeah, Ant has not taken any sort of leap this year. My big concern with Ant is that he is now statistically behind other comparable star-caliber players in their third years - Mitchell, Tatum, Morant, Booker, etc. That's not encouraging as a lot of these guys were still quite young too in their third years. The "he's still so young" excuse is going to run out of steam soon when you start looking at Ant compared to the trajectories of current stars that also entered the league at only 19 or 20.

McDaniels on the other hand we can definitely say has taken a step forward which is very encouraging. He's trending more toward the Mikal Bridges "star in your role" type of player vs. a high usage superstar, but it's encouraging nonetheless.

[Carlos Danger]

Yeah, Ant has not taken any sort of leap this year. My big concern with Ant is that he is now statistically behind other comparable star-caliber players in their third years - Mitchell, Tatum, Morant, Booker, etc. That's not encouraging as a lot of these guys were still quite young too in their third years. The "he's still so young" excuse is going to run out of steam soon when you start looking at Ant compared to the trajectories of current stars that also entered the league at only 19 or 20.

McDaniels on the other hand we can definitely say has taken a step forward which is very encouraging. He's trending more toward the Mikal Bridges "star in your role" type of player vs. a high usage superstar, but it's encouraging nonetheless.

The year over year improvement is what I look for as well. It doesn't have to be giant leaps. Just show me you worked on yourself and got better. McDaniels is a great example. We also saw it in the third tier guys like Naz, Nowell and JMac. Just get a little better each year - that's all I ask.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Yeah, Ant has not taken any sort of leap this year. My big concern with Ant is that he is now statistically behind other comparable star-caliber players in their third years - Mitchell, Tatum, Morant, Booker, etc. That's not encouraging as a lot of these guys were still quite young too in their third years. The "he's still so young" excuse is going to run out of steam soon when you start looking at Ant compared to the trajectories of current stars that also entered the league at only 19 or 20.

Or even in his own draft class.

I was a HUGE Haliburton fan, but I didn't anticipate he'd be THIS good:
19.9 ppg / 11.3 ast / 2.7 TO / 59.5% / 23.7 PER

And Desmond Bane was chosen w the last pick in the 1st rd.
24.7 ppg / 4.8 ast / 62.2% TS / 21.4 PER

Even Tyrese Maxey can be considered.
22.9 ppg / 4.4 ast / 56.9% TS / 17.3 PER

All three are improving. Yes... we can search for other players who didn't follow the year-to-year improvement model, but NBA history tells us that regression or stagnation (sans injury) in the first three years is cause for concern more often than not. It's been 20 years since Billups made his late leap. And even then, he topped out as a low-end All NBA player (averaged 17.0 - 18.5 ppg on sub 43% fg those seasons).

Does Edwards have more potential than the guys above? Sure. But if any fans should be leery of taking potential talent for granted... I think we're at the top of the list. Nothing is a given in the NBA.

[FNG]

Let's put two themes of this thread together. I was a big Haliburton fan also coming out of college, but I never thought he would be this good so early in his career. But it's telling that he had Jaden McDaniels hounding him in his worst performance this year.

[Q-is-here]

Yeah, Ant has not taken any sort of leap this year. My big concern with Ant is that he is now statistically behind other comparable star-caliber players in their third years - Mitchell, Tatum, Morant, Booker, etc. That's not encouraging as a lot of these guys were still quite young too in their third years. The "he's still so young" excuse is going to run out of steam soon when you start looking at Ant compared to the trajectories of current stars that also entered the league at only 19 or 20.

Or even in his own draft class.

I was a HUGE Haliburton fan, but I didn't anticipate he'd be THIS good:
19.9 ppg / 11.3 ast / 2.7 TO / 59.5% / 23.7 PER

And Desmond Bane was chosen w the last pick in the 1st rd.
24.7 ppg / 4.8 ast / 62.2% TS / 21.4 PER

Even Tyrese Maxey can be considered.
22.9 ppg / 4.4 ast / 56.9% TS / 17.3 PER

All three are improving. Yes... we can search for other players who didn't follow the year-to-year improvement model, but NBA history tells us that regression or stagnation (sans injury) in the first three years is cause for concern more often than not. It's been 20 years since Billups made his late leap. And even then, he topped out as a low-end All NBA player (averaged 17.0 - 18.5 ppg on sub 43% fg those seasons).

Does Edwards have more potential than the guys above? Sure. But if any fans should be leery of taking potential talent for granted... I think we're at the top of the list. Nothing is a given in the NBA.

Pretty depressing now that you add those three names to the list. Bane and Haliburton came into the league with an extra year of college under their belt, so I will cut a little slack there. You were a huge Haliburton fan I know and have been decisively proven right in that regard.

You need players that can use possessions and help carry an offense, which is what Ant is ideally suited to do. The problem is he just isn't efficient enough at it yet between the turnover rate and TS%. And he hasn't improved enough in other areas to make up for it.