Minnesota Sports Forum

Our starters continue to win their matchups against other teams' starters. For the season, only three other NBA starting lineups have outperformed the Wolves in terms of +/- per game: Indiana, Houston, and Golden State (when Iggy was healthy). We're even ahead of Portland's starters.

Last night was another example of our starters outplaying the San Antonio starters. All of our starters except Pek were in the plus column (Pek was a -3). All of their starters were in the minus column. Manu Ginobilli was the X-factor, with an incredible +27 in 25 minutes. In other words, they were beating us by one point per minute while he was on the floor.

Hummel is our only bench player this year that plays "winning" basketball while on the floor, meaning our team is in positive +/- territory, barely, while he plays. Barea, Cunningham, and Shved have been unmitigated disasters. Williams was too, before being traded, and Mbah Moute has done nothing to help so far.

The good news is that this is a solveable problem. It's 10X harder to go find a superstar as good as Love (who by the way is 5th in the league in overall +/-) than it is to go find capable bench players.

There's no question that our bench has been the biggest surprise and biggest disappointment for me this year. Long forgotten is the optimism I had about our reserves when they consistently handed the starters their collective asses in preseason in Mankato. I wasn't deluding myself that there was huge talent on our bench. But I bought into the Adelman hype about how hard working these guys were, and concluded they could hold their own against other teams. Wrong!

Someone asked in another thread if anyone actually believed the Wolves were going to win the game last night. I'll admit that I actually felt pretty good when we were up nine beginning the fourth quarter. I knew most of the starters needed to sit, but I thought a defensive team including Luc, Dante and maybe Dieng could hold the Spurs in check until the starters came back in. Wrong again! They, and especially MaM, were terrible.

The +/- stats are revealing. That's why the Philly game was so unusual, and so satisfying, because every one of our reserves were positive that night...led by Hummel with +16. Wednesday our reserves showed they could win a game for us, but that's the only time all year they have done so. I don't know what the answer is. Maybe I overvalue Hummel because of how great he was pre-knee surgeries, but I would like to see Adelman continue to give him consistent minutes off the bench. He looked good to me in his 7 minutes last night, but got yanked after his two threes rimmed out. They were good shots and both looked like they were going in, and he deserved to play more last night after his excellent performance against Philliy.

Our starters are good enough to win games by themselves, but not on nights like last night when both wings are missing their shots. That's when we're going to need a lot more from our bench.

Derrick was a plus 20 last night for the Kings. Thornton was next at plus 3 and none of the starters were in plus territory.

I think we need a post threat between LRMAM and Dieng/Ronny. A Carl Landry/Andray Blatche type bench player who can be a go-to guy for bench scoring. Bud will help, but it makes it hard to be effective offensively when your best offensive options are on the perimeter and you have no inside threat. As long as Adelman does these hockey shifts, the second unit will need some more balanced scoring and that requires someone who can score in the post.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Derrick was a plus 20 last night for the Kings. Thornton was next at plus 3 and none of the starters were in plus territory.

Cool, Your bitterness over Derrick Williams inability to contribute much to the Wolves is getting tiresome (regardless of who is at fault). Let it go. For every positive stat you can cherry pick since his move to Sacramento, I can cherry pick a negative one. I think he's been on the positive side of +/- three times out of his 8 games and the team has won only twice since he joined them. Whoop-dee do.

It's time to move on.

I'm not sure who's more obsessed over it, you or I. You seem to know much more than I do about his performance since joining the Kings. I'll make you a deal, you stop mentioning him in your arguments and I'll do the same.

Let's be real. Plus minus in basketball is not a very good measure of individual performance. It's a much better indicator of team performance, of course. If JJ and Ricky switched roles, do you think that would have a dramatic impact on their +/- figures? What I think gets tiresome is your use, and many times mis-use of statistics as they apply to the game of basketball.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Derrick was a plus 20 last night for the Kings. Thornton was next at plus 3 and none of the starters were in plus territory.

True, but that's one game. For the entire 2012-3 season he ranked dead last in +/- for the Wolves while playing the 5th most minutes, and the next worse +/- wasn't even close. Since he was traded to the Kings, they are 2-6 with one of those wins over the worst team in basketball, Utah.

While he was with us, we got to watch Williams a lot, both as a starter and off the bench. And we don't need the +/- stats above to prove what was painfully clear...Derrick Williams does not make NBA teams better. He is a gifted athlete with all the tools to be an NBA star, but he lacks that intangible quality that winners have...that drives them to leave it all out on the court every night. Do you think Saunders and Adelman aren't aware that Williams had such a dreadful +/- last year? Do you think league GMs weren't aware of that stat when Saunders tried to unload him last summer or this year? I consider us very lucky to have unloaded him for Luc Mbah a Moute, as clumsy offensively as he is. Despite having suffered through most of the season on a dreadful Sac-town team, his +/- is still better than Derrick's, and his +/- last year was over 100 points better than Derrick's. He may not be able to shoot better than half the guys on this board, but basketball is a 2-way game, and he is much stronger than Derrick overall as his +/- stats show.

Ultimately the only thing that counts is points, and the stats prove that we're better off with MaM.

LST, I can't argue with much of what you say here. The only exception being that we are better off with LRMAM. DWill is going to get a chance with a coach that has some interest in seeing him develop. Let's see how we feel about the trade at the end of the year.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:LST, I can't argue with much of what you say here. The only exception being that we are better off with LRMAM. DWill is going to get a chance with a coach that has some interest in seeing him develop. Let's see how we feel about the trade at the end of the year.

LRMAM really disappointed me last night. The situation was ideal for him...9 point lead entering the 4th quarter. Get in there and protect that lead. But his 7 minutes were dreadful...RA had to yank him.

He hasn't helped us much so far. Time will tell, of course, but history tells me that he should contribute more to us than Derrick did.

Miss your 2 + !'s, cool.

LST, I'd be happy to continue the 2+1. I just need to see some feedback on it to keep my interest in it up. It seems that it gets read, but not necessarily responded to. The whole reason behind it was to try and foster some good discussion.