Minnesota Sports Forum

It looks like the Wolves and Atlanta are the only teams with an open spot for a 2-way player. That could have some value as they could sign anyone that's good enough to warrant it and willing to sign. Teams can waive 2-way players but I think teams are gonna be reluctant to do that as it seems a bit of a mutual partnership signing these deals.

I'm gonna have to try and get to at least one game this year. I have family that lives in the area.

Looking at the roster I basically don't know any guys that haven't already been brought up on this forum. I'll be excited to see Justin Patton when he is ready to go and Anthony Brown will be a nice player there. Maybe someone will surprise.

FYI if you want to watch the G-league games live or on demand it looks like you can do that for free for all the games and they are doing it through Facebook live. It watched the first Iowa Wolves game this afternoon.

Iowa Wolves inaugural game report

I watched the game today via Facebook live. If you watch the game beware of the announcers continuing to forget it's not the Iowa energy anymore. Other than that they actually seemed to have some sort of clue about what they were talking about.

Ok so here are some basic take aways.

The officiating crew was 4 on floor officials. They didn't call many fouls. Lol

Anthony Brown and Melo Trimble has big scoring games but while they had their moments they certainly didn't look as good doing it as their box score suggests. Brown has a sweet shooting stroke and he can handle the ball and makes some passes. Trimble was getting up shots and drives to the basket bigtime at times with mixed results.

Millsap plays hard and has some skill but not enough of it when you hope for success at the next level. His energy was key at times for the Wolves to get back in the game. He played quite a bit of PF in this game.

It was obviously an ugly game and both teams struggled to score at time but down the stretch the Wolves had a run of possessions where they were really good defensively. The game was a game of runs and the Wolves got off to a slow start but the game never got out of hand. They made enough plays on either end to stay in it. They got their first lead with 7:01 left in the 4th quarter.

Amile Jefferson had 21 rebounds. He had a lot of those Taj type rebounds where he contorted himself and poked the ball out to a teammate or so a teammate could get it. Like Taj he seemed to get his hands on balls. Offensively he was a mixed bag but he has a bit of skill there.

I can see why they wanted Shawne Williams on the roster. He looks taller and obviously bigger than Amile. He did not look good early shooting the ball but found his range later and was solid overall. He looks like he could easily play center in the new NBA with his size and I was surprised and how much that jumped out at me.

Wushpun and Bryson play bigger than their size. Both guys are pretty athletic. Wushpun volleyball spiked a shot attempt by someone that got fouled and he is listed at 6'1".

The other team had a couple of guards that looked good and Birch was very effective on the glass. Ok that's about all I got it's just the first G-league game but it was fun to see. There are big man minutes available to Patton once he is healthy.

Kinda off topic, what Patton's status? Okay, completely off topic but it didn't seem like it deserved it's own thread.

TheSP wrote:Kinda off topic, what Patton's status? Okay, completely off topic but it didn't seem like it deserved it's own thread.

Well considering he will be playing with the Iowa Wolves at least to start it seems on topic to me.

What was reported last week was he was making good progress he is cleared for jumping but not for some other basketball activities and for sure not contact. Thibs was happy with his progress.

Thanks for the update Monster! Honestly, with all the additions to the team this offseason I had forgotten about Patton until I noticed an article talking about other rookies.

I actually watched about 1 quarter's worth of action on replay last night of the Iowa Wolves game, so admittedly a VERY small sample size. My impression of Anthony Brown was that he was a sieve defensively. Not good. Again, teensy sample size.

Q12543 wrote:I actually watched about 1 quarter's worth of action on replay last night of the Iowa Wolves game, so admittedly a VERY small sample size. My impression of Anthony Brown was that he was a sieve defensively. Not good. Again, teensy sample size.

Kudos to you to watch that first quarter. lol I'm not sure anyone looked good defensively during that time. I didn't pay too close of attention to Brown specifically on defense early. FWIW what I have read was Lakers fans said he was one of the only guys on that hapless roster that cared or had any kind of clue on defense. that was a while ago and it wasn't a big sample anyway. I get the sense he is more of guy that is better playing within a defensive system than as a stopper type. He isn't the most explosive guy but he has plenty of length to defend.

GAME REPORT AGAINST CLIPPERS

First off this was seriously some of the worst announcing I have heard in my entire life. If you watch this game wait till after the 1st quarter when you can hear one of the 231 fans screaming at the ref. lol one of the guys had like 5 catch phrases and used them nearly every minute. They stated stats about the averages for these teams this season and they had played one game. They talked about how great the fans were and it seriously looked like there was hardly anyone there which was why it was so easy to hear that one guy screaming. SMH

Ok so there are just a few highlights lowlights.

MIllsap was terrific. He was everywhere and tonight he was knocking down 3's. HE is always gonna give you max effort and often he is absolutely glued to or ripping the ball away from someone. HE is fun to watch.

Trimble started off strong and I actually thought he looked better in this game than the one he went off for 26. He was making some plays early defensively.

Speaking of defense the first half the Wolves were terrific. the 2nd half they either fell flat or the Clippers did something different. Probably it was a combination of things. The first half they really got after it though.

Brown didn't look good and in the 2nd half after he had left the guy that had been hiting 3's to help deep in the paint and gave up a 3's Roth was right there called a TO and had a discussion with him.

Jefferson looked pretty good. He found some good chemistry at times playing with Trimble. He showed some decent post moves and at times he would get a defensive rebound see there was no body open and bring up the ball accross court. His shot looks decent. He has some passing ability. He shows some legit promise as a solid bench guy. 15-11 in this game.

Washpun flashed some more athletic ability but that's about it. Other than Trimble, Brown, Jefferson and Millsap nobody really put he ball in the basket. Shawne Wiliams looked fine except late e took some bizarre shots.

Clippers:

Our old buddy CJ Williams from the last 2 summer league season for the Wolves was on the other end. He had a nice game and really does have the game of a vet at this level.

Tyrone Wallace struggled early and then pretty much went bonkers. He is a big strong PG (well scoring guard that played PG) and looked pretty tough to stop at different points of the game,

JJ O'brian had some pretty good moments.

Kendall Marshall had some moments where you are like damn this guy still has it, but then there were his 7 turnovers some maybe weren't all on him but yeah. He had a team worst -11

Monster, thanks for the write-up on the G-league guys. Honestly, I don't see much there. Patton might be our only hope in terms of existing prospects in the pipeline. Of course, he's still hurt while the rest of the league's rookies are seemingly lighting up the league!