Minnesota Sports Forum

Here is where our 2nd half of the season starting lineup ranked offensively, versus other top ranked teams:

1. Cleveland: Irving, LeBron, Love, Smith, Thompson - 115.3 Ortg
2. Charlotte: Batum, Lee, Walker, Willaims, Zeller - 114.5 Ortg
3. Minnesota: Dieng, LaVine, Rubio, Towns, Wiggins - 113.5 Ortg
4. OKC: Adams, Durant, Ibaka, Roberson, Westbrook - 113.3 Ortg
5. Golden State: Barnes, Bogut, Curry, Green, Thompson - 109.4
6. Detroit: KCP, Drummond, Harris, Jackson, Morris - 107.4
7. Portland: Aminu, Lillard, McCollum, Plumlee, Vonleh - 106
8. Milwaukee: Giannis, Carter-Williams, Middleton, Monroe, Parker - 105.6
9. Boston: Bradley, Crowder, Johnson, Sullinger, Thomas - 105.3
10. San Antonio: Aldridge, Duncan, Green, Leonard, Parker - 104.7

We ended the season ranked #12 overall in terms of offensive rating and that includes a hefty dose of the plodding "long 2" lineup with KG and Prince and the bench units.

I have to believe based on these numbers and expected natural improvement that Thibs has basically inherited a top 10 offense without making a single change.

Not a bad start.

(due to concern for the safety and well being of women, children, and kittens, I won't post how we ranked in defensive rating).

Q12543 wrote:(due to concern for the safety and well being of women, children, and kittens, I won't post how we ranked in defensive rating).

Tim and I thank you for your concern for the felines.

Great post, Q! Thanks.

Good stuff. Here's the deal....if you have a top 10 offense, you don't even need a top notch defense as you should be able to outscore most teams. And I don't see why our offense wouldn't continue to be as good as last year assuming we return the same group. It's not like any of them had "career years" or outliers that we wouldn't expect them to repeat. In fact, given their age and inexperience, it would be reasonable to think they could still improve (especially guys like LaVine, Wiggins and Towns).

That being said - I don't think anyone on the board believes our defense won't see significant improvement next year with Thibbs. Put them both together and how friggin' exciting is that to think about?

Carlos Danger wrote:Good stuff. Here's the deal....if you have a top 10 offense, you don't even need a top notch defense as you should be able to outscore most teams. And I don't see why our offense wouldn't continue to be as good as last year assuming we return the same group. It's not like any of them had "career years" or outliers that we wouldn't expect them to repeat. In fact, given their age and inexperience, it would be reasonable to think they could still improve (especially guys like LaVine, Wiggins and Towns).

That being said - I don't think anyone on the board believes our defense won't see significant improvement next year with Thibbs. Put them both together and how friggin' exciting is that to think about?

Thibs has said repeatedly you need a top 10 offense AND defense to contend, but you're right, you don't necessarily need a great defense to win a fair amount of games if your offense is clicking on all gears.

The irony is that starting with the first day in training camp, Sam Mitchell was all about defense. Everything he did was focused on defense, from their drills to the make-up of their starting lineup. Offensively we were a fairly slow-paced team that had the best shooter on our roster shoehorned into playing PG (a position even the most novice fan could tell he wasn't suited to play) and our favorite shot being the dreaded long 2.

Then - bam! - KG gets "hurt", Martin gets let go, and Mitchell decides to move Dieng and Zach into the lineup as the starting 4 and 2. Now it's a complete 180. We're running, we're knockin' down 3's, we're the #1 offense in the NBA in the month of February.....We're also complete sieves defensively.

It was just an odd year in that we had two completely different teams stylistically.

Q12543 wrote:

Carlos Danger wrote:Good stuff. Here's the deal....if you have a top 10 offense, you don't even need a top notch defense as you should be able to outscore most teams. And I don't see why our offense wouldn't continue to be as good as last year assuming we return the same group. It's not like any of them had "career years" or outliers that we wouldn't expect them to repeat. In fact, given their age and inexperience, it would be reasonable to think they could still improve (especially guys like LaVine, Wiggins and Towns).

That being said - I don't think anyone on the board believes our defense won't see significant improvement next year with Thibbs. Put them both together and how friggin' exciting is that to think about?

Thibs has said repeatedly you need a top 10 offense AND defense to contend, but you're right, you don't necessarily need a great defense to win a fair amount of games if your offense is clicking on all gears.

The irony is that starting with the first day in training camp, Sam Mitchell was all about defense. Everything he did was focused on defense, from their drills to the make-up of their starting lineup. Offensively we were a fairly slow-paced team that had the best shooter on our roster shoehorned into playing PG (a position even the most novice fan could tell he wasn't suited to play) and our favorite shot being the dreaded long 2.

Then - bam! - KG gets "hurt", Martin gets let go, and Mitchell decides to move Dieng and Zach into the lineup as the starting 4 and 2. Now it's a complete 180. We're running, we're knockin' down 3's, we're the #1 offense in the NBA in the month of February.....We're also complete sieves defensively.

It was just an odd year in that we had two completely different teams stylistically.

Well said, Q...we did have two completely different starting teams, and both were quite successful employing totally different styles. I don't know where you got your starting lineups data, but I think you would find that the KAT/KG/Tay/Wig/Rubio lineup ranked very high in Drtg. I also suspect that both the offensive lineup and defensive lineup ranked poorly in Drtg and Ortg respectively.

The goal is to find a starting lineup that ranks high in both defensive and offensive measures. Adding a free agent like Horford or Deng would likely meet this goal (KAT/Horford/Wig/Zach/Ricky or KAT/KG(or Gorgui)/Deng/Wig/Ricky). I like both lineups as great 2-way starting lineups, but I prefer the value of the Deng lineup.

With that proof that we can be a high octane offense, I'm going to pay attention to how much our pace of play slows under Thibs. Hopefully it doesn't, but his history would suggest we aren't going to be the Midwest version of Showtime. I just hope we don't sacrifice too much offensively as we become a better defensive team.

Yep, cool you and I were always complaining about pace of play.last year, we don't need a HUUUGE improvement defensively. Would like to still see 108+ per game

LST, the KG-Prince-Rubio-Wiggins-Towns lineup was actually very good defensively (as we know) and very solid offensively. That unit's net rating was +10.7. Here is how they ranked versus other 5-man units that played at least 200 minutes together:

1. Chicago: Butler, Gasol, Gibson, Rose, Snell - 90.6 Drtg
2. Toronto: Biyombo, DeRozan, Joseph, Patterson, Ross - 91 Drtg
3. Clippers: Griffin, Jordan, Mbah Moute, Paul, Redick - 91.7 Drtg
4. Minnesota: KG, Prince, Rubio, Wiggins, Towns - 92.6 Drtg
5. (another Toronto 5-man unit) - 94.7 Drtg
6. Indiana: Allen, Ellis, George, Hill, Mahinmi - 94.8
7. Golden State: Bogut, Curry, Green, Rush, Thompson - 95.1
8. (another Indiana 5-man unit) - 95.2
9. OKC: Adams, Durant, Ibaka, Roberson, Westbrook - 95.6
10. Brooklyn: Hollis-Jefferson, Jack, Johnson, Lopez, Young - 95.8

It's kind of nuts, isn't it? Our starting 5 at one point in the season was a top 5 defense/middling offense and another point in the season a top 5 offense and horrible defense.

Here is the good news. Three common names were in both lineups: KAT, Rubio, and Wiggins. We know that all three are capable of playing on and contributing to an elite offense and defense.

I like the raw materials Thibs has to work with.

(By the way, San Antonio's starting 5-man unit was 11th, which seems odd considering how elite they were defensively as a whole. The thing is they lost almost NOTHING defensively when their bench came in. Patty Mills, David West, and Manu are all very good two-way players).