Minnesota Sports Forum

Timberwolves guard Jordan McLaughlin has a right knee MCL sprain and will be examined again in four weeks, team says.

kekgeek wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 5:24 pm Timberwolves guard Jordan McLaughlin has a right knee MCL sprain and will be examined again in four weeks, team says.

JMAC is a good guy and I wish him a full and quick recovery. I know there might be some disagreement on the board here, but I think our point guard situation is in good hands with Conley, Shake and Nix plus the fact that others like Kyle, Ant and KAT are good passers. JMAC really wasn't getting regular minutes and so there isn't much minutes to distribute. I think the regular rotation will absorb his limited minutes and we might even get a little bit more Nix or even Wendell Moore if Shake or another guard is injured. The only thing I hope is we don't see is point NAW. I like NAW as a point of attack defender and spot up shooter but I haven't seen good things when he tries to run the offense.

kekgeek wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 5:24 pm Timberwolves guard Jordan McLaughlin has a right knee MCL sprain and will be examined again in four weeks, team says.

That’s a bummer. JMac looked like the player he was before last season’s calf injury. He really adds to our second unit with his quickness, ball-handling, penetration and overall ball movement along with his pesky defense.

Milton’s a decent player, but his not a PG. This team is slow enough with Rudy, KAT and Slo Mo. Milton makes us even slower. We need more speed and quickness if we want to start getting some of the many loose balls we don’t get. And we need another elite ball handler other than Conley. Shake’s not an elite ball-handler, isn’t very quick and isn’t a good defender. He’s a shooter with a decent handle. NAW is a great defender with a decent handle. He looks like more of a PG than Milton, but he’s still not a guy I’d want to rely on as our main backup PG.

Slo Mo is probably our best backup PG with JMac out of the picture. Maybe Nix can step in and win that #2 PG role. We’ll see. It’s a weakness on this roster and JMac’s injury exacerbates that weakness.

Lipoli390 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 8:25 pm

kekgeek wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2023 5:24 pm Timberwolves guard Jordan McLaughlin has a right knee MCL sprain and will be examined again in four weeks, team says.

That’s a bummer. JMac looked like the player he was before last season’s calf injury. He really adds to our second unit with his quickness, ball-handling, penetration and overall ball movement along with his pesky defense.

Milton’s a decent player, but his not a PG. This team is slow enough with Rudy, KAT and Slo Mo. Milton makes us even slower. We need more speed and quickness if we want to start getting some of the many loose balls we don’t get. And we need another elite ball handler other than Conley. Shake’s not an elite ball-handler, isn’t very quick and isn’t a good defender. He’s a shooter with a decent handle. NAW is a great defender with a decent handle. He looks like more of a PG than Milton, but he’s still not a guy I’d want to rely on as our main backup PG.
Slo Mo is probably our best backup PG with JMac out of the picture. Maybe Nix can step in and win that #2 PG role. We’ll see. It’s a weakness on this roster and JMac’s injury exacerbates that weakness.

Lip you and I disagree with Shake. TC said Shake is a point guard. Shake started with Melton who may be even less athletic than Shake and Philly did well with Shake as the primary ballhandler in their 11 starts. Shake had great stats in his 19 games last year with 28 minutes or more (though I'm not sure how many games he played point, he had nearly 6 assists a game (5.94)) with Philly winning 15 and losing only 4. Shake has 45 career starts in regular season and his shooting numbers are pretty impressive (50.0, 42.5, 85.6) and his assist to turnover are 4.7 to 1.8. He also had 4 starts in the playoffs in 2020 next to Josh Richardson (not sure who was primary ballhander) and his shooting percentages were good (47.7, 40.0, 85.7%) and his assists to turnovers were 11 to 6. D'Angelo Russell was a slow guard and I can't remember if you had an issue with his slow footspeed.

I'm not sure how you think NAW is more of a point guard than Shake. Shake consistently posts better assist to turnover numbers than NAW and NAW looks scary trying to initiate offense. And I actually think Milton has done a good job of chasing down loose balls.

If Shake can come to close to replicating his play in big minutes in Philly, Wolves fans will be very happy. How much are we paying Shake? 5 Million plus we get a team option. I think we got the best point guard we could afford and I thank TC for making the move. This is a nice risk reward. If Shake doesn't pan out we don't have to bring him back and we can sign Monte Morris who I also like.

That sucks. Sheesh, he really looked good in the few short stints we saw him. We really need Milton to step up now.

Such a good guy and teammate, and I agree he looked like the pre injury JMac. But let’s be honest…if we have to lose one guy for a month, we’re lucky it’s a guy who hasn’t been able to get off finchies bench much. Maybe this injury will bring out the Shake Philly say last year.

Heal up, JMac, and come back to help us around first of the year.

That sucks he looked like he was back to being the effective guy we’re were used to seeing. He has issues staying healthy which is why I can’t rely on him as a backup.

Hopefully shake comes around. If he doesn’t then losing McLaughlin might hurt.

We are really going to see how the wolves view Wendall Moore if he gets called up or not. Jmac injury is not a killer but they are one injury away now from it really hurting

kekgeek wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 9:21 am We are really going to see how the wolves view Wendall Moore if he gets called up or not. Jmac injury is not a killer but they are one injury away now from it really hurting

I trust Nix more than Moore. And Nix was terrible with Houston, but may be if he's out there with a handful of starters he does OK. For example, I'd make sure Anderson is on the floor with Nix (or Moore Jr. if that's the direction they go).

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 11:25 am

kekgeek wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2023 9:21 am We are really going to see how the wolves view Wendall Moore if he gets called up or not. Jmac injury is not a killer but they are one injury away now from it really hurting

I trust Nix more than Moore. And Nix was terrible with Houston, but may be if he's out there with a handful of starters he does OK. For example, I'd make sure Anderson is on the floor with Nix (or Moore Jr. if that's the direction they go).

I think Moore is a guy that needs to play in the G-league. Meanwhile Nix has over 100 professional games played between G-league and NBA. Of course it’s worth pointing out that he didn’t play college like Moore. Still Nix still has more experience as a pro than Moore and is more of a natural PG type. It makes sense Nix might get some run as a PG option over Moore. While neither guy is super dynamic with the ball Nix seems to me to be more likely to create something than Moore. If they just want a guy that just dribbles the ball and makes some solid decisions they could even just play Brown at the point. Idk how brown would do defensively against some PGs but he would give them more size and yeah anderson if healthy grim self is an actual PG out there anyway.