2023-24 preseason

[shrink]

Better off seasons than Wolves in the West:

Suns (Beal, Eric Gordon, Bol Bol, Watanabe)
Lakers (Gabe Vincent, Prince, Jaxson Hayes, Reddish)
Warriors (Paul)
Mavs (Grant Williams, Lively)
OKC (Holmgren, Micic)
Spurs (Wembanyama)
Wolves (Milton, Brown Jr)
Utah (that rookie combo guard, I forget his name, he could be a top 5 rookie)

If you’re talking about how a team gets better, you’d probably have to include Towns, who’s better than everyone on this list.

If you’re just talking off-seasons, we locked up Ant for four years, and no other team did that. Spurs won lottery, and get four years of Wemby, which is only competition for “best off-season” this year.

[KGdaBom]

Nothing has changed from last year except for the return of KAT, if you think he gets us 9 more wins this season he better get the MVP this year.

How about ANT being the MVP or close. Yes KAT returning is massive. Our bench improvements are huge. We are the most improved team in the west. Top 3 for sure.

I love Ant, but he's not even close to MVP. The Ant hype is ridiculous.

He needs to improve efficiency, but he has been doing that every year. if he gets his FG% up to 48 from 46 and takes another shot or 2 a game he will be a 30 PPG scorer. He will be close to leading the NBA in 3s and steals. He Needs to get the FTs up to 80%. Cut down on a few TOs and I think that puts him in the discussion. I said MVP or close. I did not say MVP. He can be close.

[KGdaBom]

Nothing has changed from last year except for the return of KAT, if you think he gets us 9 more wins this season he better get the MVP this year.

How about ANT being the MVP or close. Yes KAT returning is massive. Our bench improvements are huge. We are the most improved team in the west. Top 3 for sure.

Very idealistic of you to hope for Ant to become MVP this year. He's hopefully gonna make big leaps this year.

KAT returning would you say that's even 7 wins worthy, because he'd have the highest win shares in the league if that were true.

We are far from the most improved team, there's a lot of other teams that have made improvements to their roster this off-season. DAL and HOU both made far more improvements than we did. I could make the case that the Suns did as well. Improvements do not constitute a better team just overall improvement.

In fact we probably are pretty close to the Thunder and Pelicans as far as off-season moves. Both of those teams are about to add their best player, a big back to their roster, and made some smaller moves to improve their team.

I would not call us the most improved team this off-season.

I'd say were in a pretty good scenario a 5 seed this year, and that's being optimistic. It's more like 6-8 this year.

We are in great disagreement. I think ANT stepping up to a MVP contender, I never said MVP, and KAT being around for the whole season, and the huge improvements to our bench do make us the most improved team. I see us top 3. You don't. That's OK. I hope I'm right and you are wrong.

[KGdaBom]

I think people are sleeping on just how much of an improvement to the bench the team did this offseason. Replacing the 4400 minutes the team gave Nowell, Prince, Rivers, McLaughlin, and Forbes with Milton, NAW, Brown, and Anderson (takes Princes SF minutes) is a truly massive upgrade.

Prince and Brown are about the same. Anderson already played big minutes last year. NAW was also on the team last year. McL is probably keeping his minutes.

We replaced Nowell with Milton. That's really it. We went .500 in the post all star break so expecting massive changes from the bench is unlikely.

Anderson is the guy who is taking over Prince's role at SF with Naz taking the PF minutes. Basically, I see it a Milton taking over the Nowell/McLaughlin minutes, NAW taking over Rivers minutes, and Anderson taking over the Prince Minutes. Brown is the guy who plays when any of the non-bigs is out. However you look at it, there are 4400 minutes of really poor basketball that are almost certain to be replaced by significantly better players.

[thinktank]

Better off seasons than Wolves in the West:

Suns (Beal, Eric Gordon, Bol Bol, Watanabe)
Lakers (Gabe Vincent, Prince, Jaxson Hayes, Reddish)
Warriors (Paul)
Mavs (Grant Williams, Lively)
OKC (Holmgren, Micic)
Spurs (Wembanyama)
Wolves (Milton, Brown Jr)
Utah (that rookie combo guard, I forget his name, he could be a top 5 rookie)

If you’re talking about how a team gets better, you’d probably have to include Towns, who’s better than everyone on this list.

If you’re just talking off-seasons, we locked up Ant for four years, and no other team did that. Spurs won lottery, and get four years of Wemby, which is only competition for “best off-season” this year.

Ant is not an addition.

The question was off-season quality in the context of this year verses last year.

KAT is in that larger discussion as long as he stays healthy. Ant is not. He missed two games or so.

Talk about moving the goal posts.

Beal > KAT anyway.

[shrink]

Better off seasons than Wolves in the West:

Suns (Beal, Eric Gordon, Bol Bol, Watanabe)
Lakers (Gabe Vincent, Prince, Jaxson Hayes, Reddish)
Warriors (Paul)
Mavs (Grant Williams, Lively)
OKC (Holmgren, Micic)
Spurs (Wembanyama)
Wolves (Milton, Brown Jr)
Utah (that rookie combo guard, I forget his name, he could be a top 5 rookie)

If you’re talking about how a team gets better, you’d probably have to include Towns, who’s better than everyone on this list.

If you’re just talking off-seasons, we locked up Ant for four years, and no other team did that. Spurs won lottery, and get four years of Wemby, which is only competition for “best off-season” this year.

Ant is not an addition.

The question was off-season quality in the context of this year verses last year.

KAT is in that larger discussion as long as he stays healthy. Ant is not. He missed two games or so.

Talk about moving the goal posts.

Beal > KAT anyway.

Oh that was the question? Because nobody asked that question, and you didn’t quote anybody - you just led off with “Better Off-season” which is why I wanted you to pick a lane.

If you are specifically talking about a better off-season, adding four years of an emerging Ant is pretty damn good. In fact, I think most other teams would trade in their entire off-season if they got the chance to add four years of Ant to their team.

If you really were talking about “additions” to exclude listing Ant, then Towns for this season, to some degree, should have been included as an addition to last year’s team. I also disagree that Beal is better than KAT, on either side of the court.

[Klomp]

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[thinktank]

If you’re talking about how a team gets better, you’d probably have to include Towns, who’s better than everyone on this list.

If you’re just talking off-seasons, we locked up Ant for four years, and no other team did that. Spurs won lottery, and get four years of Wemby, which is only competition for “best off-season” this year.

Ant is not an addition.

The question was off-season quality in the context of this year verses last year.

KAT is in that larger discussion as long as he stays healthy. Ant is not. He missed two games or so.

Talk about moving the goal posts.

Beal > KAT anyway.

Oh that was the question? Because nobody asked that question, and you didn’t quote anybody - you just led off with “Better Off-season” which is why I wanted you to pick a lane.

If you are specifically talking about a better off-season, adding four years of an emerging Ant is pretty damn good. In fact, I think most other teams would trade in their entire off-season if they got the chance to add four years of Ant to their team.

If you really were talking about “additions” to exclude listing Ant, then Towns for this season, to some degree, should have been included as an addition to last year’s team. I also disagree that Beal is better than KAT, on either side of the court.

Yeah, I’m specifically talking about off-seasons, building off Note’s post about WCF teams’ offseasons.

You can do whatever you like.

[Klomp]

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From talking to Chris Finch in his time here, I've always got the sense that he really values having a second unit scorer/playmaking type -- something he's never really had.

(Honestly, I think of that one year where DLo came back from injury and came off the bench for like 12 straight games -- and Finch loved that look, and it worked.)

But point being: I think Finch is really excited that he might have that in Shake Milton. Asked him about that today...

You had excitement this summer about Shake. What has that looked like seeing him in camp, in the preseason games?
"He can get to wherever he wants to with the ball, can create his own offense but also creates really well for others. I've been very impressed with his playmaking. Like I thought of him always more of a scorer, but he's really balanced it in our structure right now. So much so that I actually am pushing him to be more aggressive all the time. Like, I want him to kinda look for himself more. I think that's something we can really use. Defensively, he's competing his butt off, he's in the right spots all the time. I think he's trying to value defense more than he ever has done. And he fits in with EVERYBODY -- like play him alongside Kyle or Nickeil or Anthony or with KAT, Rudy. It's really a luxury to have that."

You've had some really big lineups with Shake at the 1. What does big 1 through 5 do for you?
"Seemingly it's one of our advantages, so we're trying to like lean into it. [Shake] is bigger than I thought he was. He's got I think a 7'1 wingspan, too. We're kinda big, like I didn't really recognize our size until we were against some of those Dallas lineups. Then we looked really big. A lot of teams play with the second unit smaller too, so maybe we can take some advantage there. And it comes down to defensively, what are you able to cover."

That wingspan has to help thought defensively? Five 7-foot wingspans out there at the same time.
"For sure. Yeah, exactly. As long as we stay committed to being in the right gaps. But I think we're still gonna put a lot of emphasis at defeating penetration at the point of attack, rather than relying everything at the rim, whether Rudy is on or off the floor. So just kinda use that length on the perimeter as much as at the rim."

[KATKlownFeet]

How about ANT being the MVP or close. Yes KAT returning is massive. Our bench improvements are huge. We are the most improved team in the west. Top 3 for sure.

I love Ant, but he's not even close to MVP. The Ant hype is ridiculous.

He needs to improve efficiency, but he has been doing that every year. if he gets his FG% up to 48 from 46 and takes another shot or 2 a game he will be a 30 PPG scorer. He will be close to leading the NBA in 3s and steals. He Needs to get the FTs up to 80%. Cut down on a few TOs and I think that puts him in the discussion. I said MVP or close. I did not say MVP. He can be close.

To me close means being a top 3 or 4 guy in league. Last year Ant was just outside top 20 scorers per game. However, pretty much every guy that outscored him was also more efficient. Ant is also not elite in rebounding or assists. If Ant takes a leap as I hope he may jump into top ten players. However for him to be a serious MVP candidate will probably take at least 2 or 3 years of steady improvement and Wolves as a top 3 or 4 team.

[KGdaBom]

I love Ant, but he's not even close to MVP. The Ant hype is ridiculous.

He needs to improve efficiency, but he has been doing that every year. if he gets his FG% up to 48 from 46 and takes another shot or 2 a game he will be a 30 PPG scorer. He will be close to leading the NBA in 3s and steals. He Needs to get the FTs up to 80%. Cut down on a few TOs and I think that puts him in the discussion. I said MVP or close. I did not say MVP. He can be close.

To me close means being a top 3 or 4 guy in league. Last year Ant was just outside top 20 scorers per game. However, pretty much every guy that outscored him was also more efficient. Ant is also not elite in rebounding or assists. If Ant takes a leap as I hope he may jump into top ten players. However for him to be a serious MVP candidate will probably take at least 2 or 3 years of steady improvement and Wolves as a top 3 or 4 team.

I think he could be top 5 pretty realistically. He's not elite in rebounds or assists, but he is elite in steals and 3s. When you consider how many 3s he makes and if he improves FT% he will be a very efficient scorer. He needs to cut down the TOs a bit which I already mentioned. Top 5 this year? Yeah it can happen.

[TimberKat]

Not so good vs NYK so far. Half of the time I don't know what offense Wolves are running. Naz's 3pt shooting form seems smoother (better) than last year. Ant still playing more ISO and not really integrated. The intensity in the first half feels like a regular season game.

[wolves_89]

Having the lead at the half is really encouraging when Ant/KAT are both having poor shooting nights and the team as a whole missed a ton of wide-open shots.

[younggunsmn]

Shake Milton signing looking really good so far.
Hopefully he can have a similar impact to what Kyle Anderson did last year.
That would give this team a big boost because lead guard off the bench was maybe our biggest weakness last year.

[Folklore]

Ant seems off. He had too many turn overs and worrying about getting a foul call. If he doesn't bring up his efficiency he's just a Jr Smith who dribbles too much.

[TimberKat]

Shake Milton signing looking really good so far.
Hopefully he can have a similar impact to what Kyle Anderson did last year.
That would give this team a big boost because lead guard off the bench was maybe our biggest weakness last year.

Shake is +31 off the bench. I almost want him to just focus on scoring and look for his own shots instead of trying to setup other players. Minott showed some improvements but needs to learn how to dribble (see that travel dunk). JMcL is a nice insurance if he keeps hitting the 3s. There is just no "Moore" room on this team.

[wolves_89]

One thing from the Knicks game I was extremely happy with was KAT not hesitating to shoot the 3. He got up 8 3s in 26 minutes and almost all of them were good shots that he needs to be taking.