Wolves and Wizards

[Lipoli390]

Sounds like the title of some fictional TV series, doesn't it? Well, in this case it's the two worst teams in the NBA. The Wizards have the League's worst record at 3-12 while the Wolves have the second worst record at 4-14. But I'd say the Wolves have been the worst of the two when you look at the Wolves League-leading point differential of 10.5 compared to the Wizards' 5.4. But to be fair to our own team, the Wolves have played most of their games without their best player, KAT. In contrast, the Wizards have had their best player, Beal, for all but two of their games and their second best player, Westbrook, for all by 5.

It would seem to make sense for the Wolves and Wizards to do a deal where one of them receives picks and young players to start a rebuild while the other receives the other team's best player to take one last shot and competing before blowing things up. But from the Wolves perspective, you have to question whether Beal would be worth the price the Wolves would likely have to pay to get him. I say that because the Wizards have the worst record in the NBA with Beal playing nearly every game and playing as well as he can play. And the Wizards have been terrible for years now with Beal. Moreover, while Westbrook is worthy of criticism, he's still an elite player who has played nearly most of the Wizards' games this season. Yet, the Wizards have been losing. I like Beal and would love to see what this team would do pairing him with KAT. But I wary of Beal to the point where I wouldn't mortgage the team's future the way you would to acquire Anthony Davis, K. Leonard or James Harden. I'm not sure how much I'd be willing to give up for Beal, but my gut tells me there's a winning element missing from Beal's game that would cause me to drive a hard bargain with a clear line in the sand I wouldn't cross to acquire him.

[thedoper]

Sounds like the title of some fictional TV series, doesn't it? Well, in this case it's the two worst teams in the NBA. The Wizards have the League's worst record at 3-12 while the Wolves have the second worst record at 4-14. But I'd say the Wolves have been the worst of the two when you look at the Wolves League-leading point differential of 10.5 compared to the Wizards' 5.4. But to be fair to our own team, the Wolves have played most of their games without their best player, KAT. In contrast, the Wizards have had their best player, Beal, for all but two of their games and their second best player, Westbrook, for all by 5.

It would seem to make sense for the Wolves and Wizards to do a deal where one of them receives picks and young players to start a rebuild while the other receives the other team's best player to take one last shot and competing before blowing things up. But from the Wolves perspective, you have to question whether Beal would be worth the price the Wolves would likely have to pay to get him. I say that because the Wizards have the worst record in the NBA with Beal playing nearly every game and playing as well as he can play. And the Wizards have been terrible for years now with Beal. Moreover, while Westbrook is worthy of criticism, he's still an elite player who has played nearly most of the Wizards' games this season. Yet, the Wizards have been losing. I like Beal and would love to see what this team would do pairing him with KAT. But I wary of Beal to the point where I wouldn't mortgage the team's future the way you would to acquire Anthony Davis, K. Leonard or James Harden. I'm not sure how much I'd be willing to give up for Beal, but my gut tells me there's a winning element missing from Beal's game that would cause me to drive a hard bargain with a clear line in the sand I wouldn't cross to acquire him.

This is an interesting idea. All the vets go to one team and all the youth to another. It could be rock, paper, scissors with the owners and televised.

[Coolbreeze44]

Sounds like the title of some fictional TV series, doesn't it? Well, in this case it's the two worst teams in the NBA. The Wizards have the League's worst record at 3-12 while the Wolves have the second worst record at 4-14. But I'd say the Wolves have been the worst of the two when you look at the Wolves League-leading point differential of 10.5 compared to the Wizards' 5.4. But to be fair to our own team, the Wolves have played most of their games without their best player, KAT. In contrast, the Wizards have had their best player, Beal, for all but two of their games and their second best player, Westbrook, for all by 5.

It would seem to make sense for the Wolves and Wizards to do a deal where one of them receives picks and young players to start a rebuild while the other receives the other team's best player to take one last shot and competing before blowing things up. But from the Wolves perspective, you have to question whether Beal would be worth the price the Wolves would likely have to pay to get him. I say that because the Wizards have the worst record in the NBA with Beal playing nearly every game and playing as well as he can play. And the Wizards have been terrible for years now with Beal. Moreover, while Westbrook is worthy of criticism, he's still an elite player who has played nearly most of the Wizards' games this season. Yet, the Wizards have been losing. I like Beal and would love to see what this team would do pairing him with KAT. But I wary of Beal to the point where I wouldn't mortgage the team's future the way you would to acquire Anthony Davis, K. Leonard or James Harden. I'm not sure how much I'd be willing to give up for Beal, but my gut tells me there's a winning element missing from Beal's game that would cause me to drive a hard bargain with a clear line in the sand I wouldn't cross to acquire him.

This is an interesting idea. All the vets go to one team and all the youth to another. It could be rock, paper, scissors with the owners and televised.

The Decision II

[BloopOracle]

Anthony Edwards was the heaviest player for the Wolves on the court last night lol, he beat Ed out by 8 pounds

[Phenom]

Honestly the Wolves should call up Charlotte, Orlando, Detroit, Chicago, and Washington, Cleveland, and Indiana and see what they would offer for a Towns and Russell package. 3 firsts and some pick swaps should do. If the Wolves were to keep their top 3 pick this year they could potentially have 2 high lotto picks.

[Lipoli390]

Honestly the Wolves should call up Charlotte, Orlando, Detroit, Chicago, and Washington, Cleveland, and Indiana and see what they would offer for a Towns and Russell package. 3 firsts and some pick swaps should do. If the Wolves were to keep their top 3 pick this year they could potentially have 2 high lotto picks.

Phenom - I'm close to reaching the same conclusion.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Honestly the Wolves should call up Charlotte, Orlando, Detroit, Chicago, and Washington, Cleveland, and Indiana and see what they would offer for a Towns and Russell package. 3 firsts and some pick swaps should do. If the Wolves were to keep their top 3 pick this year they could potentially have 2 high lotto picks.

Phenom - I'm close to reaching the same conclusion.

I understand the frustration here. I really, really do. But may I remind everyone here that Minnesota's best two players have played a whopping five -- FIVE -- total games together since the roster was turned over at last year's trade deadline.

Most of you already know this. I don't endorse the roster that Gersson Rosas has put together this year nor how Ryan Saunders has utilized it, but more patience is required in determining what should be done with Karl-Anthony Towns and D'Angelo Russell in the future.

[Coolbreeze44]

Honestly the Wolves should call up Charlotte, Orlando, Detroit, Chicago, and Washington, Cleveland, and Indiana and see what they would offer for a Towns and Russell package. 3 firsts and some pick swaps should do. If the Wolves were to keep their top 3 pick this year they could potentially have 2 high lotto picks.

Phenom - I'm close to reaching the same conclusion.

I understand the frustration here. I really, really do. But may I remind everyone here that Minnesota's best two players have played a whopping five -- FIVE -- total games together since the roster was turned over at last year's trade deadline.

Most of you already know this. I don't endorse the roster that Gersson Rosas has put together this year nor how Ryan Saunders has utilized it, but more patience is required in determining what should be done with Karl-Anthony Towns and D'Angelo Russell in the future.

Cam, I can't argue with the basis of your post. We have had virtually no chance to see Towns and Russell play together. But frankly, just getting KAT back would make a difference in our competitiveness. It doesn't much matter who plays second fiddle to him. Be it DLO, Edwards, Jmac, Beasley or Reid, we are going to win roughly the same amount of games. And the fact is it will not be good enough. Let's suppose DLO is our 2nd best player. The real problem would be that's a very weak top 2, even given KAT's offensive prowess. We are weak at the top, weak in the middle, and somewhat interesting at the bottom. And as you know we fired all of our ammunition to arrive at this destination. KAT has a good market for his services, DLO does not. If we are interested in building a future, the only patience we should have is making sure we get the best deal for KAT we can. I don't think DLO is tradeable. The reason he's not tradeable is the bigger moron theory. This theory suggests that you can always find a bigger moron than yourself to make the same mistake you did. The problem with that theory is you eventually have to get to the head moron. And we call him Gersson Rosas.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

There is zero chance we have the assets to get Beal unless we're trading KAT.

I was on board with trading KAT and dumping Wiggins (I always argued he was bad and said before he signed it that his contract would kill us) back when the Jimmy Butler fiasco went down if it meant we could convince Jimmy to stay. I said at the time it was clear that as talented as KAT was, he was no leader, and it's tough to have a competitive team when your best player isn't really a leader unless you have co-stars with leadership qualities and a great organizational culture like the Raptors had when they had Kawhi. Clearly we had, and still have, neither of those. At the time, I remember most guys on the board thought that was insane just like a lot of guys didn't like the trade that got us Butler in the first place. I think that reflected the extent to which us superfans tend to prioritize potential over winning now. For example, lots of people were most upset at the pick swap in that trade, thinking Markkanen or someone else at 7 would be better than Butler. There's a value to that kind of forward thinking, but it can also be a recipe for perpetual irrelevance as we continue to chase the next best thing.

In principle I'm still open to trading KAT, and I've argued since we got DLO last year that those two are a terrible foundation of max players to build a team on and (1) bad defense, (2) all finesse, (3) no leadership are the three reasons I've repeatedly cited for that. I'd still dump DLO in a heartbeat if anyone would take him. Cam, I see your logic, but realistically, I see no foundation for success with those two at all. We haven't seen them play much and I get that having a good big and a good guard is theoretically nice, but for the 3 reasons I've listed above, I just see absolutely no chance we could become truly competitive with these two.

But I may consider reversing myself on a possible KAT trade and be willing to keep him for a couple reasons. First and maybe most important is that the lottery odds have flattened out, so it's really tough to get value back in picks unless you are getting a ton of picks and even then, there's still a chance they may not pay off. Also, half the teams in the league have already traded away their picks and can't trade any more, so that will make it harder to get quality picks in return. Theoretically, we could potentially trade him for another young star talent, but teams don't usually swap players like that unless there's some kind of fit issue. And if we did trade KAT, even if we could get a guy like Beal, Lip's right that with a garbage team around him, we can expect Beal won't lead to winning here either. You have to have some real talent to put around a star player and right now, KAT's really all we've got. Plus, KAT has shown some growth defensively, and it remains to be seen yet if his personal difficulties in this last year have matured him. If he gets to a point at which he recognizes that DLO (the friend he wanted us to get) isn't really going to help, it might also help humble him as well, which would be a good thing.

But I think I'm still theoretically on board with trading KAT, and Lip's Washington example offers a reminder as to why. As much as the odds have gotten worse that we'll get good value for trading KAT, our chances of actually finding talent to put around him feel even worse right now, so it's easy to imagine KAT being our Beal--a lone star on a losing franchise hoping to get out. It's a shame that Edwards has been so raw and DLO has so obviously sucked or they may actually have some trade value, but that's clearly not the case. We should definitely be open to trading anybody but KAT at this point, but it probably won't be enough.

The sad fact is, our chances of success look pretty bleak in the future no matter what we do.

[Wolvesfan21]

Honestly the Wolves should call up Charlotte, Orlando, Detroit, Chicago, and Washington, Cleveland, and Indiana and see what they would offer for a Towns and Russell package. 3 firsts and some pick swaps should do. If the Wolves were to keep their top 3 pick this year they could potentially have 2 high lotto picks.

Phenom - I'm close to reaching the same conclusion.

I understand the frustration here. I really, really do. But may I remind everyone here that Minnesota's best two players have played a whopping five -- FIVE -- total games together since the roster was turned over at last year's trade deadline.

Most of you already know this. I don't endorse the roster that Gersson Rosas has put together this year nor how Ryan Saunders has utilized it, but more patience is required in determining what should be done with Karl-Anthony Towns and D'Angelo Russell in the future.

Cam, I can't argue with the basis of your post. We have had virtually no chance to see Towns and Russell play together. But frankly, just getting KAT back would make a difference in our competitiveness. It doesn't much matter who plays second fiddle to him. Be it DLO, Edwards, Jmac, Beasley or Reid, we are going to win roughly the same amount of games. And the fact is it will not be good enough. Let's suppose DLO is our 2nd best player. The real problem would be that's a very weak top 2, even given KAT's offensive prowess. We are weak at the top, weak in the middle, and somewhat interesting at the bottom. And as you know we fired all of our ammunition to arrive at this destination. KAT has a good market for his services, DLO does not. If we are interested in building a future, the only patience we should have is making sure we get the best deal for KAT we can. I don't think DLO is tradeable. The reason he's not tradeable is the bigger moron theory. This theory suggests that you can always find a bigger moron than yourself to make the same mistake you did. The problem with that theory is you eventually have to get to the head moron. And we call him Gersson Rosas.

I'll play the contrarian to your point. The Wolves have the second youngest roster in the NBA. Frankly you are being impatient but are asking to be even more patient by drafting and replacing our only experience with more youth and thus push the rebuild back even more years.

Let's say 3 years from now KAT and Edwards are All Stars while McDaniels and Vando are some of the best defenders in the NBA. DLO is sharing the ball and becoming a slight plus player again. Would that team be competitive?