Minnesota Sports Forum

The Thunder are about to lose on their home court by 20 points to the Cavs. You need a lot of great talent and great coaching to compete for an NBA championship. Speaking of great talent, how about Lillard's 51-point performance the other night against the Warriors? And how about Anthony Davis putting up 59 points today?

Is there a lesson in this for the Wolves? Yes, I think there are several. First, the Wolves have a tough uncertain road ahead of them in their quest to become a contender. Second, The Wolves need to continue accumulating talent and then develop it. This is no time to focus on fine tuning the roster to fill specific highly specialized needs. Finally, we need a coaching staff that will maximize the development of our young talent and put them in the best possible position to succeed individually and collectively.

KAT looks like he's going to be the star-caliber player and leader that all championship contenders need. But he needs a coaching staff that takes full advantage of his broad skill set, including his 3-point shooting. In addition, Wiggins and LaVine need to make great strides over the next couple seasons. Of the two, Wiggins actually has the most improvement to make. He has way too many weaknesses -- a very poor handle, very poor perimeter shooting and no meaningful contributions in other areas like rebounding, assists, blocks or steals. He's a tremendous athlete and excellent slasher/scorer with the ability to draw fouls. And he's really improved his aggressiveness as a scorer.

Our coaching staff needs an overhaul!

lipoli390 wrote:Our coaching staff needs an overhaul!

.....And yet Anthony Davis won't make the playoffs this year, for the 3rd time in 4 years (they made it last year, but were swept). So you are right - KAT simply isn't enough, even if he wildly surpasses our upside projections for him. You need multiple all-star caliber players AND elite role players. It's crazy how hard it is to be a contender. The league is better than ever.

Great stuff, SP! :)

Q12543 wrote:.....And yet Anthony Davis won't make the playoffs this year, for the 3rd time in 4 years (they made it last year, but were swept). So you are right - KAT simply isn't enough, even if he wildly surpasses our upside projections for him. You need multiple all-star caliber players AND elite role players. It's crazy how hard it is to be a contender. The league is better than ever.

Q - You completed my thought about Anthony Davis and his team missing the playoffs in spite of his incredible talent and terrific productivity.

Not sure comparing our current core to the Pelicans is the right move. They have botched their team-building process severely, quite like we did during the Love era. The CP3 trade didn't work out well, trading the No. 6 pick (Noel) for Holiday didn't work out, trading Robin Lopez for Evans backfired, signing Asik long-term looks awful, not dealing Anderson at the deadline looks poor, letting Aminu walk was a mistake... There's a list of questionable (to say it nicely) roster moves that the Pelicans have made or not made. So far, we've managed to assemble quality young talent. Now, developing it and surrounding them with competent veterans is the tricky part, but I think we're way better off than the Pelicans were when they drafted Davis.

Edit: They also drafted Austin Rivers 10th overall in 2012 and then dumped him shortly after that.

Lip I agree with your assessment completely.

Good post Lip it is a tough league. For example the Knicks game. The Wolves just didn't come to play in and it seems like they have been playing better overall lately so it's clearly dissappointing and the Knicks had been struggling. Compare the Knicks legit established talent of Lopez, Melo and Affalo and the Wolves have nothing remotely close to that...yet.

I agree Lip the Wolves need to keep building and they need to be careful about not taking shortcuts trading for more veteran players giving up some youthful players. On the other hand it's a difficult balance keeping young players till they blossom for you and cashing in on them.

I think the Wolves can wait one more year or at least into next season before moving guys. This team is so young with a lot of new players added to it that it still doesn't really have an identity and there is so much uncertainty about the organization going forward. This team has potential and it has assets in the way of some actually players teams might want to acquire that aren't core players. If the right people running the basketball side of things make the right moves and the right coach is hired...but there is a lot of potential for missteps yet. It would be nice to get it right for once.

Camden wrote:Not sure comparing our current core to the Pelicans is the right move. They have botched their team-building process severely, quite like we did during the Love era. The CP3 trade didn't work out well, trading the No. 6 pick (Noel) for Holiday didn't work out, trading Robin Lopez for Evans backfired, signing Asik long-term looks awful, not dealing Anderson at the deadline looks poor, letting Aminu walk was a mistake... There's a list of questionable (to say it nicely) roster moves that the Pelicans have made or not made. So far, we've managed to assemble quality young talent. Now, developing it and surrounding them with competent veterans is the tricky part, but I think we're way better off than the Pelicans were when they drafted Davis.

Edit: They also drafted Austin Rivers 10th overall in 2012 and then dumped him shortly after that.

Cam -- I wasn't attempting to compare our roster to the Pelicans. I agree completely with your assessment. I was just pointing out how tough it is to become a title contender in the NBA. You needs lots of talent along with high caliber coaching. I know I'm just stating the obvious here, but watching a top tier team like the Thunder get blown out by the Cavs on the Thunder's home court just reminded me of how competitive this League is at the top. And even a player as talented as Anthony Davis doesn't come close to putting a team in line to compete for a championship.

monsterpile wrote:Good post Lip it is a tough league. For example the Knicks game. The Wolves just didn't come to play in and it seems like they have been playing better overall lately so it's clearly dissappointing and the Knicks had been struggling. Compare the Knicks legit established talent of Lopez, Melo and Affalo and the Wolves have nothing remotely close to that...yet.

I agree Lip the Wolves need to keep building and they need to be careful about not taking shortcuts trading for more veteran players giving up some youthful players. On the other hand it's a difficult balance keeping young players till they blossom for you and cashing in on them.

I think the Wolves can wait one more year or at least into next season before moving guys. This team is so young with a lot of new players added to it that it still doesn't really have an identity and there is so much uncertainty about the organization going forward. This team has potential and it has assets in the way of some actually players teams might want to acquire that aren't core players. If the right people running the basketball side of things make the right moves and the right coach is hired...but there is a lot of potential for missteps yet. It would be nice to get it right for once.

Monster -- You nailed it with your last sentence -- "If the right people running the basketball side of things make the right moves and the right coach is hired ...." That pretty much says it all. And it sure would be nice if we get it right for once.