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Any traces of a tense battle between Love and Beasley might have disappeared during informal scrimmages the past two weeks at the Wolves' practice facility at Target Center. Several scrimmages showcased Love and Beasley playing together up front. Beasley quickly put to rest any notions that he and Love would have trouble coexisting on the floor. Similar concerns about Love and Al Jefferson ultimately led the Wolves to trade Jefferson to Utah.

"If you had been in the gym the past two weeks, you wouldn't be asking that question," Beasley said of his pairing with Love.

"Me and Kevin play together just fine."

http://www.canishoopus.com/2010/9/25/17 ... #storyjump

Beasley at SF FTW

revprodeji wrote:

"Kevin and I play together just fine."

Fixed

I am really looking forward to this Beasley-Love tandem

It's great if Beasley ends up as the full time SF and has a Melo like role, but it will make it even more frustrating that we passed on Cousins for Johnson.

thats why we need Wes to be able to transition into SG too.

Devilzsidewalk wrote:thats why we need Wes to be able to transition into SG too.

That would certainly be ideal.

Start w/...

SG- Brewer / Webster
SF- Beasley / Johnson

And eventually transistion into...

SG- Johnson / Brewer
SF- Beasley / Webster

If today is any indication then it is Webster at the sg and Brewer at the SF.

revprodeji wrote:If today is any indication then it is Webster at the sg and Brewer at the SF.

I don't think we can really read into the scrimmage positions too much because Johnson's too injured to participate. I would expect that if they had the choice between giving the backup minutes at the 3 to Johnson or Brewer, they'd pick Johnson.

My ideal

C - Darko/Peker Wrecker
PF - Love/Tolliver
SF - Beasley/Brewer
SG - Webster/Johnson
PG - Ridnour/Flynn

That's to start the season with Tolliver getting limited minutes at PF due to Pek and Beasley picking up back-up PF minutes. Johnson will get some minutes at the 3 as well. I love me some Brewer, but unless he shows even more improvement, he'll lose minutes to Webster and Johnson. I'd also like to see Ellington get minor minutes at the point when we slow it down and play more in a halfcourt set.

Oh yeah, it's not Beasley/Love, it's BEASTLY LOVE! The Wolves are going to hump the opposition into submission.

Selective listening ... Rambis has point blank suggested that stereo-typing players as position players is not what he intends.

I agree with his take and feel it's unnecessary micro-management. It's a game of matchups and you play best players in gametime situations ...

Can you imagine a Rambis interview ...
Reporter: "We needed some scoring, so not play Beasley more the second half"?
Rambis: "Well, we classify Beas as a SF but we already had Brewer on the floor and he is also listed as a SF - we just didn't want two SF's on the court together".
Reporter: "DOn't we need the best players on the floor to win"?
Rambis: Um ...

Dewey wrote:Selective listening ... Rambis has point blank suggested that stereo-typing players as position players is not what he intends.

It's true that defining a player's position on offense isn't very useful (apparently even more true in whatever offensive system Rambis is running), but defining positions is kind of necessary for defensive purposes. Having your 5 best players on the court is all well and good, but if the other team as 1 or 2 guys on the court at the same time that none of your guys can guard, you're probably not going to be in good shape.

To take your example, it would be more like...

Reporter: "We needed some scoring, so not play Beasley more the second half"?
Rambis: "Well, we already had Brewer, Johnson, and Love all out there and playing well, so adding Beasley would mean that either Beasley or Love would have to guard the opposing Center, and obviously that's not ideal."
Reporter: "Oh, Okay."

AQuintus wrote:Having your 5 best players on the court is all well and good, but if the other team as 1 or 2 guys on the court at the same time that none of your guys can guard, you're probably not going to be in good shape.

To take your example, it would be more like...

Reporter: "We needed some scoring, so not play Beasley more the second half"?
Rambis: "Well, we already had Brewer, Johnson, and Love all out there and playing well, so adding Beasley would mean that either Beasley or Love would have to guard the opposing Center, and obviously that's not ideal."
Reporter: "Oh, Okay."

Name all of the opposing centers who would have such dominant offensive advantages over Love that their teams would stop running normal offenses and just go to that person every time. How many can you name?

Now name all of the opposing pf's who would have comparable offensive advantages over Love. Notice how this list is FAR longer?

This fact is a rather blunt clue that Love is a better long-term fit defending c's than pf's. Another incredibly important fact that must be stressed is that Beasley defends pf's well but defends sf's poorly. (Please for the love of god don't take this opportunity to inappropriately bring up that Love's PER as a c last year was worse than his PER as a pf, since if you look at that sample size you'll note that it's way to small to be useful as supporting evidence here.)

Love could be the league's 4th best center or 14th best pf. Which makes more sense?
Beasley could be the league's 10th best pf or its 20th best sf. Which makes more sense?

Would you rather have your starting lineup feature a top 5 center and a top 10 pf, or would you rather have it feature a below average c (Darko)


c: Darko - 20th (i.e. below average for a starter)
pf: Love - 14th (average for a starter)
sf: Beasley - 20th (average/below average for a starter)
sg: Brewer - 27th (way below average for a starter)

or

c: Love - 4th (above average for a starter)
pf: Beasley - 10th (above average for a starter)
sf: Johnson - 20th (average/below average for a starter)
sg: Brewer - 27th (way below average for a starter)

Yet another way to look at it:

Who's a better c, Love or Darko? Love
Who's a better pf, Love or Beasley? Beasley

I just can't see how people can seriously envision Love being better suited to guard people like Bosh/Amar'e/Aldridge/Dirk/Garnett as opposed to those teams' centers, i.e. Joel Anthony, Ronny Turiaf, Joel Przybilla, Brendan Haywood, and Kendrick Perkins. Not only do I think that Love would do a better job of guarding these c's than these pf's, but I think it's absolutely ludicrous to think that such teams would freeze out their star players in order to funnel all of their offense through their centers in an attempt to take advantage of Love.

Think about it.

If the Wolves are playing the Heat and Love is guarding their starting center Joel Anthony, do you honestly believe that the Heat will take the ball away from LeBron/Wade/Bosh and just run iso's for Joel? Didn't think so. They'd be idiots to do such a thing.

If the Wolves are playing the Celtics and Love is guarding Kendrick Perkins, do you seriously think that the Celtics would tell Rondo/Allen/Pierce/Garnett to go stand in the corner while they pump the ball to Perkins every time? Didn't think so. They'd be idiots to do such a thing.

If the Wolves are playing the Knicks and Love is guarding their starting center Turiaf, will the Knicks ignore Amar'e and give the ball to Turiaf every time. Of course not. They'd be idiots to do such a thing.

Do you see the trend?

You kind of ignore how important a center is to TEAM DEFENSE.

Bubstubbler wrote:Do you see the trend?

The trend of you naming small, role-player Centers who suck on offense?

Name all of the opposing centers who would have such dominant offensive advantages over Love that their teams would stop running normal offenses and just go to that person every time. How many can you name?

Dwight, Yao, Kaman, Shaq, Bogut, Bynum, Oden, B.Lopez, Cousins... I think that's all of them.

Now name all of the opposing pf's who would have comparable offensive advantages over Love. Notice how this list is FAR longer?

This fact is a rather blunt clue that Love is a better long-term fit defending c's than pf's.

It's more of an example of how weak the Center position is compared to the Power Forward postion, and an example of Love being a bad defender. There are more good offensive PFs in the league than Cs, so the list of PFs is going to be longer for everyone.

(Please for the love of god don't take this opportunity to inappropriately bring up that Love's PER as a c last year was worse than his PER as a pf, since if you look at that sample size you'll note that it's way to small to be useful as supporting evidence here.)

I'm really glad that you brought this up because it gives me a perfect opportunity to say that that for the love of god don't take the opportunity to inappropriately bring up Beasley's PER as a SF last year was worse than is PER as a PF, since if you look at that sample size you'll note that it's way too small to be useful as supporting evidence here.

I just can't see how people can seriously envision Love being better suited to guard people like Bosh/Amar'e/Aldridge/Dirk/Garnett as opposed to those teams' centers, i.e. Joel Anthony, Ronny Turiaf, Joel Przybilla, Brendan Haywood, and Kendrick Perkins.

The best Power Forwards in the league vs some of the worst (offensive) Centers. Your argument is almost as fair and balanced as Fox News.

It doesn't matter, though, because the Love/Beasley thing was just an example of why specific positions are necessary for defensive assignments. Also, Darko is our best interior defender, so he should be on the court as much as possible. Love and Beasley are our best players, so they should be on the court as much as possible. Since Darko can't play SF and Beasley can't play C, our best lineup is C-Darko, PF-Love, SF-Beasley.

D-Wade kicks Brewer in the balls, and skillfully cannonballs his way down the lane with his head down and his shoulder out. Launching himself at the hoop its decision time for the defense. Who has a better chance of sliding from the weakside to either block the shot or crush him to the ground and make him pay for his decision, Love or Darko?

the next 5 games we play: Kobe, MonteEllis, Manu, Rose, John Wall. Do you see a trend?

It doesn't matter, though, because the Love/Beasley thing was just an example of why specific positions are necessary for defensive assignments.

I know the point you are trying to make, but it still comes down to having the best players on the floor ...

I agree Beasley will see major minutes at the 3 this year. He is looking thinner and quicker in the training camp videos. I'm impressed with his attitude and the confidence he's shown so far. He doesn't have that "kicked puppy" look he had last year when on the floor with D-Wade.

I sincerely hope Love doesn't see any time at the 5 next year. It's not so much other centers scoring on him (though that is a problem). It's the free ticket to the lane anyone who tries to drive has. When you're too slow to get to the spot and not long enough to alter the shot you have no business being the last line of defense.

Honestly I don't want to see Tolliver on the floor at all barring injury. I'm fine with a Darko/Pek splitting all the minutes at the 5. Don't sleep on Koufos either, he has legit size and a really nice shooting touch.

Brewer and Johnson are going to take the biggest hits in PT in my opinion. Johnson is just raw and Beasley and Webster are much better than Brewer.

I think Johnson can play the 2 for 10-15 minutes a game going forward as long as there is a slick ball handler at the PG. And I am a fan of Love/Beasley splitting all the minutes at the 4, keeping one of our 2 best players on the floor at all times.

Here's my 2k10 rotation:

PG: Flynn 32, Ridnour 16
SG: Webster 32, Johnson 4, Brewer 12
SF: Beasley 22, Johnson 26
PF: Love 34, Beasley 14
C: Milicic 30, Pekovic 18

So everyone agrees that Brewer will not only be relegated to the bench, but lose minutes?

He's been improving every year, and imo deserves to show what (if) improvements he's done again this year. If nothing, then you bench him. I dunno about starting the rookie off with 30 mpg is the right thing anyway, now with the improving Brewer here.

starting out, no. I think long term Johnson, Webster, and Beasley are all better players than him though.
I think his place long term is a 15-20 minute role player. But a really solid, defensive-minded role player.

A lot depends on Webster. I really like what I heard from him in the interview up on timberwolves.com.
If it's true he was relegated to a stand up shooter in portland, maybe he'll surprise us.
If he duplicates his career numbers, he and brewer are a wash.