Minnesota Sports Forum

Who would you rather have on this team? I don't see the Rockets wanting Pekovic, but if you are looking at a 3-way trade would you deal do the deal if you got an upgrade at PG/SG/SF over Budinger back?

I vote for Asik because I don't like Pek's contract, and we need a rim protector next to Love.

What about:

MIN: Asik, Courtney Lee, Marshon Brooks (need swap with Shved to stay under tax)
HOU: Rondo
BOS: Pek, Beverly, Shved and picks from HOU

Move LRMAM to backup 4 since DC is an expiring and have a ten man rotation of:

Ricky/JJ
Martin/C Lee
Brewer/Bud
Love/LRMAM
Asik/Turiaf

I would like to acknowledge that Khans has it right when he says it's an either/or situation. Asik is going to complain wherever he goes if he's not the starter.

I don't have any easy answers in terms of whether or not to trade for him. I guess gun to my head I have to say I would want Pek.

Pekovic >>> Asik

Sure Asik is the better defender, but Pek is the far superior offensive player.

We can't give up our only efficient inside scoring threat. Trading our most efficient scorer, when we need more efficient scoring just doesn't make sense to me.

Yeah, the dropoff offensively sort of cancels out whatever defensive strengths Asik adds.

I'm hoping the Turiaf/Dieng combo along with Mbah Moute, Brewer, and Rubio on the perimeter really helps offset some of the defensive gaps we have with Pek and Love. Remember, those guys are on the bench a combined 30 minutes per game. Those are minutes that can be filled in with defensive minded bigs and rim protectors. We're just in a tough spot with Turiaf getting hurt and Dieng being brought along slowly.

Pek for 2 reasons

1. I'm not gonna tailor my roster around a guy in Love who's probably leaving. Pek's here for 5 more years. If Love walks, why back up the Brinks truck for Asik?

2 (and this is the big reason). The biggest problem with this team by a mile is lack of available scoring options. If Love and /or Martin are either off or out, this team doesn't have players that can score. That makes the problem worse if you take Pek out and put in Asik

Wildwolf, We saw it tonight. They keyed on Martin and then eventually fronted Pek and we had no chance. Brewer is a liability on offense unless he can get into the open floor or make basket cuts while the defense is napping. And Rubio played one of his worst games of his career. He was literally throwing the ball right to a Miami player a couple of times on offense.

The difference I see is Asik can make 4 other players better by helping them on the defensive end, while Pek's offensive prowess does not make 4 other guys better on the offensive end. He's not seeing double teams when he gets the ball in the post. We're 27th in FG% allowed and 26th in 3pt % allowed. While offense is a short term problem, it's not a long-term problem with Bud coming back in a month combined with the fact that we still score the 3rd most PPG in the league. Love is still very good on the block and we would essentially be turning Shved into Lee which is a scoring upgrade along with Bud coming back. Defense is just more valuable in today's game and we don't have a defense that is really all that challenging even with all the perimeter defenders we have now. We need that rim protector to help us at the rim and drive some of those opposing efficiency numbers down because it's just too easy for other teams to score on us. Indiana scores less than 100 PPG, but they shut the other team down. Scoring isn't everything and it becomes easier and you get more transition opportunities when you shut the other team down which we can't do. You can always get gunners to make up the scoring load. Rim protecting bigs are a lot harder to come by.