Minnesota Sports Forum

Finch said today on Kfan that the injury has week to week and not day to day. Wolves have called up Moore and Miller

Damn

Luckily for us we're the deepest team of this millennium so far!

BloopOracle wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:14 pm Luckily for us we're the deepest team of this millennium so far!

Amen!

Carlos Danger wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:19 pm

BloopOracle wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:14 pm Luckily for us we're the deepest team of this millennium so far!

Amen!

Yeah, I hate losing Jaden, but we played fine without him last night. Put it this way...if we had to lose one starter for a couple weeks, who could we most afford to lose?

FNG wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:34 pm

Carlos Danger wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:19 pm

BloopOracle wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:14 pm Luckily for us we're the deepest team of this millennium so far!

Amen!

Yeah, I hate losing Jaden, but we played fine without him last night. Put it this way...if we had to lose one starter for a couple weeks, who could we most afford to lose?

Losing Jaden for an extended stretch will be tough. Losing Jaden means losing our best defender, best cutter, and probably our most reliable catch-and-shoot scorer. How well we hold up in Jaden’s absence will turn on whether and to what extent one of our backup wings who hasn’t played much steps up to the challenge. I think the #1 candidate to pick up the slack will be Troy Brown Jr. He’s the only guy off the bench (other than NAW) who looks like he has the defensive chops and shooting ability to give us a decent dose of what we get from Jaden. This could be a great opportunity for Minott or Miller. I have no confidence in Moore.

I hope this isn't becoming a thing for Jaden. I firmly believe staying healthy is a skill. Does someone else instinctively not put their foot in that position? I'm not sure, but the hamstring and now the ankle. I hope he doesn't become one of those guys at an early age.

Coolbreeze44 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 8:10 pm I hope this isn't becoming a thing for Jaden. I firmly believe staying healthy is a skill. Does someone else instinctively not put their foot in that position? I'm not sure, but the hamstring and now the ankle. I hope he doesn't become one of those guys at an early age.

I agree that staying healthy is a skill or maybe an innate physical characteristic. Bud Grant used to say “it’s always the same guys in the training room.” He meant it tends to be the same players who repeatedly miss games with injuries. It’s too early to say whether Jaden is one of those players Bud was referring to. I sure hope not. The good news is that Jaden played in 79 games last season and he probably would have played in all 82 if he hadn’t punched a cement wall. The prior season he played in 70 games. Missing 12 games isn’t too bad. So I remain hopeful, but you’ve raised a legitimate question.

I think Jaden has missed time because of three injuries, and I would say two events (punching the wall and turning an ankle after stepping on KAT's big feet) would have injured almost anyone. The calf injury is another matter, but still not enough to conclude Jaden is injury-prone. Let's hope he returns soon.

I postulated above that Jaden is the most replaceable starter on our team (I'm not at all diminishing what he brings to this team...merely saying he is the easiest to replace), and nobody pushed back. Let me follow up with two other questions:

1) Which other starter would be the next easiest to replace, and

2) Which starter would hurt us the most if we lost him for a couple weeks?

Tough call, but here are my answers:

1) Probably Rudy. Naz would enter the starting lineup, and while our defense would be devastated, our offense would become more potent.

2) I'm going to say Bite Bite, especially with JMac out. Conley is such a steadying influence on the court and really brings out the best in Ant and Rudy. Plus nobody has stepped up as a true backup PG.

What say all of you?

Well, you didn't get much pushback because given the roster makeup, Jaden is the starter that has a reasonable backup to fill in.

I differ with your premise that Naz would replace Rudy as a starter -- I would lay money it would be SloMo. Naz might be the alternative if KAT were to go down, although once again, like last year, it might be SloMo.

ANT is at the top of my "toughest to replace list". He's been facing some criticism on the board lately, but he is playing pretty damn well and facilitating a lot of action on the floor. And, yeah, Bite Bite would be a pretty big loss as a leader on the floor and his timely contributions, plus no JMac currently available.