Minnesota Sports Forum

What other teams than Wolves you consider to have the most promising 25 and less talent currently in NBA?

My personal favorites are Utah, Milwaukee and Oklahoma. Here is my short analysis on each of those teams:

Utah: Dante Exum 19, Rodney Hood 22, Rudy Gobert 22, Trey Burke 22, Alec Burks 23, Derrick Favors 23 and Gordon Hayward 25

There exist currently only two teams with three players that have 20+ PER. Another is Clippers with Paul, Griffin and Jordan and another is Utah with Hayward, Favors and Gobert. I like the talent that Utah has a lot. Everyone of their three best players have been improving each season, which gives a lot of hope that they have not yet met their ceiling. Utah's last year pick Exum has not shown yet much but at least his Ortg and Drtg numbers give some indication that he plays OK defense and even offense flows better with him on the floor. I would not be surprised if he makes similar leap next year than Schroder did this season in Atlanta. Rodney Hood has improved already during this season a lot and is currently averaging 11.9 pts in 24.3 minutes with 58.9 TS% in March. I don't believe that Burke and Burks would be more than backup material but it is possible that even without them Utah has already their future starting five set for years. Only issue that I have with their talent is offensive spacing when they are playing Favors and Gobert together. But Favors seems to have improved range and accuracy of his jump shot and their excellent defense will easily compensate this minor issue in offense.

Milwaukee: Jabari Parker 20, Giannis Antetokounmpo 20, Tyler Ennis 20, Michael Carter-Williams 23, Khris Middleton 23 and John Henson 24.

Milwaukee has some fine young talent in Parker, Giannis, MCW and Middleton. Both Middleton and Giannis have shown steady improvement in each of their seasons, so it is probable that they will continue their improvement. Giannis, MCW and Middleton are good defenders already and thus they will complement nicely with Jabari who has chance to be really special offensive player. Also if Giannis will ever get more reliable jump shot (shooting 31% on jumpers this season) he will be near unstoppable. Biggest issue in Milwaukee's young talent is that how good half court offensive team they can be with Giannis and MCW on the floor together as both of them are pretty awful shooters. (currently they are comparable to Rubio :) Henson has not improved in this three seasons and seems to be quite injury prone but even without him Milwaukee has really nice talent.

Oklahoma: Steven Adams 21, Enes Kanter 22, Mitch McGary 22, Jeremy Lamb 22, Perry Jones 23, Dion Waiters 23, Andre Roberson 23 and Serge Ibaka 25.

It's almost crazy how much young talent Oklahoma has in addition to Westbrook and Durant whom are just 26. Adams has clearly improved after his already steady rookie season and Kanter seems to be perfect fit for Thunder. Even their last years pick McGary has been impressive in limited minutes that he has got this year. Both Lamb and Perry have had some impressive games but lack consistency and it is possible that they won't get chance to excel in Oklahoma because of Durant and Wesbrook. Roberson seems to have found his role as a defensive stopper. Ibaka won't probably anymore improve and even if Waiters would not ever found his role in NBA, Oklahoma has some really nice young talent in their team. Let's see if they will be able to keep them this time when they need to sign extensions after rookie deals.

I'd probably add Orlando to the list. I don't have their ages, but Payton, Oladipo, Gordon and Vucevic is a nice group of 4 and Harris is solid, but kind of a stat stuffer type. They really could use a wing who can knock down 3's and a rim protector next to Vucevic. If they get that rim protector, their defensive lockdown potential is pretty crazy.

You certainly have to add Philly to the list. Embiid (21), Noel (20), Saric (20), Robinson (24), Wroten (21), Covington (24), GR3 (21) and either Russell (19) or Mudiay (19).

I agree with all previous posters, and add Boston to the list. Smart, Young, Olynyk, Sullinger, Bradley, Thomas, Zeller, Turner. Especially with how many 1sts they have at their disposal.

Personally, I think the Wolves fall in the 4-6 range for best young talent. Behind OKC, Utah, and Boston/Philly.

Pelicans may also fit in there. Davis, Asik, Holiday, Evans, Gordon.

I don't exactly look at OKC as a rebuilding team though, which is what this is kind of leaning towards, yeah?

With OKC not included ... I'd trade teams with Utah in a heartbeat. I'd trade teams with Boston and Philly as long as we received all of their accrued picks. Orlando and Milwaukee is iffy, more of a toss-up for me. I think i'd take Wiggins, LaVine, Dieng, Shabazz, Rubio, Payne, Bennett over the Orlando and Milwaukee squads at the moment. Without considering that we'll have a top 5 pick as well.

It's sad because we've arguably been the worst franchise of all of them for the last decade and there is a great possibility that we will be the last to come out of the rebuilding to contend. Yes, we have the shaft being in the western conference, but we cant seem to gain an edge anywhere...

I'm not sure what you classify "young". You named Asik, Holiday, Evans and Gordon. Those guys are closer to 30 than they are 20. Some damn veterans in the league, honestly. The Pels have Davis. That's it.

Boston has a ton of young guys, but none with high ceilings other than Smart.

OKC has zero star prospects (because they already have stars). No way do they have better young talent than us.

Camden wrote:I'm not sure what you classify "young". You named Asik, Holiday, Evans and Gordon. Those guys are closer to 30 than they are 20. Some damn veterans in the league, honestly. The Pels have Davis. That's it.

Boston has a ton of young guys, but none with high ceilings other than Smart.

OKC has zero star prospects (because they already have stars). No way do they have better young talent than us.

Hah, I may have gotten carried away with the Pelicans. I actually thought about that groups age at the time, but posted anyhow. I feel the same way about OKC as you do. Though Durant, Westbrook, and Ibaka are young, they are nba vets and all-stars. They still have potential, but they've mostly found it.

I think Sullinger, Smart, Thomas, and Bradley are very nice pieces, then add their 100 picks. It's a nice situation over there.

What do you think about Utah and Philly? Are you trading Rosters? How about Orlando and Milwaukee? I know you were a big Parker guy.

Camden wrote:I'm not sure what you classify "young". You named Asik, Holiday, Evans and Gordon. Those guys are closer to 30 than they are 20. Some damn veterans in the league, honestly. The Pels have Davis. That's it.

Boston has a ton of young guys, but none with high ceilings other than Smart.

OKC has zero star prospects (because they already have stars). No way do they have better young talent than us.

Current Pelicans group reminds me Love's Minnesota. They have surrounded one stud with mediocre group of veterans that cannot even stay healthy. If we consider 25 and less old players as young talent (I decided 25 because ESPN uses same age limit when it looks future talent), they have just Davis 22, Holiday, Evans 25 and Whitney 25 in that group. All the others are already older and many of them have been actually already regressing. From their 25 and younger group only Davis and Holiday have been improving and Holiday seems to have problems to stay healthy. If Davis stays healthy and still improves they might make playoffs even in stacked West but I don't see them making much noise there ever with their current group.

I agree with you about Boston though I think that Olynyk has still some potential but since he is already 23 years old it is quite a stretch to expect that he would be another Dirk. :)

If Kanter continues to play as well as he has played for OKC so far, he has potential to be real star. He is currently averaging 21.3 PTS with .611 TS% and 13.1 RBS per 36 minutes for them. I guess that Westbrook makes his job just much easier than what it was in Utah.

I would currently deal our 25 and under group probably only for Utah's group. I would not feel so good about that move since I think Utah might not have anyone who would have as high ceiling than both Lavine and Wiggins have. I see that Utah could develop similar team than Memphis currently is but with little higher ceiling, as they have bigs that are already impressive in defense.

I might do similar trade with Milwaukee if we could switch coaches as well. :) Both Parker and Giannis have comparable ceilings than Wiggins and Lavine have and their other parts are quite comparable what we have. Hopefully our pick this summer will make Minnesota more promising team.

khans2k5 wrote:I'd probably add Orlando to the list. I don't have their ages, but Payton, Oladipo, Gordon and Vucevic is a nice group of 4 and Harris is solid, but kind of a stat stuffer type. They really could use a wing who can knock down 3's and a rim protector next to Vucevic. If they get that rim protector, their defensive lockdown potential is pretty crazy.

I totally forgot Orlando. I might rank them higher than Oklahoma. With Gordon 19, Payton 21, Oladipo 22, Harris 22 and Vucevic 24, they might have their future starting five already set (if Gordon develops for starting PF) and besides them they have some other prospects as well. I like that both Payton and Oladipo have already shown improvement during their short career and Vucevic has been improving also in each season so far. Payton and Oladipo will be terrific defensive back court in future but they should improve dramatically their shooting before they can make Orlando serious contender.

I hate to put us up near the top simply because I think this staff sucks at developing players.

Making Lavine play point guard to help him be some sort of combo guard was a huge bust.

Not running plays for Wiggins and make him learn to "score without having everything run for him" was stupid.

Dieng went from one of most promising rookies last year, to a guy who barely looks like he belongs on the court.

Letting Bennets came become pretty much shooting all long twos. Ditto for Rubio.

The whole shooting 3's deal.

Has ANYTHING the've tried to do actually worked? Man I'm salty today

TheFuture wrote:I'd trade teams with Boston and Philly as long as we received all of their accrued picks..

I agree that if future picks are included definitely Boston and Philly belong this group. But I didn't include those since it is so difficult to value them before pick is made.

Boston has nice group of young talent that has been actually playing better after they traded Rondo.

Philly I don't like that much. Couple of their most talented players Embiid and Saric have not played yet a single game in NBA. So we don't have any idea yet how good they will be and there is already serious concerns about whether Embiid can stay healthy with tight NBA schedule. Besides them I consider only Noel and maybe Covington as a real talent. Their other young players are either putting empty stats on bad team (Wroten and Canaan) or already players with journeyman status (Robinson and Sims).