Minnesota Sports Forum

Hey if you were wanting more shooting...the Iowa Wolves added that. They made trades to add 2 of the best and high volume 3 point shooting guys from the previous season in Xavier Silas and Jerrell Eddie. I'm really excited to see Odom-johnson is gonna player there. I think he is gonna be a beast.

I just watched my first Iowa Wolves game. Well I probably only saw about 3/4 of it but I probably saw enough to give a report.

Stark is a guy I like buthe looked like VERY bad Teague tonight.

Canyon Barry had plenty of good moments and ended up with a double double. He probably had the best game of anyone on the Wolves.

Johnson Odom can be an absolute blur with the basketball. He has a pretty good jumper also but he does too much at times. Juwan Evans blocked up once on the perimeter. I expected his defense to be more impressive. It wasn't that exciting.

Marquis Moore is the only holdover from the roster last year. He looks slimmer and they are apparently trying to make him a PG. he didn't do a whole lot and last year I liked him as a guy that was sort of a Thick undersized guy that did a lot of dirty work. If he could run a team decently and do that it would be kinda interesting.

The best big (nobody on the team is that big) was Evan S. He just did the dirty work and actually played with a strong base and gave them some good minutes. When Gill came back in it seemed like things went worse. War rick was not much of a factor. KBD would play as a big on this roster and couldn't be worse than what I saw from a couple of those guys.

Xavier Silas did what you expect. Solid player and can shoot and score.

Melton for the Suns started off slow but can really handle the ball and ended up throwing some nice passes and some quick and nice looking 3's even if one was well contested early and was an air ball. I just looked at the box score..He had a triple double. I'd assume at some point the Suns would play him to see what the have in him.

That's it for now. The offense wasn't anything exciting and it's interesting that Thibs who most people say wants traditional bigs now has a developmental team that's goijg to be playing small. Someone somewhere in the organization must have some sort of vision or experiment going on here. It's to early to tell whether it's working. They are playing without some of the typical talent most G-league teams have in terms of 2-way players and as I mentioned it's basically a completely brand new group of players. Don't look at the shot charts they show compared to the teams they play...lol It's still early but That's one thing I'm gonna be watching for sure as the season goes on.

Edit: here is a fun video of Barry making a move and a shot. Not exactly the type of shot you are looking to get but it was an example of some of the moves he was able to make to get buckets tonight. Seems pretty skilled.

https://twitter.com/iawolves/status/1059992410317639682?s=21

It looks like Bates-Diop is starting to make a little noise in Iowa. He seems to be scoring and putting up some decent "do shit" stats. These guys we have on rookie deals are super critical since we have such little salary flexibility otherwise. My hope is that he can backup Saric next season at PF, although that may be a little ambitious.

I need to watch a game or 2 one of these days maybe I'll get in a game or so this weekend. In addition to being interested in seeing KBD play Diamond stone is somewhat intriguing. The guy seemed to have talent but the question was whether he would put it together etc. it seems he has been pretty productive in his first 3 games putting up 10-6 in under 17mpg. He turns 22 in February. Watching a few highlights he looks pretty nimble and has a nice shot. Good FT shooter for someone that size.

KBD with a nice all around game tonight: 9-14 shooting, 3-5 from 3, 23 points, 12 boards, 6 assists, 1 block, and a +20 on the night.

His stats overall in Iowa have been solid, but not spectacular. Tonight was better than average for sure.

He's a key guy to watch since we need a backup PF next year and he's on a cheap rookie deal (I'm assuming Taj is gone and Saric get promoted to our starting PF).

This afternoon I watched all but the last few minutes of the Jan 5 game agains the Mad Ants. Her are a few observations.

CJ Williams was not shy about getting up shots. He had something like 12 or 17 points in the 1st quarter. He started taking some less than idea shots as the game wore on. Kinda interesting he hasn't been up with the Wolves when they have been down perimeter players and Terrell has been with the team including unactive for the OKC game. Terrell is more of a ball handling guard but the Wolves are lacking wings in general also. Might be a 2-way service thing also in play.

KBD does some good things. He can bring the ball up and make a play here or there. They had him posting up and he was tossing some on target cross court passes. There was one drive he really took off and surprised both me an the defense with how quick he went. Mostly he takes his time and is kinda like Kyle Anderson slow mo but in a good way. His passing was the thing that stood out.

Thomas Welsh the guy on a 2-way on assignment from Denver looks like a nice well rounded player at this level. They really haven't had a big like that with his relative size. If he played with them the rest of the year they would be quite a bit better.

Darius Johnson Odom at this level offe eigely it's basically just not fair. They subbed the only real PG type on the team at the end of quarters and let DJO just go at the defense. He would either score or attacks no make a pass to a shooter. I've been wondering about his defense but this game makes me think he is not good. He had a rookie Zach Lavine type defensive possession earlier in the game were he got turned around and was running backwards towards his guy who was well past him. He acts like he is really working hard getting down in a stance but I don't
Think he is really in a stance just has his legs wider and it looks fake. Dude can absolutely score though.

I enjoy watching Canyon Barry play. He has more game than you would think kinda nifty with the dribble and around the rim. Can shoot it.

Jonathon stark plays hard and actually has some talent plays a little bigger than he is. He was a bigtime scorer in college but plays more like a true PG or that's what he seems to be working toward. Looked in thisbgame to be a Multiple effort defender.

I'm curious about the coaching talent in Iowa is something to move up etc or if a guy like Jon Lucas III would be good down there developing players. Roth seems to do some Thibs type things rotations and letting guys iso etc. He encourages guys tho getting them low fives and butt slaps etc. it's interesting how he goes to the corner of the court near the baseline when the possession is on that half of the court. Maybe I was just paying more attention to him in this game than most coaches but it seemed a bit unique. It's hard to find who is on that coaching staff but one guy people will know his name is Charlie Bell.