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Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition

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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1941 » by Klomp » Thu Feb 20, 2025 10:53 pm

winforlose wrote:
Klomp wrote:
winforlose wrote:
23/24 and 24/25. 22/23 was a bad year for KAT. His horrible infection really derailed his season. He lost a ton of weight, was prevented from working on his game, and left vulnerable to a soft tissue injury which took longer than expected to recover from. But the defensive leap, the smoothness of his transition to PF, and the ability to play at such an elite level know even with thumb issues show KAT is in his prime.

Towns is 29. McDaniels is 24. So you are refusing to make a move on him because he might make a prime jump 5 years from now?


I am confused by this. Towns at 29 has presumably 5 to 7 solid years left (assuming health and non basketball stuff don’t derail him.) KD has at best 3 years left, likely fewer. Jaden at 24 (making the same KAT presumptions,) probably has 14-15 years left. But longevity isn’t the issue. KAT still being in his prime might continue to improve but is unlikely to regress (it could happen, but is not typical.) Jaden being pre prime means his play should improve. KD being well past his prime and on the wrong side of 35 is more likely to regress. In fact they added the rule of 38 for situations like KDs were an aging player might try and get the long term contract leveraging a team to do it.

Good point, which shows the monstrosity of a mistake the front office made by trading Wendell Moore last year! After all, he's got like 20 years left in his prime!
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1942 » by winforlose » Thu Feb 20, 2025 11:07 pm

Klomp wrote:
winforlose wrote:
Klomp wrote:Towns is 29. McDaniels is 24. So you are refusing to make a move on him because he might make a prime jump 5 years from now?


I am confused by this. Towns at 29 has presumably 5 to 7 solid years left (assuming health and non basketball stuff don’t derail him.) KD has at best 3 years left, likely fewer. Jaden at 24 (making the same KAT presumptions,) probably has 14-15 years left. But longevity isn’t the issue. KAT still being in his prime might continue to improve but is unlikely to regress (it could happen, but is not typical.) Jaden being pre prime means his play should improve. KD being well past his prime and on the wrong side of 35 is more likely to regress. In fact they added the rule of 38 for situations like KDs were an aging player might try and get the long term contract leveraging a team to do it.

Good point, which shows the monstrosity of a mistake the front office made by trading Wendell Moore last year! After all, he's got like 20 years left in his prime!


Yes because Jaden and WMJ are roughly equivalent players. Again you take a valid argument about average career trajectory, you drag it to a ridiculous extreme and pretend it was in any way connected to my very reasonable point.

WMJ should improve. Jaylen Nowell was a G league all star. Just because a player reaches their peak doesn’t mean that at their peak they are super talented by NBA standards. But, among the players who have elite potential you would rather be on the right side of 30 than the wrong side, and that is doubly true of being on the right side of 35. Go to the trade board, there is a thread on whether Paul George and Joel Embiid have any trade value left. Age is definitely a factor, as is contract, and health. Also as I mentioned above when players age their health starts to become an issue. It happened to KAT, and as you noted KD missed 20% of the games in his career. Not exactly an Ironman. He has already missed 13 this year and could easily miss 4 more. That would put him under 80%.
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1943 » by Klomp » Thu Feb 20, 2025 11:26 pm

winforlose wrote:Yes because Jaden and WMJ are roughly equivalent players.

Neither are Kevin Durant and Jaden McDaniels....
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1944 » by winforlose » Thu Feb 20, 2025 11:47 pm

Klomp wrote:
winforlose wrote:Yes because Jaden and WMJ are roughly equivalent players.

Neither are Kevin Durant and Jaden McDaniels....


“ Kevin Durant is elite, and has been for going on almost 20 years. Sure, a fall-off could come at any moment, at which he becomes the level of.....a Jaden McDaniels or Naz Reid level, if we're being honest” quoting you.

Again you fail to address the relevant facts.

1. KD costs 54 million next year and possibly more beyond if he demands a max.

2. KD is not currently on the team. To acquire him has direct cost in the form of players and picks. Jaden is on the team right now and costs us nothing additional.

3. KD might fall off and become Jaden, but Jaden might rise to a significantly higher level in the next few years. It might not be KD level, but for the money it doesn’t need to be. A 20/10 Jaden would be excellent for us.

You keep trying to compare apples to oranges and you fail to recognize the undeniable truth. KD is not a free agent. This is not a CP3 to Spurs type situation. Giving up valuable assets and losing other players as a result (Naz, NAW, a player we draft,) has long term negative effects. Likewise KD is a short term player (best case he plays 3 years with us.) But Ant, Jaden, and Naz on a longer timeline. The best strategy is to build as best we can around them. That does not include selling low on Dilly. NAW, and a decent first. It means getting guys who are likely to be here in 3 or 4 years who will have continuity and fit.
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1945 » by Note30 » Thu Feb 20, 2025 11:58 pm

fattymcgee wrote:
Note30 wrote:
Fleeced? Dude is averaging 5.6 and 2.5. Maybe he'll get better but at the moment fleece def isn't the word Id use. We overpaid for mediocre talent. Not the first time.

Name a player you'd trade a pick swap and basically unprotected pick for 5.6 and 2.5.

We're also on the brink of potential collapse with no picks coming back, that pick is not trending towards 20+. It's trending towards top 10. In our current state, Ant asks out in a few years and we have no prospects of getting better.

Wild terrible take, but not surprising given your last major take was about how KAT is a trash terrible player.


Your logic baffles me. We definitely got the better end of that trade.
Your reasoning is using rookie raw stats that plays on a playoff team that sits behind 4 good rotation level guards. How would you expect any rookie to put up good raw numbers in these circumstances?

His Per 36 numbers look pretty damned good for a rookie and he's just turned 20.
16.6PPG & 7.0 ASST on .456/.377

Note30 wrote:Damn you're delusional. We have Ant. That's it. Without him this is a bottom 3 team in the WC.

Most talented roster lol what a **** joke.

We're 7th seed. We're one injury away from being 11th. Which would be probably a 13th pick.

Mid picks are where you find a bunch of good players. It's the lottery for the first 14 picks.

But keep smoking that good ****.


Exaggerate much? Right now we are 2+ injuries away yet we are winning more games than we are losing. We are missing our #2 & #4 scorer and Conley lately too. Roster seems pretty solid to me.


Per 36? I'm sure you can find a bunch of players who played like 10 minutes a game with amazing Per36 numbers.

Him being buried is part of how **** the deal is. You trade for what you need in situations like ours.

And in that time Edwards has dropped 4+ 40 pt games. Not exactly screaming the rest of our talent can hang.

I called everything correctly since we traded for that lumbering oaf. Come back to me in 2-3 years when we bottom out.
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1946 » by Note30 » Fri Feb 21, 2025 12:04 am

guest81 wrote:
Note30 wrote:
guest81 wrote:
Wolves have one of the most talented rosters in the league and most of the roster is under 25 and pretty much locked up. But yea sure we're screwed because we don't have a bunch of mid round first picks


Damn you're delusional. We have Ant. That's it. Without him this is a bottom 3 team in the WC.

Most talented roster lol what a **** joke.

We're 7th seed. We're one injury away from being 11th. Which would be probably a 13th pick.

Mid picks are where you find a bunch of good players. It's the lottery for the first 14 picks.

But keep smoking that good ****.


Pretty sure you could say most every team in the league would be terrible without their best player. Can you give like one example of a team ever that's been a top team without their best player?


Obviously no team would be better. Duh.

But there are teams that would still float without their best player.

Boston, Houston, Clippers, Memphis, even Dallas (to a lesser extent).

We would crash and fail because one player is holding this team together.
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1947 » by Klomp » Fri Feb 21, 2025 3:55 am

winforlose wrote:You keep trying to compare apples to oranges and you fail to recognize the undeniable truth. KD is not a free agent. This is not a CP3 to Spurs type situation. Giving up valuable assets and losing other players as a result (Naz, NAW, a player we draft,) has long term negative effects. Likewise KD is a short term player (best case he plays 3 years with us.) But Ant, Jaden, and Naz on a longer timeline. The best strategy is to build as best we can around them. That does not include selling low on Dilly. NAW, and a decent first. It means getting guys who are likely to be here in 3 or 4 years who will have continuity and fit.

So basically....it's like the Gobert trade. Connelly was lambasted for the trade for two years, with people saying the would never get past the first round and others saying they undersold Walker Kessler and helped create a dynasty in Utah. How do those thoughts sound today? Would you rather swap situations with Utah? Look at all that "POTENTIAL"!
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1948 » by winforlose » Fri Feb 21, 2025 4:20 am

Klomp wrote:
winforlose wrote:You keep trying to compare apples to oranges and you fail to recognize the undeniable truth. KD is not a free agent. This is not a CP3 to Spurs type situation. Giving up valuable assets and losing other players as a result (Naz, NAW, a player we draft,) has long term negative effects. Likewise KD is a short term player (best case he plays 3 years with us.) But Ant, Jaden, and Naz on a longer timeline. The best strategy is to build as best we can around them. That does not include selling low on Dilly. NAW, and a decent first. It means getting guys who are likely to be here in 3 or 4 years who will have continuity and fit.

So basically....it's like the Gobert trade. Connelly was lambasted for the trade for two years, with people saying the would never get past the first round and others saying they undersold Walker Kessler and helped create a dynasty in Utah. How do those thoughts sound today? Would you rather swap situations with Utah? Look at all that "POTENTIAL"!


Picks are not only valuable for the players they draft. They can be used to get vets. For two firsts we could have Dejounte Murray. There are of course other players, but the example works. Also there is a straight line between the Gobert trade and the KAT trade. If we don’t make the former we don’t make the latter. Personally if you add Karl for DDV, Randle, and a 1st I think the price goes from bad (we overpaid for Gobert,) to insane. KD is also worse than Gobert because while Gobert had potentially 5-6 years of value to us or at least resale value. KD has at best 2-3 years of use to us with no resale value. Meanwhile if Dilly or the first we pass on blow up that is player talent that Ant, Jaden, and Naz won’t have to help them in 3 years and beyond. You both don’t think we should go championship or bust and think we should make a short term trade with serious long term consequences. Ironically that is why we made the Gobert trade, and all it cost us was KAT, all our picks, a bad salary situation, and the possibility of losing Ant if this **** goes any further sideways.
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1949 » by FrenchMinnyFan » Fri Feb 21, 2025 6:16 am

I'm glad season resume tomorrow. Final run . I'm confident we will be in the PO and make a run. Hope ANT get some good rest and come fresh. Next 6 are tough but after that we can make a 14-5 or 15-4 series. Go Wolves!
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1950 » by shrink » Fri Feb 21, 2025 8:16 pm

I’m watching “Court of Gold” on Netflix, the six episode documentary on Basketball in the Paris Olympics.

I defy anyone to watch episode 2 and not love Kevin Durant.
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1951 » by Klomp » Fri Feb 21, 2025 8:20 pm

winforlose wrote:Also there is a straight line between the Gobert trade and the KAT trade. If we don’t make the former we don’t make the latter. Personally if you add Karl for DDV, Randle, and a 1st I think the price goes from bad (we overpaid for Gobert,) to insane. KD is also worse than Gobert because while Gobert had potentially 5-6 years of value to us or at least resale value. KD has at best 2-3 years of use to us with no resale value. Meanwhile if Dilly or the first we pass on blow up that is player talent that Ant, Jaden, and Naz won’t have to help them in 3 years and beyond. You both don’t think we should go championship or bust and think we should make a short term trade with serious long term consequences. Ironically that is why we made the Gobert trade, and all it cost us was KAT, all our picks, a bad salary situation, and the possibility of losing Ant if this **** goes any further sideways.

Don't forget as part of that equation: Without the Towns trade happening, Naz Reid is 100% gone after this season. No chance he sticks around because there is no path to being able to pay him.
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1952 » by Klomp » Fri Feb 21, 2025 8:47 pm

This might be too "in the CBA weeds", but this random hypothetical came to me....

Is it still the case that minimum contracts are not used for salary-matching in trades? If so, are they also not factored into apron rules?

As a hypothetical....
Phoenix is over the second apron and cannot bring in more money than it sends out in a trade.
Philadelphia is not over either apron.

Could minimum contracts be used as extra incentive to help facilitate a trade? In this hypothetical, could Phoenix send out Bradley Beal ($50,203,930) and Oso Ighodaro ($1,157,153) and bring back Paul George ($49,205,800)? Ighodaro isn't used for salary-matching here, as Beal is making more than George.

Why do I ask this? We have minimum contracts (and potential minimums) like Leonard Miller, Josh Minott and Jaylen Clark, who I believe could be attractive in trade talks. We can't aggregate though, but could they be included like this in a way that aggregation isn't necessary?
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1953 » by winforlose » Fri Feb 21, 2025 8:56 pm

Klomp wrote:
winforlose wrote:Also there is a straight line between the Gobert trade and the KAT trade. If we don’t make the former we don’t make the latter. Personally if you add Karl for DDV, Randle, and a 1st I think the price goes from bad (we overpaid for Gobert,) to insane. KD is also worse than Gobert because while Gobert had potentially 5-6 years of value to us or at least resale value. KD has at best 2-3 years of use to us with no resale value. Meanwhile if Dilly or the first we pass on blow up that is player talent that Ant, Jaden, and Naz won’t have to help them in 3 years and beyond. You both don’t think we should go championship or bust and think we should make a short term trade with serious long term consequences. Ironically that is why we made the Gobert trade, and all it cost us was KAT, all our picks, a bad salary situation, and the possibility of losing Ant if this **** goes any further sideways.

Don't forget as part of that equation: Without the Towns trade happening, Naz Reid is 100% gone after this season. No chance he sticks around because there is no path to being able to pay him.


Again not true. Without the Gobert trade we could have paid all 4. You don’t trade for Rudy on the heels of KAT getting the supermax without a plan to pay everyone. I know the 2nd apron was a variable that shook things up, b it was not out of left field. Something like this was coming to punish teams like GSW.
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1954 » by Klomp » Fri Feb 21, 2025 9:05 pm

winforlose wrote:
Klomp wrote:
winforlose wrote:Also there is a straight line between the Gobert trade and the KAT trade. If we don’t make the former we don’t make the latter. Personally if you add Karl for DDV, Randle, and a 1st I think the price goes from bad (we overpaid for Gobert,) to insane. KD is also worse than Gobert because while Gobert had potentially 5-6 years of value to us or at least resale value. KD has at best 2-3 years of use to us with no resale value. Meanwhile if Dilly or the first we pass on blow up that is player talent that Ant, Jaden, and Naz won’t have to help them in 3 years and beyond. You both don’t think we should go championship or bust and think we should make a short term trade with serious long term consequences. Ironically that is why we made the Gobert trade, and all it cost us was KAT, all our picks, a bad salary situation, and the possibility of losing Ant if this **** goes any further sideways.

Don't forget as part of that equation: Without the Towns trade happening, Naz Reid is 100% gone after this season. No chance he sticks around because there is no path to being able to pay him.


Again not true. Without the Gobert trade we could have paid all 4. You don’t trade for Rudy on the heels of KAT getting the supermax without a plan to pay everyone. I know the 2nd apron was a variable that shook things up, b it was not out of left field. Something like this was coming to punish teams like GSW.

To be fair, the Gobert trade initially made Naz Reid a bit player. If you take the first two months of 2022-23, Naz Reid was averaging under 15 mpg and collecting occasional DNP-CDs. So no, they didn't plan on paying Towns and Gobert a combined $100 million PLUS having an extra $20 million available to pay Naz Reid or whoever. It was Naz Reid's development (by a staff that supposedly hasn't developed anyone) combined with the second apron that forced a decision. They could only pay two of the three. They chose Gobert and Reid over Towns.
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1955 » by winforlose » Fri Feb 21, 2025 9:45 pm

Klomp wrote:
winforlose wrote:
Klomp wrote:Don't forget as part of that equation: Without the Towns trade happening, Naz Reid is 100% gone after this season. No chance he sticks around because there is no path to being able to pay him.


Again not true. Without the Gobert trade we could have paid all 4. You don’t trade for Rudy on the heels of KAT getting the supermax without a plan to pay everyone. I know the 2nd apron was a variable that shook things up, b it was not out of left field. Something like this was coming to punish teams like GSW.

To be fair, the Gobert trade initially made Naz Reid a bit player. If you take the first two months of 2022-23, Naz Reid was averaging under 15 mpg and collecting occasional DNP-CDs. So no, they didn't plan on paying Towns and Gobert a combined $100 million PLUS having an extra $20 million available to pay Naz Reid or whoever. It was Naz Reid's development (by a staff that supposedly hasn't developed anyone) combined with the second apron that forced a decision. They could only pay two of the three. They chose Gobert and Reid over Towns.


I don’t know why you would assume that when the facts were available from the jump. Rudy was always going to make less on his next contract. Karl was already supermax eligible for his new deal. Naz was signed to 15 that offseason because he was flashing potential and getting better and better. The plan was always for Naz to be part of Ant’s timeline. The two timeline approach was brought in to accelerate the development of Ant, Jaden, and Naz. But it was mishandled because the ownership was not clear about willingness to pay the high end taxes. The 2nd apron didn’t add that much higher rate to the supertax. It just got there before the repeater. So it came one year earlier than it otherwise would have. This team is mismanaged because of a lack of foresight lead to poor asset management.

The Dilly trade could look great if he develops. If not that is another example of poor short term trading (getting Mike to stabilize the KAT window, at the expense of not having a plan for replacing Mike when he ages out later in that window.) We gave a lot of trade value to get him. But, because the picks are so far in the future, it allows people to downplay the cost. A 2030 swap and 2031 pick will hit in the heart of Ant’s prime and will be missed. Remember picks do more than take players, they are deal making currency.
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1956 » by shrink » Fri Feb 21, 2025 10:49 pm

Klomp wrote:This might be too "in the CBA weeds", but this random hypothetical came to me....

Is it still the case that minimum contracts are not used for salary-matching in trades? If so, are they also not factored into apron rules?

As a hypothetical....
Phoenix is over the second apron and cannot bring in more money than it sends out in a trade.
Philadelphia is not over either apron.

Could minimum contracts be used as extra incentive to help facilitate a trade? In this hypothetical, could Phoenix send out Bradley Beal ($50,203,930) and Oso Ighodaro ($1,157,153) and bring back Paul George ($49,205,800)? Ighodaro isn't used for salary-matching here, as Beal is making more than George.

Why do I ask this? We have minimum contracts (and potential minimums) like Leonard Miller, Josh Minott and Jaylen Clark, who I believe could be attractive in trade talks. We can't aggregate though, but could they be included like this in a way that aggregation isn't necessary?

I wondered about this last year, and I’ve still not seen a transaction that tells me this for sure.

For those that wonder, in the past, vet min deals could be added to deals with or without any salary-matching requirements, depending on what the team wanted. Many of you know that the NBA subsidizes any vet min salary over that of a two year vet, to encourage more teams to keep veteran players in the league (which fans love), than sign a young nobody because they are cheap. This trade rule was another attempt to help vet min players stay in the league, giving them the ability to be transferred easily to teams that want them.

This was before the new apron rules, and so far, I don’t think I’ve seen a deal which would be illegal if a vet min’s players salary was added to the trade. My guess is the vet trading rule supercedes any apron stuff, but I don’t know for sure.
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1957 » by shrink » Fri Feb 21, 2025 10:59 pm

Klomp wrote:
winforlose wrote:
Klomp wrote:Don't forget as part of that equation: Without the Towns trade happening, Naz Reid is 100% gone after this season. No chance he sticks around because there is no path to being able to pay him.


Again not true. Without the Gobert trade we could have paid all 4. You don’t trade for Rudy on the heels of KAT getting the supermax without a plan to pay everyone. I know the 2nd apron was a variable that shook things up, b it was not out of left field. Something like this was coming to punish teams like GSW.

To be fair, the Gobert trade initially made Naz Reid a bit player. If you take the first two months of 2022-23, Naz Reid was averaging under 15 mpg and collecting occasional DNP-CDs.

True. And this still shocks me, knowing what we know now about Naz.

When MIN acquired Gobert, they wanted to maximize him immediately, and get him comfortable with all his new teammates (and especially, vice versa). Towns got all the back up center minutes, and Naz, who was (or maybe “was seen as? “) a back up center, started collecting DNP-CD’s. KAT’s later injury opened minutes for Naz, and when KAT came back, Naz was too good to take out of the line up. This is why I thought he’d never agree to extend here .. we were just the worst possible team for him for opportunity, with two All NBA centers in front of him. But as always, never under-estimate Naz Reid!

I also wanted to point out that Connelly and Finch did the exact same thing with Randle and DiVincenzo. As soon as they were traded for, they were immediately got big minutes in the rotation. The plan in July was to play Dillingham and Shannon lots of minutes right away, but Finch gave DDV all those guard minutes (especially when NAW was so hot!). Hopefully, like Naz, Rob, Shannon and Clark all showed enough of their game that Finch trusts them to be called upon down the stretch. I don’t know if it’s in Finch’s DNA, but I would like to see him rotate through the eighth and ninth rotation spots with different players depending on match ups, and which vets we are resting against tanking teams.
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1958 » by winforlose » Fri Feb 21, 2025 11:13 pm

shrink wrote:
Klomp wrote:
winforlose wrote:
Again not true. Without the Gobert trade we could have paid all 4. You don’t trade for Rudy on the heels of KAT getting the supermax without a plan to pay everyone. I know the 2nd apron was a variable that shook things up, b it was not out of left field. Something like this was coming to punish teams like GSW.

To be fair, the Gobert trade initially made Naz Reid a bit player. If you take the first two months of 2022-23, Naz Reid was averaging under 15 mpg and collecting occasional DNP-CDs.

True. And this still shocks me, knowing what we know now about Naz.

When MIN acquired Gobert, they wanted to maximize him immediately, and get him comfortable with all his new teammates (and especially, vice versa). Towns got all the back up center minutes, and Naz, who was (or maybe “was seen as? “) a back up center, started collecting DNP-CD’s. KAT’s later injury opened minutes for Naz, and when KAT came back, Naz was too good to take out of the line up. This is why I thought he’d never agree to extend here .. we were just the worst possible team for him for opportunity, with two All NBA centers in front of him. But as always, never under-estimate Naz Reid!

I also wanted to point out that Connelly and Finch did the exact same thing with Randle and DiVincenzo. As soon as they were traded for, they were immediately got big minutes in the rotation. The plan in July was to play Dillingham and Shannon lots of minutes right away, but Finch gave DDV all those guard minutes (especially when NAW was so hot!). Hopefully, like Naz, Rob, Shannon and Clark all showed enough of their game that Finch trusts them to be called upon down the stretch. I don’t know if it’s in Finch’s DNA, but I would like to see him rotate through the eighth and ninth rotation spots with different players depending on match ups, and which vets we are resting against tanking teams.


1. I wouldn’t say the plan was lots of minutes for Shannon and Dilly. They had a role planned for them and Finch talked about how important it was for them not to go beyond it. We still had our top 7 from last season, and the age wall decline of Mike Conley was not evident at that point. So Dilly and Shannon might have been 12 minutes per night and the rest of the minutes picked up by the other 7. Perhaps even less with Finch’s half rotation nonsense.

2. So I went back and refreshed my memory both with basketball reference and reading about the time in question. Naz had a few games where he DNP-CD, and he had some games with 16 minutes. I remember that Naz and Rudy were struggling to play together and Naz and KAT had not been good together by the numbers up to that point. So to a degree Naz was pushed aside. Karl went down on November 28th and that opened the door to Naz becoming a key rotation player. Naz was in his 4th season and fans were talking about him as part of the Ant timeline and an eventual KAT lite replacement one day depending on his development. I do think you raise an excellent point that even then Finch was a bad coach who did not know how to properly develop young players. Just like he held back Jaden’s offensive development. But, some of that is also on Naz for still being in the body and game transformation stage of his career.

3. If we can agree that getting minutes helped Naz develop, then we should also be able to agree the same is true of Dilly and Shannon and that is why the needed to be worked in early this season. I do not know that I would go 11 deep when everyone is healthy, but I probably go 10 deep with one spot being dedicated to either Shannon or Dilly any given night, and the other rotation spot being based on what is needed that night. So there would be nights without Clark, but no nights without one of Shannon and/or Dilly.
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1959 » by shrink » Fri Feb 21, 2025 11:28 pm

winforlose wrote:I do think you raise an excellent point that even then Finch was a bad coach who did not know how to properly develop young players.

Just for the record, I do not believe this, and the way that both Jaylen Clark and Shannon were immediately ready to contribute when they got opportunities demonstrates there is a lot of development that is going on, outside of game time.

Connelly told us from the start that he prioritizes putting Ant in as many truly competitive situations right from the start of his career. Our franchise rides on maximizing Ant, not just any young players. To be truly competitive, Finch plays our best players, and maximize their chemistry. We have sunk our assets into winning starting players. We aren’t the lottery teams of the last 20 years, that has the luxury just throw young players minutes before they’ve earned them.
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Re: Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition 

Post#1960 » by winforlose » Fri Feb 21, 2025 11:56 pm

shrink wrote:
winforlose wrote:I do think you raise an excellent point that even then Finch was a bad coach who did not know how to properly develop young players.

Just for the record, I do not believe this, and the way that both Jaylen Clark and Shannon were immediately ready to contribute when they got opportunities demonstrates there is a lot of development that is going on, outside of game time.

Connelly told us from the start that he prioritizes putting Ant in as many truly competitive situations right from the start of his career. Our franchise rides on maximizing Ant, not just any young players. To be truly competitive, Finch plays our best players, and maximize their chemistry. We have sunk our assets into winning starting players. We aren’t the lottery teams of the last 20 years, that has the luxury just throw young players minutes before they’ve earned them.


1. Playing a guy 12 minutes and playing a guy 20+ minutes is not the same thing. Plenty of winning teams are playing their best players fewer minutes so as to find minutes for their young guys to develop while reducing wear on year on the top of the rotation. Most teams play 9-10, Finch prefers 8 to 8.5. The half rotation is a great way to harm the development of young players. They are not given the chance to adjust to mistakes they make in the first stint and have so little leash that they fear reprisal in the next game. Meanwhile they are not rewarded for playing well in the first stint and not given the chance to meaningfully contribute while putting up the kinds of numbers other rookies put up. It is a worst of both worlds and I don’t think it did any favors to Minott or Dilly.

2. Naz was showing real promise in year 3. To handicap him in year 4 was… unwise at best. He proved that when he did get on the floor and was playing so well it was hard to sideline him. KAT going down really did elevate him further and prove his future. Maybe the goal was to intentionally devalue Naz so he would not get a big offer elsewhere and we could sign him cheap with RFA and bird rights. That said, developing players is not just for bad teams. For example Denver knew they would need Braun eventually and so they found ways to get him involved and get him going.

3. Jaden not being a higher usage and more involved offensive player is a function of Finch. Each year he says it was a mistake and he will fix it. 5 years in and even now he isn’t. This is indefensible.

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