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Post by levine on Oct 13, 2024 18:13:54 GMT -6
Yes he is behind Randle. I don’t know how that could be more clear. Maybe he’s a sweetener in a Randle deal after the season. I mean he looked fine so if we want to roll him out there perfectly fine with. If it’s one thing I learned watching D-Lo it’s the only way to stay fly, is to show as little interest or care as humanly possible. That and roller skates. I'm literally quoting you... |
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Post by levine on Oct 13, 2024 18:18:51 GMT -6
As good as his defense is, NAW is virtually unplayable when his shot isn't falling.
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Post by darko on Oct 13, 2024 18:20:31 GMT -6
Yes he is behind Randle. I don’t know how that could be more clear. Maybe he’s a sweetener in a Randle deal after the season. I mean he looked fine so if we want to roll him out there perfectly fine with. If it’s one thing I learned watching D-Lo it’s the only way to stay fly, is to show as little interest or care as humanly possible. That and roller skates. I'm literally quoting you... They remain both true. My main concern is are we top ten in offensive rating this pre-season, or at least next to Clips and Pacers. |
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Post by Nick K on Oct 13, 2024 20:45:52 GMT -6
TSJ is such a wild card IMO. He's 24 already. To contextualize, Minott is 21 and NAW is 26. He should absolutely be ready to go, but there may be some acclimation to the size and physicality and he may not have a role ready made. I think that getting Donte probably makes TSJ more expendable as well. He may be better suited for another contending team with less depth on it. The swing stuff I think for Shannon: What position is he? What position is Minott? If TSJ is a 3, then there may be more minutes available. If Minott is a 3, that may mean Shannon is a 2, which I think could be a better position for him. Once he's in the guard lineup, he's battling Dilly, Donte, and NAW for minutes. I think he's probably 4th banana in that battle. Now, if Minott is a 4, which I think may be more likely, that means he's competing with Ingles, NAW, and Keita which is a much better shot for him. I would love to see more TSJ than Ingles during the regular season. I think he's going to provide much more offensive value than Ingles as a downhill threat and a transition runner. Finch has said the goal is to play fast, which makes me think we'll get some of the young guns more during the regular season. I don't think TSJ will get minutes right away, but I think he's got the chops to win some out as the year progresses and fatigue hits. One thing's for sure. Too many deserving players is not a bad thing for the Wolves. I think the age thing is overrated. Sure he's 24. And that would matter if we were drafting a potential star. TSJ is a role player who at 24, still has 6-8 good years in the league if he can play. Thats within our window as it sits right now. 24 year old will probably pick things up faster than a 19 year old. I expect him to be much better by the end of the year than a normal 19-20 year old would. I think you need to give TSJ every opportunity. This guy could be really good. The age thing is over-rated. |
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Post by Nick K on Oct 13, 2024 20:50:24 GMT -6
As good as his defense is, NAW is virtually unplayable when his shot isn't falling. Just like Okogie.
I'm really surprised NAW's shot has fallen off so much. He was exposed again bringing up the ball tonight. The coaches shouldn't be putting him in that position to fail.
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Post by Nick K on Oct 13, 2024 21:14:44 GMT -6
Dilly was cold again tonight but Minott showed some good things again tonight. I felt this was a make or break year for Minott to step up and show real improvement. And he has. A real pleasant surprise.
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Post by XRaySpecs on Oct 14, 2024 7:30:02 GMT -6
I think you need to give TSJ every opportunity. This guy could be really good. The age thing is over-rated. It's really not overrated. Age isn't perfect as a predictor, but most of the time, players follow a fairly typical trajectory in their personal player development. We're just getting TJ much further along on his trajectory which limits a lot of upside. Not all growth is linear though and it doesn't make picking him a bad move, but unless you're banking on atypical development, him being 24 limits his ceiling. I'm fine with him given where he was drafted. If he's a rotation guy, we get his prime on his rookie scale deal and will know 100% where he's at as a player before we'd have to extend him. We're just giving up the high end outcomes when drafting a 24 yo who doesn't light it up from the jump. |
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Post by XRaySpecs on Oct 14, 2024 7:45:53 GMT -6
Dilly was cold again tonight but Minott showed some good things again tonight. I felt this was a make or break year for Minott to step up and show real improvement. And he has. A real pleasant surprise. Dilly has some shown some nice playmaking skills, but he's also shown that he might have to just be a guy who makes hard shots if he's going to score with any kind of efficiency. One of the concerns with him was that his shooting at Kentucky was an outlier compared to how he shot it in all the AAU and high school stuff. Obviously guys improve, but it's not like he's always been this lights out shooter. Hopefully he adjusts quickly. Minott has been encouraging. He always seemed like a guy that might be able to impact a game without big scoring numbers and he's showing some of that currently. Let's hope he continues to grow defensively. He has the tools to be an impactful defender and you can never have too many defensive players with his length and athletecism. |
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Post by darko on Oct 14, 2024 9:04:51 GMT -6
Minott has been encouraging. He always seemed like a guy that might be able to impact a game without big scoring numbers and he's showing some of that currently. Let's hope he continues to grow defensively. He has the tools to be an impactful defender and you can never have too many defensive players with his length and athletecism. He is also in the category of a guy who will want minutes, and touches to prove his next contract here, and if healthy I still think he's out on the minutes crunch, but like we saw last night is a necessary option if McD, and Naz are in foul trouble. We are going to work Randle in here soon, but I would love to see a pre-season game we get Garza, Luka, and Minott some burn together. It would be nice to experiment more, but I think the priority is going to get the main rotation guys gelling right now. |
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Post by Nick K on Oct 14, 2024 9:22:33 GMT -6
I think you need to give TSJ every opportunity. This guy could be really good. The age thing is over-rated. Age isn't perfect as a predictor, but most of the time, players follow a fairly typical trajectory in their personal player development. We're just getting TJ much further along on his trajectory which limits a lot of upside. Not all growth is linear though and it doesn't make picking him a bad move, but unless you're banking on atypical development, him being 24 limits his ceiling. I'm fine with him given where he was drafted. If he's a rotation guy, we get his prime on his rookie scale deal and will know 100% where he's at as a player before we'd have to extend him. We're just giving up the high end outcomes when drafting a 24 yo who doesn't light it up from the jump. You have to judge every guy individually. I'm still unconvinced on the age argument within reason. |
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Post by darko on Oct 14, 2024 9:29:52 GMT -6
Age, fit, what you're asking a player to do. Wolves fans are hoping Naz raises his ceiling, but he has also been the league several years, and is 24/25. Sure he can score more points, but more minutes could also mean more lapses in d, turnovers, or nights like last night where he's in foul trouble. I think he'll be fine, but again that gap between he and Kat is not just shooting percentage particularly pre-whatever we're saying this rule change is.
I agree with the general idea we'll still have to consolidate some of our young pieces eventually here, and that comes with the ?'s of resigning Naz to what $, Randle, Minott trying to get floor time. Wolves just have more questions than had we just added another guard to our core four.
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Post by tmill720 on Oct 14, 2024 9:38:39 GMT -6
Age, fit, what you're asking a player to do. Wolves fans are hoping Naz raises his ceiling, but he has also been the league several years, and is 24/25. Sure he can score more points, but more minutes could also mean more lapses in d, turnovers, or nights like last night where he's in foul trouble. I think he'll be fine, but again that gap between he and Kat is not just shooting percentage particularly pre-whatever we're saying this rule change is. I agree with the general idea we'll still have to consolidate some of our young pieces eventually here, and that comes with the ?'s of resigning Naz to what $, Randle, Minott trying to get floor time. Wolves just have more questions than had we just added another guard to our core four. That sounds like Towns! |
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Post by levine on Oct 14, 2024 10:02:59 GMT -6
At this point my rotation guess is:
Conley/Ant/McDaniels/Randle/Gobet:
6: Naz
7: Donte
8: NAW
9: Minott
10: Dillingham
Garza may play some spot minutes, but when we're healthy, he likely gets DNPCDs.
Ingles is not going to be much more than a locker room presence.
Miller and TSJ probably start the year in Iowa. TSJ's best chance of making the roster is a NAW trade.
I think Naz and Donte are both effectively "6th men" and game situations will depend on who comes in first.
I also expect Donte to start at PG on games that Conley misses. My guess is Mike gets at least 10 "rest" games during the season. And I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up only playing in 60-65 games, even if healthy.
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Post by darko on Oct 14, 2024 10:19:02 GMT -6
80% of Towns. I don't disagree with the idea of splitting Towns into multiple parts, but we're underestimating how much that gap actually is, and it pushes as back as a serious contender short term. Which is fine, just a different path for the Ant Man. If Ant doesn't go bananas there last night Knicks are running away with it. Just a pre-season game, but it did look like a real basketball game. Looking forward to point Randle though, had no idea his greatest skill was pace pushing point guard. We had an real point guard who was elite at that, but I was informed we didn't know how to use him because our head coach is an offensive genius. |
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Post by quinn on Oct 14, 2024 10:19:35 GMT -6
At this point my rotation guess is: Conley/Ant/McDaniels/Randle/Gobet: 6: Naz 7: Donte 8: NAW 9: Minott 10: Dillingham Garza may play some spot minutes, but when we're healthy, he likely gets DNPCDs. Ingles is not going to be much more than a locker room presence. Miller and TSJ probably start the year in Iowa. TSJ's best chance of making the roster is a NAW trade. I think Naz and Donte are both effectively "6th men" and game situations will depend on who comes in first. I also expect Donte to start at PG on games that Conley misses. My guess is Mike gets at least 10 "rest" games during the season. And I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up only playing in 60-65 games, even if healthy. I think you're probably right on that. We're going to be hurting on the glass with that unit barring some big improvement from Naz and the guards. That's a pretty small 2nd unit. They'll be able to outrun most of the other units but man, in the halfcourt, we may be talking about how they hemorrhage 2nd chance points and paint points. |
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Post by tmill720 on Oct 14, 2024 11:28:13 GMT -6
At this point my rotation guess is: Conley/Ant/McDaniels/Randle/Gobet: 6: Naz 7: Donte 8: NAW 9: Minott 10: Dillingham Garza may play some spot minutes, but when we're healthy, he likely gets DNPCDs. Ingles is not going to be much more than a locker room presence. Miller and TSJ probably start the year in Iowa. TSJ's best chance of making the roster is a NAW trade. I think Naz and Donte are both effectively "6th men" and game situations will depend on who comes in first. I also expect Donte to start at PG on games that Conley misses. My guess is Mike gets at least 10 "rest" games during the season. And I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up only playing in 60-65 games, even if healthy. I think Ingles will play more than we may want him to - especially early on in place of Minott and/or Dillingham. If they're playing wild and turning the ball over, I could see Finch pulling the SloMo card and bring in Ingles for some steadily unspectacular play. Could also see Ingles over NAW some if NAW is shooting poorly and we need someone to space the floor and game manage. We aren't relying on NAW as much this year with Randle in place of Towns and Donte being a much better version of him. |
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Post by jojo on Oct 14, 2024 13:02:38 GMT -6
Ingles is a minimum guy and won’t play in many games, but could have a decent role in favorable matchups. They are going to have to figure out the backup PG - looks like it may be Ant plus DD always on the floor when Mike isn’t. But Ant has to learn to give up the ball if he’s pressed and let it come back.
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Post by Nick K on Oct 14, 2024 16:54:17 GMT -6
At this point my rotation guess is: Conley/Ant/McDaniels/Randle/Gobet: 6: Naz 7: Donte 8: NAW 9: Minott 10: Dillingham Garza may play some spot minutes, but when we're healthy, he likely gets DNPCDs. Ingles is not going to be much more than a locker room presence. Miller and TSJ probably start the year in Iowa. TSJ's best chance of making the roster is a NAW trade. I think Naz and Donte are both effectively "6th men" and game situations will depend on who comes in first. I also expect Donte to start at PG on games that Conley misses. My guess is Mike gets at least 10 "rest" games during the season. And I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up only playing in 60-65 games, even if healthy. Makes sense. I'm loving McD at SF where he should be. Where are you on the Randle fit? |
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Post by levine on Oct 14, 2024 16:58:28 GMT -6
Where are you on the Randle fit? I'll tell you after I see him... |
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Post by jr on Oct 15, 2024 7:29:22 GMT -6
I recorded the NY game and watched it last night. Donte is a serious real deal. He and Rudy are both clearly 1B. If Rudy had any hands or rim touch at all he'd stand alone, but his hands and touch are wtf bad. MacD is repeating himself. His elite defender label gets an asterisk because he takes himself out of the game. The new reffing rules were not on display in this game, or at least were applied differentially. Total fouls of 28-22 is closer than it seemed. Sims got 6 of NY's in 13 minutes of play. Brunson gets way too much grace from the refs. One of Naz's fouls was Brunson tripping over his own feet. Replay was clear. And Dilly's accurate shooting rep is taking a beating. He can dribble through a crowd like a squirrel dodging the tires of a minivan, but then he seems to just fling the ball up without any premeditation. I sure hope that is rookie jitters. How come guys can't set a decent screen? Naz was out on top a lot being the screen/roll/pop guy and it was a lesson in how good Rudy is at it. It is such a simple, fundamental thing, get your shoulders perpendicular to the defenders path and hold the position for 1/2-1 second. How fricking hard can that be? Naz couldn't clear the defender off of Ant despite multiple attempts.
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Post by XRaySpecs on Oct 16, 2024 6:58:23 GMT -6
Listening to lots of preseason talk and I have to push back a little on the sentiment that the Mavs completely handled the Wolves in the WCF.
In game 1 the Wolves were up 6 with the ball to end the first half when Ant just threw the ball out of bounds. We should have had the last shot to extend the lead, but instead the Mavs went down and Kyrie made an and 1 to cut the lead to 3 going into the half. We lost the game by 3.
In game 2 the Wolves were up 2 with 47 secs left when Jaden McDaniels was fouled and the ball went out of bounds as a result. The foul wasn't called and the call stood on review. Luka eventually hit the 3 to give Dallas the 1 pt win. The league changed the rules so that this year the review of the McDaniels TO would have given the ball back to MN.
The Wolves split in Dallas which could have easily given the Wolves a 3-1 lead heading back to Target Center.
Yes, the Wolves were smoked in game 5. I think that's all people remember though. They don't remember that it was a closely played series for the first 4 games.
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Post by darko on Oct 16, 2024 8:45:00 GMT -6
Listening to lots of preseason talk and I have to push back a little on the sentiment that the Mavs completely handled the Wolves in the WCF. In game 1 the Wolves were up 6 with the ball to end the first half when Ant just threw the ball out of bounds. We should have had the last shot to extend the lead, but instead the Mavs went down and Kyrie made an and 1 to cut the lead to 3 going into the half. We lost the game by 3. In game 2 the Wolves were up 2 with 47 secs left when Jaden McDaniels was fouled and the ball went out of bounds as a result. The foul wasn't called and the call stood on review. Luka eventually hit the 3 to give Dallas the 1 pt win. The league changed the rules so that this year the review of the McDaniels TO would have given the ball back to MN. The Wolves split in Dallas which could have easily given the Wolves a 3-1 lead heading back to Target Center. Yes, the Wolves were smoked in game 5. I think that's all people remember though. They don't remember that it was a closely played series for the first 4 games. This is exactly right. Wolves are right there, and if Ant doesn't take that fall in Denver, and Wolves correct a handful of possessions, they easily could have taken one or both games one and two. We don't know if the Ant Timberwolves get will back there period. It's like when folks say well they aren't going to win with being 17th on offense, but last years team could easily have been 12-10 if we played halfway normal offense. Get Ant downhill in space with our two centers that are ideal for trail, lobs, and swinging out to Kat Man. To say Finch now has guys who play his system, sure, but then that begs the question what the f were we doing the last three years? We were we not trying to maximize the personnel we had, put them in best positions to succeed? All of that was left on the table. Our offense could be better, and Ant's numbers will look more like the high usage scorers across the league, but we could still be a worse team. Ant has more of a burden now against that salty Mav's and Thunder d come playoffs. |
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Post by Nick K on Oct 16, 2024 8:59:46 GMT -6
Listening to lots of preseason talk and I have to push back a little on the sentiment that the Mavs completely handled the Wolves in the WCF. In game 1 the Wolves were up 6 with the ball to end the first half when Ant just threw the ball out of bounds. We should have had the last shot to extend the lead, but instead the Mavs went down and Kyrie made an and 1 to cut the lead to 3 going into the half. We lost the game by 3. In game 2 the Wolves were up 2 with 47 secs left when Jaden McDaniels was fouled and the ball went out of bounds as a result. The foul wasn't called and the call stood on review. Luka eventually hit the 3 to give Dallas the 1 pt win. The league changed the rules so that this year the review of the McDaniels TO would have given the ball back to MN. The Wolves split in Dallas which could have easily given the Wolves a 3-1 lead heading back to Target Center. Yes, the Wolves were smoked in game 5. I think that's all people remember though. They don't remember that it was a closely played series for the first 4 games. That's right. All good points. The Wolves were cold much of the series and Luka and Kyrie couldn't miss. We still kept it close. They came back down to earth against Boston and look what happened. They were trounced. |
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Post by XRaySpecs on Oct 16, 2024 10:41:33 GMT -6
The counter to being close to Dallas is that it took a historic 2nd half comeback vs. Denver to even get to the WCF. Both series show how thin the margin for success is at the highest levels of the NBA.
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Post by darko on Oct 16, 2024 10:48:05 GMT -6
Which is why having some idea of what we're doing on O to clean up those possessions right before half against Denver, followed by that steal and half court shot by Jamal to end the half is so important.
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