Minnesota Sports Forum

Can you believe we've already played over 6% of the games this year? That's right - just under 94% of the season to go! Here are your two "Best" players so far and your two "Worst" based on my KPIs (PER, Win Shares and VORP):

1.) Towns 26.3 PER, .9 Win Shares, .4 VORP
2.) LaVine 17.7 PER, .6 Win Shares, .1 VORP


The two worst players have been:
1.) Bjelica 2.3 PER, (.1) Win Shares, (.1) VORP
2.) Rush 2.5 PER, (.1) Win Shares, (.1) VORP

Fun Stat: Adriene Payne currently has a PER of 40.8. Yeah, it's based on six minutes of garbage time last night. Still - it was the best six minutes of his life!

Here is the most telling team stat. In our four losses (we already lost 4 games!), this is how the 3rd quarter looked like:

26-16
31-12
33-14
31-19

Just a complete beat down coming out of halftime in every one of those games.

Q12543 wrote:Here is the most telling team stat. In our four losses (we already lost 4 games!), this is how the 3rd quarter looked like:

26-16
31-12
33-14
31-19

Just a complete beat down coming out of halftime in every one of those games.

Holy crap, 60 point deficit across the equivalent of one game. We all know the third quarter has been disastrous, but... 60 points!!!!

Q12543 wrote:Here is the most telling team stat. In our four losses (we already lost 4 games!), this is how the 3rd quarter looked like:

26-16
31-12
33-14
31-19

Just a complete beat down coming out of halftime in every one of those games.

Good observation. It's still a bunch of young, college aged kids on this team. Could they be ordering Pizza at half time and over doing it on Dominos and root beers? IDK. But it's on the new coach to fix that PDQ!

Shumway wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Here is the most telling team stat. In our four losses (we already lost 4 games!), this is how the 3rd quarter looked like:

26-16
31-12
33-14
31-19

Just a complete beat down coming out of halftime in every one of those games.

Holy crap, 60 point deficit across the equivalent of one game. We all know the third quarter has been disastrous, but... 60 points!!!!

I never actually thought about adding up the deltas across the four 3rd quarters, but damn, that makes it look even worse! Yes, we have lost the equivalent of a full game by 60 points. Wow.

But I thought in this last particular game, OKC came out the better team from the tip off. The 3rd quarter simply sealed the deal for them. The other three losses were games we should have won.

It's rather bleak right now...difficult to come up with reasons why our young guys who played so freely and well at the end of last year have taken such a big step back. And the 3rd quarter disasters are beyond baffling. I'm still blaming Jordan Hill :) .

On the positive side...and I'm really stretching for positives...some of the teams we hope to be battling with for that 8th spot are struggling too. Dallas is 0-5, New Orleans is 0-6. And it's also helpful that the East is outplaying the West so far...three more victories for Eastern teams last night, and they now are 7 games over .500.

Q12543 wrote:

Shumway wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Here is the most telling team stat. In our four losses (we already lost 4 games!), this is how the 3rd quarter looked like:

26-16
31-12
33-14
31-19

Just a complete beat down coming out of halftime in every one of those games.

Holy crap, 60 point deficit across the equivalent of one game. We all know the third quarter has been disastrous, but... 60 points!!!!

I never actually thought about adding up the deltas across the four 3rd quarters, but damn, that makes it look even worse! Yes, we have lost the equivalent of a full game by 60 points. Wow.

But I thought in this last particular game, OKC came out the better team from the tip off. The 3rd quarter simply sealed the deal for them. The other three losses were games we should have won.

I had kind of wondered whether the previous third quarters were the result of a young team just expecting the result would come to them. After the early leads, it's easy (and perhaps symptomatic of being a bit immature) to assume the results will just take care of themselves. Clearly today (last night your time) was a completely different context, so maybe it is something more systematic. I'm still hoping it's just a case of finding our feet, but it's a real issue.

Hopefully it's something that can be ironed out, but... 60 points.

Yeah, I don't know about the sky falling. Despite our problems the Wolves could, and perhaps should, be 4-1.

But my brief waning on Rubio is over. He is vital to anything positive we do this season!

longstrangetrip wrote:It's rather bleak right now...difficult to come up with reasons why our young guys who played so freely and well at the end of last year have taken such a big step back. And the 3rd quarter disasters are beyond baffling. I'm still blaming Jordan Hill :) .

On the positive side...and I'm really stretching for positives...some of the teams we hope to be battling with for that 8th spot are struggling too. Dallas is 0-5, New Orleans is 0-6. And it's also helpful that the East is outplaying the West so far...three more victories for Eastern teams last night, and they now are 7 games over .500.

LST -- I'm going to join you in blaming Jordan Hill. He has our other guys toking up at half time. :).

But seriously, I'm growing increasingly concerned. Youth isn't an excuse at this point. Wiggins, Zach, Gorgui and Bazz are in their 3rd season. KAT's in his second season after a ROY season. Dunn had 4 years in college. Ricky, Rush, and Aldridge have been in the League a long time. The team was even younger last spring when we played at a near .500 level the last portion of the season. The Thunder were as young as the Wolves are now when the Thunder had their first 50-win season. And the repeating 3rd quarter phenomenon is particularly troubling. I could see youth leading to 4th quarter collapses or even slow starts resulting from youthful exuberance leading to recklessness.

I'm not ready to blame Thibs yet. But I see no evidence that he has done anything positive for a team that played much better the end of last season under Sam than they're playing now. We should rightly expect a lot from Thibs. Accordingly, my patience with him and his unrelenting tirades and micro-managing won't last long.

lipoli390 wrote:

longstrangetrip wrote:It's rather bleak right now...difficult to come up with reasons why our young guys who played so freely and well at the end of last year have taken such a big step back. And the 3rd quarter disasters are beyond baffling. I'm still blaming Jordan Hill :) .

On the positive side...and I'm really stretching for positives...some of the teams we hope to be battling with for that 8th spot are struggling too. Dallas is 0-5, New Orleans is 0-6. And it's also helpful that the East is outplaying the West so far...three more victories for Eastern teams last night, and they now are 7 games over .500.

LST -- I'm going to join you in blaming Jordan Hill. He has our other guys toking up at half time. :).

But seriously, I'm growing increasingly concerned. Youth isn't an excuse at this point. Wiggins, Zach, Gorgui and Bazz are in their 3rd season. KAT's in his second season after a ROY season. Dunn had 4 years in college. Ricky, Rush, and Aldridge have been in the League a long time. The team was even younger last spring when we played at a near .500 level the last portion of the season. The Thunder were as young as the Wolves are now when the Thunder had their first 50-win season. And the repeating 3rd quarter phenomenon is particularly troubling. I could see youth leading to 4th quarter collapses or even slow starts resulting from youthful exuberance leading to recklessness.

I'm not ready to blame Thibs yet. But I see no evidence that he has done anything positive for a team that played much better the end of last season under Sam than they're playing now. We should rightly expect a lot from Thibs. Accordingly, my patience with him and his unrelenting tirades and micro-managing won't last long.

I'm equally confused by this team's relatively poor play compared to their improved play at the end of last season. By all logic their young studs should be progressing, rather than regressing, and the veteran depth that Thaydon added during the off-season should have also improved us.

But I have a different take with respect to Thibs. I am blaming him...at least right now...I don't know how anyone can come up with any other logical explanations for the third quarter collapses than coaching. But I also haven't lost faith, at least not yet, because I recognize the enormous success Thibs had in Chicago and have to believe he is smart enough to make the adjustments he needs to make to right this sinking ship. Although I liked many things about Mitchell as a coach and especially how our young team responded to him at the end of last year, any NBA analyst will say Thibs is the smarter coach...he has a talented team, and should be able to figure out how to get the most out of them. One of the aspects of Sam's personality that frustrated many of us was his stubbornness and defensiveness. So far I have been pleased with Thibs' post-loss demeanor...not as defensive as Sam was. But it remains to be seen if he also has a stubborn streak, and believes there is only one way to coach this team...because whatever he is doing now isn't working. The first five games have been a train wreck, and I would like to see more creativity and experimentation to find the right solution for this roster. I hope we see something different this week in Brooklyn...a loss there may have fans scrambling for the life boats.