Shabazz Muhammed - A bright spot in a dismal run?

[thedoper]

After seeing limited minutes, Shabazz has been getting some burn as of late. Since that New York game which he almost got ejected he has been on a tear.

Since the beginning of December he is 10-25 from 3 and has upped himself to a career best .577 TS% (top amongst wings and just below Towns .579 for the year) He's found the range in the corners (especially in the right). He just keeps getting better offensively from what I have seen.

Yes is D is bad, but there are a lot of teams that can win with great offensive players who are bad defenders. This is nothing new, but I would argue that he is putting emphasis and focus on this and has made modest improvements. All in all, I am very happy with his continued progress and hope he keeps getting extended minutes. Now can we find a coach that can hide him on the defensive side and use his offensive gifts? We will see.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

It's hard to hide a player on defense if everyone else around him is sub-optimal as well. And therein lies the problem with our second unit. Here is what Mitchell is dealing with:

Plus defenders: Rubio, KG, and Prince

Neutral/OK-ish defenders: Wiggins, Dieng, KAT

Mediocre to horrible defenders: Everyone else

We basically don't have enough plus defenders to go around. Sure, we could blame Mitchell for not coaching everyone else up, but on paper, I think what you see above is a pretty accurate depiction of where these guys were at coming into this season.

Bazz is a scorer, pure and simple, and a pretty good one at that. That definitely has value around the league, so even if we end up not being a fit for him, we could hopefully get a good return for him.

[TeamRicky [enjin:6648771]]

I agree with Q, despite his improved shooting, he is a poor fit on this team. His poor defense can't be hid on this team. Maybe its time to sell high with him if we can get a young guy who can play both sides of the ball.

[thedoper]

It's hard to hide a player on defense if everyone else around him is sub-optimal as well. And therein lies the problem with our second unit. Here is what Mitchell is dealing with:

Plus defenders: Rubio, KG, and Prince

Neutral/OK-ish defenders: Wiggins, Dieng, KAT

Mediocre to horrible defenders: Everyone else

We basically don't have enough plus defenders to go around. Sure, we could blame Mitchell for not coaching everyone else up, but on paper, I think what you see above is a pretty accurate depiction of where these guys were at coming into this season.

Bazz is a scorer, pure and simple, and a pretty good one at that. That definitely has value around the league, so even if we end up not being a fit for him, we could hopefully get a good return for him.

You make a good point which is why I have been trying to push Bazz to play with the starters. In my mind even mentioning trading him now seems crazy as I don't know how we don't have a use for a good scorer.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

It's hard to hide a player on defense if everyone else around him is sub-optimal as well. And therein lies the problem with our second unit. Here is what Mitchell is dealing with:

Plus defenders: Rubio, KG, and Prince

Neutral/OK-ish defenders: Wiggins, Dieng, KAT

Mediocre to horrible defenders: Everyone else

We basically don't have enough plus defenders to go around. Sure, we could blame Mitchell for not coaching everyone else up, but on paper, I think what you see above is a pretty accurate depiction of where these guys were at coming into this season.

Bazz is a scorer, pure and simple, and a pretty good one at that. That definitely has value around the league, so even if we end up not being a fit for him, we could hopefully get a good return for him.

You make a good point which is why I have been trying to push Bazz to play with the starters. In my mind even mentioning trading him now seems crazy as I don't know how we don't have a use for a good scorer.

I hear you and perhaps Mitchell should try swapping out Prince for Bazz in order to balance the two lineups better. He tried that before with Martin and it didn't work, but Martin never really got on track offensively, which meant we had the worse of both worlds: Not much better on offense; much worse on defense.

But here is the domino effect of that change, which you might be OK with: Now Wiggins is no longer "saved" defensively by Prince and has to guard the best opposing wing, because lord knows we don't want Shabazz trying to guard Harden, Thompson, Leonard, etc., etc. It effectively changes Wiggins' role into focusing on defense 1st, offense 2nd.

I'd probably be fine with at least trying this considering the fact nothing else seems to be working right now. Shabazz has proven to be a more efficient scorer than Wiggins over the past two seasons, while just as prolific in terms of volume. The difference is that Shabazz is doing it against opposing team benches, not starting 5's. It would be interesting to see if his efficiency would take a hit.

[TAFKASP]

I agree with Q, despite his improved shooting, he is a poor fit on this team.

Why is it that Bazz is the guy who doesn't fit? The fact that his defense cannot be hidden is because the guys he plays with are also poor defenders. At least in Bazz's case he is a relatively reliable scorer unlike most of the other second unit guys.

Bazz has value around the league because he excels at scoring, he has value to the Wolves for that same reason. Are the second unit guys a poor fit together? Yes, that doesn't remotely make Bazz the odd man out in my mind.

[Porckchop]

Generally speaking bench players have severe flaws to their game so the fact that Bazz has sub part D doesn't bother me . He has a specific set of skills that are useful for this team. If we got rid if him to just to add another bench player chances are that player will have his own warts. I think we could do a lot worse than a guy that can score and rebound well off the bench.

[TAFKASP]

Generally speaking bench players have severe flaws to their game so the fact that Bazz has sub part D doesn't bother me . He has a specific set of skills that are useful for this team. If we got rid if him to just to add another bench player chances are that player will have his own warts. I think we could do a lot worse than a guy that can score and rebound well off the bench.

Exactly! You win by outscoring your opponent and Bazz is an efficient and reliable scorer. Maybe rather than trading away Bazz they should focus on acquiring the types of players who would compliment him. If the Wolves put Bazz on the market there would be no shortage of takers, that should make one question the wisdom in trading him in the first place.

[TeamRicky [enjin:6648771]]

Generally speaking bench players have severe flaws to their game so the fact that Bazz has sub part D doesn't bother me . He has a specific set of skills that are useful for this team. If we got rid if him to just to add another bench player chances are that player will have his own warts. I think we could do a lot worse than a guy that can score and rebound well off the bench.

Exactly! You win by outscoring your opponent and Bazz is an efficient and reliable scorer. Maybe rather than trading away Bazz they should focus on acquiring the types of players who would compliment him. If the Wolves put Bazz on the market there would be no shortage of takers, that should make one question the wisdom in trading him in the first place.

I wouldn't say Bazz is a reliable scorer. He is either on or off. The problem with Bazz is his area of efficiency (primarily putbacks)) aren't designed offensive plays, he is an offensive hole and is terrible at team defense. The last game is very illustrative of Bazz--he had a great scoring game, but he actually had the worst plus/minus on the team.

If he keeps improving his three point shooting, he might have a productive role, but he really needs to improve his defense and passing to ever be anything more than a role player for a playoff team.

[TAFKASP]

Generally speaking bench players have severe flaws to their game so the fact that Bazz has sub part D doesn't bother me . He has a specific set of skills that are useful for this team. If we got rid if him to just to add another bench player chances are that player will have his own warts. I think we could do a lot worse than a guy that can score and rebound well off the bench.

Exactly! You win by outscoring your opponent and Bazz is an efficient and reliable scorer. Maybe rather than trading away Bazz they should focus on acquiring the types of players who would compliment him. If the Wolves put Bazz on the market there would be no shortage of takers, that should make one question the wisdom in trading him in the first place.

I wouldn't say Bazz is a reliable scorer. He is either on or off. The problem with Bazz is his area of efficiency (primarily putbacks)) aren't designed offensive plays, he is an offensive hole and is terrible at team defense. The last game is very illustrative of Bazz--he had a great scoring game, but he actually had the worst plus/minus on the team.

If he keeps improving his three point shooting, he might have a productive role, but he really needs to improve his defense and passing to ever be anything more than a role player for a playoff team.

Playoff teams need role players and the Wolves have a young developing player who provides instant offense in most games in which he gets decent minutes. Bazz doesn't need to develop into a starter in order to be valuable to the team!