Minnesota Sports Forum

David Kahn was always gushing about these traits and quite frankly many NBA GMs do. So has Flip. I look at this team and I see a lot of both. Obviously there are exceptions. Tyus has neither and Miller is pretty old but he still plays big to me. Rudez isn't supremely athletic but he the length even for a PF.

Basically this roster has 1 undersized guy in Tyus and everyone else is at least average or well above average in overall height/length or athletism or both. I am fine with getting guys that can play but in the past this team at times didn't have the length or athletic ability guys to keep up at times. Some of that was because they had guys that just weren't actually good enough or good enough for their roles but yeah it wasn't good enough.

It will be interesting to see if this group can be a significant part of the answer and compliment each other. The odd thing this team lacks now is something it used to have plenty of and that's girth. At some point this team may need to add a strong dude to the mix. It will be interesting to see how this season unfolds. There are a lot of things I hope we can find out this season about this team going forward. I am ok with some of the player evaluations being on the down side. If the Wolves can decide to move on from a player that's not all bad at least maybe then you know. That's why staying healthy really helps so you can actually see what you have.

I have the answer ... Jeff Adrien for the 15th spot!

Let's hope Pek can come back healthy at some point this season. We need him to bang up some of the opposing bigs. It makes life easier for all of our other bigs.

What's funny is that we used to lament about the ground-bound pairing of Love and Pekovic and their inability to protect the rim. Yet they were far better defensively than any frontcourt pairing we trotted out last season.

A healthy Pekovic is actually the PERFECT fit for this squad. You could put KG, Towns, or Dieng next to him and you have that nice combination of size, length, strength, and mobility. Too bad his sun is setting....

And yes, one of the reasons I fell in love with Jeff Adrien is because he gave us a much-needed physical presence inside. He wasn't afraid to knock people around and he wasn't easily knocked around himself. I'd love to see us swap Dieng for a defensive-minded big man that can play physically and bang....Not sure there is anything that really makes sense right now though.

Q12543 wrote:What's funny is that we used to lament about the ground-bound pairing of Love and Pekovic and their inability to protect the rim. Yet they were far better defensively than any frontcourt pairing we trotted out last season.

A healthy Pekovic is actually the PERFECT fit for this squad. You could put KG, Towns, or Dieng next to him and you have that nice combination of size, length, strength, and mobility. Too bad his sun is setting....

And yes, one of the reasons I fell in love with Jeff Adrien is because he gave us a much-needed physical presence inside. He wasn't afraid to knock people around and he wasn't easily knocked around himself. I'd love to see us swap Dieng for a defensive-minded big man that can play physically and bang....Not sure there is anything that really makes sense right now though.

Q it seems like getting a guy like Adrian or Reggie Evans is somewhat easy to do if you want one cause they are undersized low upside etc. Dieng for all his flaws likely has more value than moving him for that type. Payne is more the guy I would move (one way or another) for that type of player to be on the roster in the future.

I'm certainly not suggesting that we trade Dieng for Reggie Evans or Jeff Adrien. I simply used Adrien as an example of the style of player I think this squad needs - a strongman that can clear out bodies on the interior and play some tough post defense. In other words, a guy like Pekovic. Who knows? Perhaps Pek gets healthy enough to give us 15-20 quality minutes per night. That would help tremendously, but I'm not counting on it.