What did we need, What did we get?
Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2017 9:14 pm
So it appears our major offseason moves have largely been completed. And the views on our moves seem somewhat mixed. With any offseason, it's unrealistic to expect we could build a perfect team. So the offseason will always rely on a series of tradeoffs. Here's my view of what was most important and what we did or didn't address.
Most simplistically, it would be easy to say we needed defence and 3 point shooting and we addressed one out of those two needs. But my view is a little more focused on the subtleties. First, I'm going to bring out the old narrative about Mentorship. Secondly, the our cap situation allowed us to spend now, but with a significant potential issue in 2 years if we did.
Our biggest issue last year in my view, was our consistency within games and our ability to close out games. We were good enough to gain huge leads against most teams last year, and inconsistent enough to lose them. We were good enough be in a vast majority of games in the last quarter and inconsistent enough to lose most of them. So to me, the biggest issue was a lack of maturity and that intangible 'ability to just win'. I don't think we lacked talent - too many 20 point leads for an untalented team. So I don't think our offence was unable to function with our lack of 3 point shooting. Perhaps our poor defence was a reason we let so many 4th quarter opportunities go, so I rate that as a vital area of improvement.
Our addition of Butler is a home run in this regard. A veteran presence who has demonstrated an ability to lead his team to victories and a premier defender. And a legitimate star in the league, a good guy and a perfect fit for Thibs just to add a little extra to scorecard on this addition. I'll really miss seeing Zach here, and I really held out hope for Dunn to develop into a 'do shit' player. But the addition of Butler is brilliant. We absolutely lucked out in having Boston and others choose not to pursue Butler and create a bidding war.
Next, the effective trade of Rubio and $5mill of cap space for Teague and a late first. Let me first say that Teague is going to really struggle to become a favourite of mine, because I found Rubio so incredibly likeable. I really regret not being able to see the Wolves and Rubio make that journey into the playoffs. But the trade makes a lot of sense. Our unique cap position allowed us to effectively double up on the return we were able to get for Rubio by getting the late first and then getting the replacement player as well. We can argue over the fit of Teague vs Rubio and it'll be a great journey. There was enough debate over the years about whether Rubio's inability to be a threat on offence affected our ability to close out 4th quarters through multiple different rosters. Unfortunately, we don't get to run different parallel universes to maintain a controlled experiment of With and Without Rubio to see which team wins more. So Thibs made the judgement (as many on here had speculated for years) that Rubio didn't give us the best chance to win long term.
Finally, what Gibson offers is pretty obvious. And it pretty clearly fits with what I think we need. The special Mentorship elixir, along with Defence. The dollars are probably higher than I would have liked, but the tradeoff is the length of contract - and that is probably more vital to us. And that's a key theme in the offseason - the additions are not onerous long term additions if they don't work out.
So we're now in a position to win. I loved writing that... so I'm gonna write it again. We're now in a position to win. Lip has pointed out many times that our success will hinge on the development of our core. We've de-risked that strategy quite a lot by diversifying from 'all in on developing some young studs'. We're now holding some genuine blue chip young studs in Wiggins and KAT and so we have many years and multiple chances to build around them. But I really believe that we have increased our chance of the core developing and have accelerated that. Of course, we have narrowed how much of a young core we have, but have kept the premium quality in that core. If Teague, Gibson and or Butler don't work out, we'll have chances to re-tool again in the future.
In my view, the negatives associated with the offseason is the lack of depth. this probably ties into a trade-off Thibs is willing to make given his propensity to play his core players particularly big minutes. I don't like it, but it fits with Thibs' M.O. I think we can survive without significantly improved 3 point shooting.
Go Wolves.
Most simplistically, it would be easy to say we needed defence and 3 point shooting and we addressed one out of those two needs. But my view is a little more focused on the subtleties. First, I'm going to bring out the old narrative about Mentorship. Secondly, the our cap situation allowed us to spend now, but with a significant potential issue in 2 years if we did.
Our biggest issue last year in my view, was our consistency within games and our ability to close out games. We were good enough to gain huge leads against most teams last year, and inconsistent enough to lose them. We were good enough be in a vast majority of games in the last quarter and inconsistent enough to lose most of them. So to me, the biggest issue was a lack of maturity and that intangible 'ability to just win'. I don't think we lacked talent - too many 20 point leads for an untalented team. So I don't think our offence was unable to function with our lack of 3 point shooting. Perhaps our poor defence was a reason we let so many 4th quarter opportunities go, so I rate that as a vital area of improvement.
Our addition of Butler is a home run in this regard. A veteran presence who has demonstrated an ability to lead his team to victories and a premier defender. And a legitimate star in the league, a good guy and a perfect fit for Thibs just to add a little extra to scorecard on this addition. I'll really miss seeing Zach here, and I really held out hope for Dunn to develop into a 'do shit' player. But the addition of Butler is brilliant. We absolutely lucked out in having Boston and others choose not to pursue Butler and create a bidding war.
Next, the effective trade of Rubio and $5mill of cap space for Teague and a late first. Let me first say that Teague is going to really struggle to become a favourite of mine, because I found Rubio so incredibly likeable. I really regret not being able to see the Wolves and Rubio make that journey into the playoffs. But the trade makes a lot of sense. Our unique cap position allowed us to effectively double up on the return we were able to get for Rubio by getting the late first and then getting the replacement player as well. We can argue over the fit of Teague vs Rubio and it'll be a great journey. There was enough debate over the years about whether Rubio's inability to be a threat on offence affected our ability to close out 4th quarters through multiple different rosters. Unfortunately, we don't get to run different parallel universes to maintain a controlled experiment of With and Without Rubio to see which team wins more. So Thibs made the judgement (as many on here had speculated for years) that Rubio didn't give us the best chance to win long term.
Finally, what Gibson offers is pretty obvious. And it pretty clearly fits with what I think we need. The special Mentorship elixir, along with Defence. The dollars are probably higher than I would have liked, but the tradeoff is the length of contract - and that is probably more vital to us. And that's a key theme in the offseason - the additions are not onerous long term additions if they don't work out.
So we're now in a position to win. I loved writing that... so I'm gonna write it again. We're now in a position to win. Lip has pointed out many times that our success will hinge on the development of our core. We've de-risked that strategy quite a lot by diversifying from 'all in on developing some young studs'. We're now holding some genuine blue chip young studs in Wiggins and KAT and so we have many years and multiple chances to build around them. But I really believe that we have increased our chance of the core developing and have accelerated that. Of course, we have narrowed how much of a young core we have, but have kept the premium quality in that core. If Teague, Gibson and or Butler don't work out, we'll have chances to re-tool again in the future.
In my view, the negatives associated with the offseason is the lack of depth. this probably ties into a trade-off Thibs is willing to make given his propensity to play his core players particularly big minutes. I don't like it, but it fits with Thibs' M.O. I think we can survive without significantly improved 3 point shooting.
Go Wolves.