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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2023 10:00:16 GMT -6
Res bad here, but Darko was so talented. Like Gobert way undervalued what he was bringing, unlike Gobert could catch and pass.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2023 11:18:33 GMT -6
If The Lion played today he'd be virtually unguardable, though like Prince would mostly relegated to corner 3's, pump and drive. Ticks that 3 pt % up.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2023 11:25:53 GMT -6
A good omen for our off-season this dropped today. www.si.com/nba/2023/06/21/david-kahn-paris-basketball-daily-coverI really need to get in contact with him and a couple others from this era for a science project I am doing? Putting out a siren call for anyone that has contact info for: Kahn, Dave Wohl, Zgoda, Kurt Rambis, Hoiberg, Bill Chamberlain, JB, Bill Bayno, Jeff Schwartz, Dan Fegan, and Chad Ford?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2023 13:38:55 GMT -6
That Kahn article is actually very interesting.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2023 14:21:10 GMT -6
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2023 14:21:50 GMT -6
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2023 9:05:59 GMT -6
What basketball, used to be. This was a blast. I think some think I'm just talking smack about the new era for the heck of it, but basketball was a 1000% more interesting not that long ago.
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Post by levine on Aug 19, 2023 13:08:37 GMT -6
Do I need to sticky this thread so Darko will keep his conspiracy theories out of the general NBA thread?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2023 17:41:52 GMT -6
In regards to the Daryl/James stuff:
Alternative theory, Daryl Morey made a stupid (I have a potty mouth)ing trade, and now can't get an asset for him, after he lied to James about a deal, while illegally tampering with an eastern conference rival in season.
Harden agreed to terms he was not willing to do for the market or Brooklyn. Morey is famous for screwing over players, and flipping them like trading cards, yet somehow revered for how little he cares. Why player agents or opposing gm’s would ever trust, or take another call from him beats me.
His influence on the league makes no sense. Take Morey ball for example, three's and layups, and iso one on one. That does not exist without the changes made in 2018, particularly: New for the 2018-19 season, stipulated by item No. 12 (B), Section 1 in the NBA Rule Book, players are no longer permitted to “hold, push, charge into, impede the progress of an opponent,” or do anything else that would instantly cause the man they’re guarding to be “re-routed.”
I had a really hard time finding that btw, because the news of that era just talks about offensive shot clock going from 24 to 14 on offensive rebounds, clear path, and hostile foul act that would trigger officials the ability to review, but the above is why guys like Jaylen Brown can initiate off the dribble with no action, once the ball handler has a fraction of a step, the defender has to let them get to the rim. I don’t know why the real hoops fans weren’t more up in arms about it, once we saw what it looked like, other than Vecna didn’t raise it, but it did give us a lot of great formulas that tell us whatever small iso scorer is actually better than Kareem.
I remember pods hammering 3 > 2 as if that’s all basketball ever was, zero mention of the fact no one can play defense anymore which was the actual change here.
This leads directly to some of Harden’s most dominant seasons, but even think about Jimmy Butler in the playoffs the last several seasons. Defenders have zero chance of keeping him away from the rim, and then when he’s at the rim he’s drawing contact, or overpowering guys. This rule change is why perimeter offensive guys get every single call. Offense has exploded since, and for some reason it’s been covered like it’s a miracle, we can’t believe this is happening, it must be because the league is so talented now.
It devalued point guards, team offense, defense and bigs, including rebounding, in favor of elevating iso and perimeter scoring. If you prefer that, whatever, but again, this wasn’t about finding a better way to play basketball, they had to change the league to make this happen.
It’s funny to me when pundits trash Harden’s game for being too iso heavy, or selfish, when Daryl created it. Now, I don’t know about his partying, but from a skill standpoint, no doubt had the rules not switched over to this freedom of movement non-sense, he has the talent/intelligence to play the kind of team basketball fans and the league used to value, in a team oriented offense, next to a point guard, etc.
To me, it feels more like a league that values tracking spreadsheets, and betting on games, than whether or not actual good basketball being played, and that is a direct result of the decade where analytics deciding scoring efficiency is the only metric we want to matter, combined with the built to lose, multiple season tanking that created the handful of top heaving teams like GS, sent third and forth contract quality NBA rotation vets overseas, in favor of teams not contending going all or young. IE finding the next J-Mac is now more exciting for fans than resigning Tyus Jones, because if they’re on a bad enough deal, they can only outperform their contract, which will make it interesting to track with Naz now that he’s getting paid NBA dollars.
They also weirdly got players to agree to doing away with free agency, because it became conventional wisdom NBA gm’s are owed an asset for everything. It’d be cool if we see that come back a tad with Van Vleet, and Grant signing with Detroit a couple years ago. The Jerami Grant case could be a model for Jaden if no deal happens before the end of a year, try to find a team you can be featured more on O assuming it’s the same style of league for the foreseeable future.
Daryl and Morey Media have had more influence on how he’s viewed around the league (you can look at the thousand of transactions he had, most were nothing), as well as what good basketball should look like, than anyone.
IMO the numbers seduced/got a way from all these people, they thought it was exciting because they were seeing the matrix no one else could see, but the reality is it made many NBA games a snooze fest (including playoffs), and rendered most of the regular season data they built their careers dissecting borderline meaningless.
GS was right there as far as pushing for freedom of movement, favoring scoring efficiency over basketball, subverting a beautiful, multi-faceted game, to a very watered down chuck fest, where guys like Steph have outsized influence compared to say Giannis, or even Embiid. And the league was incentivized to keep GS in the mix, and it gave them an exciting foil for the LeBron led teams coming out of the east. And even Bogut would tell you they could kill guys on screens there. Green would frequently shove guys several feet away from the ball handler.
Fortunately we've got the Ant Man now, so clinging to that, but just being real about the type of basketball being played night in night out.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2023 10:39:37 GMT -6
Conspiracy may even be the correct term, if you’re talking about a coordinated effort to tank a single gm/team. A 1000 percent there would have been e-mails and text about it together, even if motives were slightly different.
If I have ever had a correct take on today’s NBA, it’s because I paid attention to this period of Wolves. How the media changed, how teams were constructed, the very idea of a process that I personally was not familiar with at the time, I could just see it was way different than McHale. OKC was in year three of it, but it wasn’t discussed beyond a piece in the New York Times, and the occasional “I like what they’re doing,” mentioned really on one podcast, and various ESPN radio appearances.
I am shocked at how relevant all of this is today, frankly. It’s one thing to say Wolves gave up too much for Gobert, or he is not a player I would have traded for, but the widespread panic about Wolves last season was very much driven by at least some of the same voices. The way the Gobert trade was covered, and painted as him and Towns not working, while we were missing Towns, Prince, and J-Mac, dealing with the D-Lo thing fed into such a toxicity among fans online, remember how people were talking about Connelly/the team after that Nuggets series? Now imagine that energy directed at your team for three seasons (when they were trying to lose, collect lotto picks), coming off an era where it was damn near impossible to surround KG with pieces to contend. It was so hard for this market to attract quality rotation starters let alone all-stars, and to see a group of losers intentionally trash this team, when they were finally hitting the reset button, and trying to slow build something was crap.
Look at the framing Rosas was given. Outside of Ant, what would this team have had? Layman, Juancho, Beasley, D-Lo? We likely would have dealt for Tobias Harris by now once Daryl went to Philly, but we all covered that like he was processing, and collecting “assets.” We sure Rosas has a great eye for talent because he found Culver, Nowell, J-Mac, Reid, D-Lo, Beasley, Juancho? Any of them starters?
I had to sit and listen to people tell me Hinkie got good value dealing Holiday for Noel and Carter-Williams? I’m like wait, so Sixers couldn’t have kept Holiday, and processed normally for a lottery pick? They couldn’t have built a second round Eastern Conference team with Jrue and their 20 year losing strategy? Really a lot of the difference is if these losers are buds with your gm, everyone they find is an asset versus they might be an idiot for thinking Kendall Marshall is a starting point guard.
We see how they framed the KD thing for their buddy Sean Marks when he went all in for Kyrie, KD, and Harden. It matters because that plays a role in their ability to remain patient, and what they are able to do to get out of it. Instead of it being Sean Marks fault for going all in on an incredible risk given players age, and health all of the blame was thrown at the players. Imagine if that were DK he would have been run out of town with a trident! As a gm, if you’re blessed by certain media heads you never lose, fans will buy in and stay on board, even if your own decisions (Morey trading for Harden in Philly) forces you into a new process, or costs you four years of future first round draft picks, magically it's pitched as "well, what was he supposed to do?" After being framed as Morey is the only gm that could have held firm on the Simmons thing! So he wins the trade because he gets a great player, Harden's not as valuable as Harden (and Daryl) thought, so he needs play well for Philly this year, and Morey shouldn't have to move him unless he gets great value, which as we established, he can't get for Harden anymore, so now maybe Daryl is covertly hoping he's forced to trade Embiid all along, unbelievable! If you are not Adrian Wojnarowski or Bill Simmons I don't know how you're still buying this shit.
I’d be open to a pod, but to really get it to where I would want it to be I’d need to talk to people that were around the team at the time. I would also give Kevin Love the opportunity to corroborate or give his side of how he broke his hand, and the timing of that Woj story.
While their pull, and what they’re doing is different (certainly less directed at Minny), much less impactful than 09’ through 2012-13, this last season has shown they still have more influence than they should. I probably can’t undo how Wolves fans remember their first process team at this point, I couldn’t do it in real time when friends would parrot “Rubio will never play in Minnesota,” or that “they drafted five point guards,” because they heard it on a podcast, but I can show people what Bill and Woj were doing, so if you follow, or listen to them today, you at least are aware the kind of people/reporters they are. Woj is the absolute worst of journalism in terms of how he built his career, and what crosses the line and what doesn’t. It is however the easiest path, and often very lucrative if you’re a professional troll, let alone work PR for your favorite agents and gms. Maybe Woj didn’t understand what Schwartz was doing, but I don’t care, that cannot be what gets rewarded in journalism. Guys that actually do the work of reporting like Zgoda back in the day, or Hine, Frederick now. What Bill was doing wasn’t new, what was new was bringing Morey on to help build his brand/myth, and paper over anything he might receive criticism for. This is Morey’s biggest innovation to the NBA, his ability to shape the narrative, and using guys like Hot Take Bill, and Sloan Conference to do so.
They effectively created the NBA’s version of info wars, and it started at this time. I know, I’ve studied it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2023 22:08:10 GMT -6
Really happy we blew up that team to build around Rick's step son stretch four/horrible teammate, that played no d, could not create for himself, or others instead of guys like AR who would have been awesome with Pek and Rubio. I have been told Kevin Love was more efficient though. That's what we liked about him.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2023 22:19:45 GMT -6
My new pre-game Wolves ritual will be watching these AR clips, doing lunges in my 2010 blue Wolves shorts, just to get the blood flowing.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2023 22:25:41 GMT -6
Followed by Midwest Lob City. Mute if playing at work, parental advisory warning on this. Also warning, actual point guard here for those who's eyes aren't used to it, might be alarming to the Tik Tok community.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2023 22:27:37 GMT -6
This one is safe for work sound wise, but might want to mute due to pride. I am choosing to believe Ricky Rubio and Shakira are friends. In a perfect world, there's a Shak mix out there. She had a 2010 record, could remix with something from there. There's a song on there that for a long time I thought she was talking about Gordita's, which I think is a Taco Bell item. I'm like wow, she's really into this sandwich, but it turned out to be something else.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2023 8:50:21 GMT -6
Utah Ricky was excellent, I like that he finally got paired with Favors, but in today's style, his fit with Monty, Ayton, Bridges, and Book should have been where he ended his career. It's as fun a system as a point guard can have post FOM changes. 8-0 in the bubble, would have been a playoff team if healthy. Makes me think Detroit could be fun next season.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2023 9:33:03 GMT -6
I think my favorite seasons for him are 11-12, 16-17, Utah's 17-18 (pre FOM era), his year in Phoenix, and first year with Cavs. Honorable mention would be 12-13 (coming back from injury), 14-15-16 (finally free of Love's bullshit, but tanking for Kat). Also enjoyed all this FIBA career, much more team oriented, you could see he was much more comfortable where shots are more equally distributed. Real. Effin. PG.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2023 9:38:25 GMT -6
Despite what many of our younger fans may believe Jaylen Brown and Matt Bonner are/were not point guards.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2023 9:40:11 GMT -6
Have I mentioned NBA games suck now? #thanksDarylBobAdamChrisSloan
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2023 16:17:16 GMT -6
Unrelated to the Kahn era, but we will all have to someday explain to future generations why a human person thought D-Lo was better than Wiggins + a top ten protected pick (say Giddey). And I'll I can say is I don't know children, I don't know. We were all on drugs and then someone would do a podcast reading a 10 game stretch of analytics. Up was down, down was up, there would be a pocket of numbers telling me D-Lo's elite, and those numbers betrayed us.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2023 9:54:31 GMT -6
It's so funny Ricky had the right teams in a lot of ways, and both were tore down in favor of stretch four guys, but Randolph, Pek, Beasley with Rubio would have been excellent, as would LaVine, Wiggins, Towns, the latter I try to add Ibaka. I think the first one should have tried to add CJ Miles. I think if Webster is healthy, and later Chase Budginer those could slot in there, but ideally you have a guy that can space for the main action around their offensive engine. Or if there was a way to just delete Kevin Love from the roster, and still add to that either Bud or Kirilenko, they've got everything they need playoff wise.
Looking at 2012-13, I bring back Hollins, keep Tolliver, Ellington, The Lion, Barea. The goal should have been adding to that, for example, you know what would have been great that year Love broke his hand and then did a hit job on his teammates, would have been to have kept Randolph and Beasley.
Pekovic, Hollins Randolph, Tolliver Kirilenko, Beasley, Williams Miles, Ellington Rubio, Barea, Ridnour
Trade chips include Bjelica, Love, and Johnson. The issue with Love is you couldn't trade him for Batum because they had Aldridge, still like Gay there, maybe can pry him away from Toronto before his stint in Sactown.
Unrestricted "gettable" free agents for summer 2012, Humphries, Kaman, Belineli, Miles, Hollins, Mayo, I mean that's kind of the level the Moose were looking at.
This is where Adelman really (I have a potty mouth)ed things up, Wolves were sniffing playoffs before Rubes gets down, you look at rosters around the league that 2012-13 season, Wolves were right there. That plan should have been some minor roster tweaks, I get that Love was his boy, but it's insane they tore the whole thing down for a stretch four that thought he was KD.
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Post by quinn on Aug 29, 2023 12:25:41 GMT -6
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2023 14:26:59 GMT -6
First of all I found this so triggering I spilled pudding all over my roomba. Probably won't get to the audio, but most Canis dudes today were still in utero at the time Kahn era was happening. I do think a lof them grew up reading Canis back then, who were very influenced by the exact thing I'm referring to. Might have even been able to read an article that said Wolves have to give a five year extension back then, I don't recall.
Everything I've mentioned shaped how the "Beasley weed comment" was discussed to Kahn saying they could play two small guards like Monroe Frazier being spun into he thinks Rubio/Flynn are Monroe/Frasier, oppose to maybe you can play two small guards together (which is most of the league since).
But the better example in terms of how influential this was compared to today was Rosas and Saunders. There are a lot of questions I have about Rosas and his role when Ryan was head coach. His guy D-Lo quit on that team, Ryan was starting to run more actions with Rubio versus the stand around thing, and then he fires him on the road in season.
As far as Kahn and Rambis, it's possible they didn't get along, but the reason Rambis had to go was because he tried to trade Love, and while I think Kahn would have been open to it, it was not an option for a basketball team in Minnesota. When Mchale was here they did the Celtics square court even, and then McHale drafts a guy that reminds him of himself (McHale himself a Minnesota legend), and zero chance Kahn can take a Love trade to Glenn Taylor.
So Kahn, who had signed Rambis for the beginning of the process, like Rosas did Saunders, and nearly every other processing does until recently, made the decision to get cash to buy Kurt out, to replace him with Kevin Love's grandfather Rick Adelman. Kahn did this in the off-season, a period that was shortened by the way in a lock out season. Rosas could have waited, Kahn was in much more of a time crunch given the lock-out, Rubio's (who would never play here) first season, etc.
They were covered much differently, and as a result Wolves fans (Canis) have no idea what they're talking about. Now at the time I didn't know Adelman was losing his marbles. If Love had not been on that team, (pretend he never existed) Rambis likely gets a year with Rubio and are fine, Rambis's offense made Finch's up to this point look like elementary school recess ball, but with less cutting and passing.
Some differences, for example basketball was still a sport then, not one on one drives all game and the defense is scared of any contact, can't even punch your own teammates anymore! But they are both jobs that were tanking/early process gigs. Wolves were farther along the second time having Kat, but aside from the broken basketball it's as similar a set up as you could have. The main difference is perception of Kahn, which again whole thread is about how he was covered.
While I have not heard this audio, it appears to be about a red stapler. Two things, one, I would argue blowing up two family's by having an affair with a younger employee is a bigger scandal (again nowhere near the public backlash, though he was rightfully fired), and two, there was a time in this country where a working stapler could make or break your career. We used to have to leave our communities if our workplace didn't have a working stapler, or the pencil sharpener got dull.
I do believe there are reporters who have the full, true Love hand background. Maybe one of the Canis writers could ask their mom about it?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2023 14:31:32 GMT -6
I bet Craigers knows.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2023 14:59:17 GMT -6
For all the hullabaloo made about Kahn he did add Rubio, Flynn, Milicic, Randolph, Beasley, Johnson, Williams in just three seasons. I put his year one excavation to year three transformation up against most gm's process job. That's adding seven lottery level talent guys in three years, which for this market was unimaginable, and wildly underrated. Any other gm is getting props for that. If you swap the Williams with Ant, it's Kahn in a landslide.
Rosas takes Culver year one, Flip takes Shabazz/Dieng, DK takes Flynn/Rubio (which he got for Foye and Miller btw). Flynn has a similar hip deal as Bo Jackson, his career gets submarined.
It's true some of that top end talent didn't shake out, but that is the idea of multiple year tanking. It's not that you for sure are getting a top ten player, it's that you are getting several cracks at it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2023 15:13:31 GMT -6
I don't agree with the Rubio never quite lived up to the hype, I don't know what people thought we were getting, but he is exactly what I hoped for, I mean he is the guy that played in the Olympics 08', came over and was a starting point guard out the gate for a decade.
There's this idea that because he was number five he had to be KG? Look at top ten 09-19. He's a great pick there, the same folks are high now (not draft day) with Giddey at 7, who's effectively Rubio 2.0 in the contactless drive and kick era.
It was a point guard heavy draft, Maynor, Teague, Flynn, Lawson, Evans, Holiday, Jennings. He and Holiday are clearly the best points there. Flynn very easily could have had a better career than Lawson or Jennings, I think his career would have been better than Evans. The draft class overall was projected to be way, way down, and we knew it would be a wait for Rubio. Drafting two point guards was a worthy risk, again you're weighing that with how happy is DeRozan in MN, who was very raw, there just wasn't much of a gap between all those guys after Harden and Griffin. We also just followed a whole year of debating drafting Love when we had Jefferson, and the consensus was you got to take BPA, and trade the other as an asset. Awful awful luck as well, in timing of trading Jefferson and Flynn coming off of injuries, but it's not like we had Iowa Wolves to put guys in a year or two. At one point they were sharing the Skyforce with the Heat, I think this may have been around then, but if you couldn't guarantee pt you used to have to move guys.
Griz took Hasheem Thabeet over Harden, and that got a fraction of the crap Wolves magically. Waiting for a pick wasn't new, we were currently doing that for Pek, but again the framing was he's never playing here.
Kahn's stint was nowhere near the disaster it was covered as, Flynn, Johnson, Williams were all reasonable takes, but even with that it was that forth injury riddled year that did him in. If the team had just been covered normally, or not at all, people look at 12-13 as oh that make sense, Wolves are decimated by injuries, but it followed three years of a small group of losers intentionally misframing and trashing what Wolves were doing, outside of Love "who is a great guy," and "maybe you'd take him after LeBron and KD."
It's also a bit of a reflection on us, in terms of what gets rewarded in media. And it's not just sports.
Kahn wanted Harden and Rubio, Favors, and then by the time we got to Williams ideally he has more trade value.
And let's not kid ourselves, Rosas was shopping the Ant pick, presumably to build around Lo and Kat.
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