CoolBreeze's 2 Things I Didn't Like Tonight Plus 1

[Coolbreeze44]

Pretty predictable night for this young team. We played a very exciting first half that was really enjoyable to watch. But our youth and inexperience caught up to us eventually and the 4th quarter was hard to watch. The losses don't bother me much, I just want to see progress and I think we continue to see it. Without further adieu, here is tonight's 2 + 1:

1) Obviously free throw shooting needs to be mentioned. I'd like to see a little more concentration from some of these guys, Wiggins included. Not sure we would have won, but better marksmanship at the charity stripe might have made the ending interesting. This too will get better in time.

2) When your game isn't going well, it might be prudent to watch your shot selection. We don't have any players yet who fall into the category of "keep shooting until you get hot". Tonight Young, Wiggins, and Corey fall into this category. Other nights it's been Mo Williams or Shabazz. Personally I would have liked to see AB and Shabazz take more shots tonight. They both seemed to have it going. I think this is where Ricky is really missed. His ability to find the hot shooter is invaluable.

Plus 1 - Let's do this in bullet point style again tonight:

- There were posters earlier in the season lamenting Andrew's lack of stat sheet stuffing. I think you are starting to see this improve. Tonight even though he wasn't shooting well, he grabbed some boards, got some blocks, and dropped some dimes. Good to see

- For me it is a pleasure to watch Corey Brewer play basketball. He was dynamite in the first half. Even looked somewhat comfortable at the point at times. Of course he gambled too much but sometimes it was effective.

- Good showing by Zach until the 4th quarter when a lot of our guys struggled. Glad to see he remains fearless at his age. Has a chance to be a nice piece some day.

- How much fun is it to watch Shabazz? Another guy who you feel good about. I'm not sure his long term role will be as a starter, but what great potential he has to be instant offense off the bench.

- Anybody surprised that Pek and Kmart are in civis at this point in the season?

- Nice job by AB tonight. Would have liked to see him get more run.

And that's CoolBreeze's 2 things I didn't like tonight Plus 1

[Mstermisty [enjin:6864008]]

Does this team go a game anymore without losing a starter or a key reserve to injury, illness or death? Not a bad effort considering we started Zach and Brewer in the backcourt, and the backup point guard was....Brewer. You can't make this stuff up. Better days are ahead.

Not much else to say about this game so I'll tell a quick story: My buddy is a pit boss at Mystic Lake, and a couple nights ago Brewer was in there at about 2 am playing two 2K hands of black-jack at a time (I've actually seen him there once myself). My buddy told me that he's a really cool dude--funny, and "one of his favorite people that walks through the doors." Anyway, I guess Brew walked away with about a 30K profit that night. So apparently he enjoys gambling on and off the court.

[Monster]

Cool great breakdown and I loved your points here are a few things I'll add to what you said.

Here is the main thing about a really interesting game from these 2 young teams. Zach looked like he belonged in this game straight up. Sure it wasn't all great, but he looked just fine and to me was easily a net positive. Thats a really great thing to see especially given the circumstances.

Mayo looked terrible on offense but on D I don't think I've seen anyone D up wiggins better than he did which is bizarre to say for like 40 reasons but I gotta give Mayo credit cause I dog on him all the time.

Hummel wasn't in the right places on D tonight, but if there was a night you could expect Hummel to struggle on D it would be against the Bucks who always have like 35 long athletic guys at PF/C positions.

Thad just didn't have it tonight and like I said about Hummel it probably didn't help that Thad was going against a big shotblocker like Sanders around the hoop. I think AB should have gotten more minutes, but I'm sure Flip wanted to give Thad a chance to play after everything.

Bazz. Good grief the guy is the perfect bench energy rebounding scoring dude. I woudl have liked to see more minutes for him as well.

Bud other than that terrible transition play where he just lost the ball he had another good stint overall.

Dieng is like Young and Brewer in that he just don't hold up to guys but to counter that he gets steals and of course he hands shotblocking. Dieng's Weakness makes me glad we have Pek on the team still even with his injury issues. We need to add a big that doesn't have injury issues next year as the 3rd center. I'm not sure why we got rid of Stiemsma really. Turiaf is a better player but you can't help a team if you can't play and thats his problem.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Anybody else think this team could use a point guard?

[kekgeek]

Anybody else think this team could use a point guard?

Even though I think they need a PG, I don't want to cut anyone, the only one on the team that could be cut is Turiaf, but he is a hard cut because he is a great lockeroom guy and he is our backup center (assuming healthy) when Pek is out.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Cut Bud. Why keep him at this point? Nobody's going to give us a bag of rocks for him, but Taylor must recognize that this season is going to be a crapshoot if we don't have another PG to come in and help run the offense. Ricky looks like he's going to be out most of the season frankly, and as much as I like LaVine at the 2, I don't like him at the 1. If we don't get somebody to come in and play the point, it's going to hurt everybody. Our offense looks pretty chaotic and uncertain right now.

I'm sure Taylor would rather cut GRIII because it's cheaper, but if keeping him was worth buying out Barea (who would honestly be pretty nice to have right now), why not buy out Bud? Turiaf we also have to keep because we're so thin on bigs already. It's gotta be Bud or GRIII. I'd rather let Bud go and send GRIII to the D League. He's not getting any PT here. If he's worth keeping, why not get him some PT somewhere until we've got minutes for him here?

Last night was exacerbated by not having Mo, but it just really hit home for me how much we need another PG to run the offense. If we can get rid of Bud and make a few minutes for LaVine at the 2, all the better in my book.

[Papalrep]

Nah, lets get a top three pick, than argue about Okafor, Towns or the PG playing in China

[SameOldNudityDrew]

That's a much more serious solution for a bigger picture problem. Should we trade our vets and effectively tank like the Sixers (or at least in that direction) and hope for lottery luck, or should we try to get good now with the players we have? I lean toward the latter in general, though I'm not opposed to moving Martin for assets if LaVine or GRIII look like they can step up in the next year or so. As to that PG in China, we did just sign Ricky to a big extension.

More immediately though, I think we really need a backup PG because it's just killing this team's development right now. The offense looks discombobulated and uncertain and we're losing a bunch of games, which is bad for chemistry, bad for mental attitudes, and bad for team culture. With Martin out 6-8 weeks, there should be room at the 2 for LaVine, and with a capable backup PG for Mo until Ricky gets back, I think we can right this ship a little and still make sure the young guys get PT. In fact, I think PT at the 2 would be better for LaVine, and for the rest of the team, including Wiggins, Bennett, Muhammad, and Dieng. All those guys could use a savvy backup vet to control the offense when Mo is on the bench or having an off night.

[bleedspeed]

Did AB and Parker matchup much? Box score looks like AB won the battle of the PF's.

It is pretty sad we need a PG when we released JJ earlier in the season. He was not perfect, but certainly could have used him. It will be interesting what we do next year with both Mo and Turiaf's contracts up. If Bud is solid we might get lucky and have him opt out of his current contract. I hope we can find a PF/C combo guy that can be a backup along with younger backup PG.

[BizarroJerry [enjin:6592520]]

Drew, you said it best-we need a PG to help develop our younger players this year. Zach needs time at SG.

And I dont want another top 5 pick this year, it's going to be another losing season, but I hate tanking, and I want to see this team fight for wins. And when's our big stiff, Pekovic coming back? Do we have more Wolves or Vikings injured at the moment?