Shams/Krawczynski: Rosas is out as POBO

[Dewey]

MN has no spine. The last leadership this state has experienced is 1991 and we know who led that story. Not much else to add. Pretty much the last time I recall any level of accountability at a professional level

[LibertyPrime]

Okay, so maybe I'm late to the party here, but I'm finding this outpouring of support for Rosas somewhat hard to believe.

I don't care about the infidelity - to paraphrase Woody from Cheers, "that's between you and Satan."

What it comes down to is that Rosas has not been good at structuring the team. We were hurting so bad for a PF last year that Josh Okogie saw significant time at the role. The off-season is basically done and we still haven't addressed that issue to any great extent, unless you think that trading for another SF that we'll try to turn into a PF is a step forward. The roster is STILL hideously unbalanced at this point. And who are our big offseason acquisitions? Why, two more guards, of course!

Then there's blowing the pick of Culver, an unmitigated disaster.

Then the Wiggins for Russell trade, which might have been hailed as a lateral move had we not also given up another lottery pick with it.

Trading Rubio is going to hurt us worse than a lot might believe. It saved money but it certainly didn't make us better and will likely make us worse if D'Lo keeps missing time.

The idea, too, that we were going to be small-ball Rockets Lite - and the roster construction moves that accompanied it - was and remains baffling.

The small things Rosas has done right are swamped by the massive mistakes he's made. Honestly, I would take 50% of the guys on this board in the position before retaining Rosas.

[KGdaBom]

Okay, so maybe I'm late to the party here, but I'm finding this outpouring of support for Rosas somewhat hard to believe.

I don't care about the infidelity - to paraphrase Woody from Cheers, "that's between you and Satan."

What it comes down to is that Rosas has not been good at structuring the team. We were hurting so bad for a PF last year that Josh Okogie saw significant time at the role. The off-season is basically done and we still haven't addressed that issue to any great extent, unless you think that trading for another SF that we'll try to turn into a PF is a step forward. The roster is STILL hideously unbalanced at this point. And who are our big offseason acquisitions? Why, two more guards, of course!

Then there's blowing the pick of Culver, an unmitigated disaster.

Then the Wiggins for Russell trade, which might have been hailed as a lateral move had we not also given up another lottery pick with it.

Trading Rubio is going to hurt us worse than a lot might believe. It saved money but it certainly didn't make us better and will likely make us worse if D'Lo keeps missing time.

The idea, too, that we were going to be small-ball Rockets Lite - and the roster construction moves that accompanied it - was and remains baffling.

The small things Rosas has done right are swamped by the massive mistakes he's made. Honestly, I would take 50% of the guys on this board in the position before retaining Rosas.

Russell is far superior to Wiggins. Whether it's worth giving up Kuminga we will have to see how Kuminga turns out.

[Klomp]

There are two basketball moves on the negative side that will greatly define Rosas' tenure: The first draft trade up and the picks in the Russell trade.

Whether or not they outweigh the positives remains to be seen.

[Krapinsky]

There are two basketball moves on the negative side that will greatly define Rosas' tenure: The first draft trade up and the picks in the Russell trade.

Whether or not they outweigh the positives remains to be seen.

These two moves were narrow misses. One spot away from landing Garland, which would have been a master stroke.

With GSW, had he just held out for top 10 or top 7 protected, wouldn’t have looked so bad. Though I have my doubts about Kuminga. In general, haven’t been too impressed by any GSW moves since West lost his influence there.

[Baseline81]

Didn't know which thread to drop this into:

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[shangrila]

Okay, so maybe I'm late to the party here, but I'm finding this outpouring of support for Rosas somewhat hard to believe.

I don't care about the infidelity - to paraphrase Woody from Cheers, "that's between you and Satan."

What it comes down to is that Rosas has not been good at structuring the team. We were hurting so bad for a PF last year that Josh Okogie saw significant time at the role. The off-season is basically done and we still haven't addressed that issue to any great extent, unless you think that trading for another SF that we'll try to turn into a PF is a step forward. The roster is STILL hideously unbalanced at this point. And who are our big offseason acquisitions? Why, two more guards, of course!

Then there's blowing the pick of Culver, an unmitigated disaster.

Then the Wiggins for Russell trade, which might have been hailed as a lateral move had we not also given up another lottery pick with it.

Trading Rubio is going to hurt us worse than a lot might believe. It saved money but it certainly didn't make us better and will likely make us worse if D'Lo keeps missing time.

The idea, too, that we were going to be small-ball Rockets Lite - and the roster construction moves that accompanied it - was and remains baffling.

The small things Rosas has done right are swamped by the massive mistakes he's made. Honestly, I would take 50% of the guys on this board in the position before retaining Rosas.

There were issues, no doubt, but there's a lot of mitigating factors as well.

Culver wasn't a horrible pick at the time, nor was it reasonable to expect Cleveland to take Garland one spot ahead after taking Sexton the year prior. I guess the lesson there was never assume that idiots will take the obvious choice. And Culver as a player...well, the shooting is brutal but how can anyone expect to develop between injuries and COVID? Not to mention that draft seems like crap so far, as a lot of the guys we were all pissed at passing up seem to have lost their shine (Herro, Clarke).

The Wiggins trade is bad in hindsight, obviously, but most thought it would take 2 picks to move him for expirings (hell, even just getting half of his contract as an expiring with the rest tied up in another bad contract seemed like it would cost an arm if not a leg). Flipping him for Russell was good in that we got a more productive player that fit better with our star, both on and off the court. That's great. The issue, similar to Culver, was health. We still, nearly 2 years on, have no damn idea what this team is because they simply haven't played together enough. It could be gold, it could be a giant great big turd. Nobody can know for certain.

But there were red flags. Doing top 3 protections instead of top 4 was odd, to say the least, and almost smacked of old school thinking. Overall though I'd do that trade again. I really hated watching Wiggins.

And I agree about roster construction. I was willing to give the idea a chance but did point out we were effectively hunting unicorns. The kind of multi-positional defenders with offensive skill sets we needed to make it work were rare, to say the least. So unless they had some fool proof plan to acquire them, it seemed like they were setting themselves up for failure. And while the public acknowledgement that their initial idea had failed and they were changing direction was nice, their actions haven't yet lived up to it (as you stated).

I sure as hell wouldn't take anyone from this board as a GM though, are you **** me? Even myself, although I will say I called McDaniels before the draft and had either Ant or LaMelo over Wiseman so...I'd at least be better than some. Christ, I still remember that one guy trying to convince me Wiseman was the One because he had the eyes of a champion or something.

Actually, I might get behind Dome as a GM. He seems level headed enough.

[shrink]

I heard a story about Sachin Gupta a while back. I’m not sure if it was a local podcast that others also heard, so I apologize if others have heard it. However, the story stuck with me describing how he thinks, and it’s short, so I’ll share it.

When Sachin came over to HOU, the front office wanted to make him feel a part of the new area, so they took him to the rodeo. One of the first events was for children, where they would have to lasso a sheep, and then drag him into a circle in the middle of the ring - fastest time won. The kids were generally pretty good at getting the lasso around the sheep, but because of their size, it often took them a long time to try to drag the sheep into the circle - some couldn’t even do it.

Sachin watched this, and asked, “why don’t they pull the opposite way, and have the sheep pull himself into the circle?”

I love this story, because it shows that his brain can problem-solve unconventionally. This is the type of thinking that a team like Minnesota need, with few advantages built into this franchise. I was already Moneyball before Moneyball was written, and this story reminds me that we are going to need new ideas and new ways of thinking to succeed. I am happy to have a Gupta in charge.

[Krapinsky]

Has Finch made any comment whatsoever about Rosas' firing?

[KGdaBom]

Has Finch made any comment whatsoever about Rosas' firing?

I'm pretty sure he hasn't. Taylor made it pretty clear they would not be commenting on former employees.

[Klomp]

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