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First off, I come in peace. I really like the young pieces you guys have.
With that said...the improvements from Beasley and Darko have been impressive. Do you attribute their success to Coach Rambis? Has he been what you'd call a good development coach for your young guys?
If so, why in specific?

Welcome, nice question as well.

Darko has always had talent but had lost the confidence. I think it meant a lot to him that Kahn, Rambis, and Laimbeer all believed in him. I think I would attribute his success to Laimbeer more then anyone else. He traveled to Serbia over the summer to work with him. Darko started off very cold offensively to begin the season but eventually found his touch. Defensively, he has been great all year. I still believe he has a lot of game that has yet to been seen which is promising.

As far as Beasley goes I think it really helped that Rambis has let him do what he wants offensively. It's been said that he can only use his left hand but has shown he can use both. He was sort of a ball hog and had tunnel vision at the beginning of the year but as of recent has no problem looking for the open guy. His defense isn't great but he has shown improvement. I'm not sure who he specifically works with but whoever it may be he has shown improvements.

In an interview with Phil Jackson he said that Rambis was coordinating the defense for the Lakers and right now we are pretty piss poor defensively. Yet it can take months and years to obtain a cohesive defensive unit. We had one solid game where we played pretty good defense and that was against the Hornets who aren't one of the greatest offensive teams. From what I've seen so far Rambis hasn't shown me at least to be a good development coach for our guys.

Just my 2 cents.

Rambis doesn't seem like a great Xs and Os guy so far and he gets ragged on a lot for that and his substitution patterns. I think he is a good development guy, though, and he definitely seems like a "player's coach". He has stated publicly multiple time that they are about developing players and he loves teaching.

The improvement in Love, Beasley, and Darko can't all just be coincidence. The team has been competitive in most games, too. From all indications the locker room is in good shape and he has a good rapport with the players. I think he's doing fine so far.

From a Heat and big new Wolves fan chiming in....

Rambis has helped Beas a lot. During his Miami tenure, his confidence was really DOWN. Everytime he makes a MINOR SMALL mistake, we'll see Spoelstra calling Haslem from the bench to go to the scorers table to sub in for Beasley. Beas knows this and was pressured a lot -- we didn't let him play through his mistakes and learn from them. Even if Beas was on a hot stretch of 6 consecutive made buckets, Spo will bench him for no weird ****ing reason. The development was simply mediocre but the Miami tenure STILL helped Beas a lot IMO (one great example: character)

In Minny, Rambis is letting him play through them and I've seen his confidence is in a MUCH HIGHER level right here, allowing him to become the best player he can be. He has freedom here and he's showing us glimpses game by game of what type of a potentiak superstar/franchise player he truly is.

If nothing else, when Kahn hired him, he said it was in large part becuase he believed in the player development skills of Rambis. So we know it's a big part of his job description and has presumably been putting a lot of work into it. Given that a lot of the team have shown dramatic individual improvements, it would seem that yeah, he's pretty good at it.

C.lupus wrote:Rambis doesn't seem like a great Xs and Os guy so far and he gets ragged on a lot for that and his substitution patterns. I think he is a good development guy, though, and he definitely seems like a "player's coach". He has stated publicly multiple time that they are about developing players and he loves teaching.

The improvement in Love, Beasley, and Darko can't all just be coincidence. The team has been competitive in most games, too. From all indications the locker room is in good shape and he has a good rapport with the players. I think he's doing fine so far.

Thats true. I think I was a little quick to answer. I was thinking more of the development of the players Kahn/Rambis drafted like Flynn, Ellington, Wes, Lazar (which 2 never get any playing time), and didn't really include Love, Beasley, Darko into the mix. Not saying Wes and those guys aren't developing by any means either.

The great thing about Rambis is, he puts a lot of faith in the decision making of his players. He could be in their ears like Avery Johnson and with a young team like this it might even amount to a couple extra wins, but that's not the long term goal for Rambis or this franchise. He wants our guys to learn and develop through their mistakes to be a smart, team oriented group going forwards.
Personally, I saw a lot of improvement in Beasley during the NOH game.
Not just scoring but taking smarter shots and passing (although I didn't watch the whole thing so someone correct me if I'm wrong)

Blubber Nugget wrote:From a Heat and big new Wolves fan chiming in....

Rambis has helped Beas a lot. During his Miami tenure, his confidence was really DOWN. Everytime he makes a MINOR SMALL mistake, we'll see Spoelstra calling Haslem from the bench to go to the scorers table to sub in for Beasley. Beas knows this and was pressured a lot -- we didn't let him play through his mistakes and learn from them. Even if Beas was on a hot stretch of 6 consecutive made buckets, Spo will bench him for no weird ****ing reason. The development was simply mediocre but the Miami tenure STILL helped Beas a lot IMO (one great example: character)

In Minny, Rambis is letting him play through them and I've seen his confidence is in a MUCH HIGHER level right here, allowing him to become the best player he can be. He has freedom here and he's showing us glimpses game by game of what type of a potentiak superstar/franchise player he truly is.

Same goes for Darko

Tha Juice wrote:Welcome, nice question as well.

Darko has always had talent but had lost the confidence. I think it meant a lot to him that Kahn, Rambis, and Laimbeer all believed in him. I think I would attribute his success to Laimbeer more then anyone else. He traveled to Serbia over the summer to work with him. Darko started off very cold offensively to begin the season but eventually found his touch. Defensively, he has been great all year. I still believe he has a lot of game that has yet to been seen which is promising.

As far as Beasley goes I think it really helped that Rambis has let him do what he wants offensively. It's been said that he can only use his left hand but has shown he can use both. He was sort of a ball hog and had tunnel vision at the beginning of the year but as of recent has no problem looking for the open guy. His defense isn't great but he has shown improvement. I'm not sure who he specifically works with but whoever it may be he has shown improvements.

In an interview with Phil Jackson he said that Rambis was coordinating the defense for the Lakers and right now we are pretty piss poor defensively. Yet it can take months and years to obtain a cohesive defensive unit. We had one solid game where we played pretty good defense and that was against the Hornets who aren't one of the greatest offensive teams. From what I've seen so far Rambis hasn't shown me at least to be a good development coach for our guys.

Just my 2 cents.

yeah and the cavs game, i think that was probably our best defensive performance but as you say, they ain't no powerhouse either

This small excerpt from a current ESPN insider article on Love gives a players view of it as well:



The combination of playing for Team USA, where he was encouraged to shoot the international 3 and made 5-of-9, Timberwolves coach Kurt Rambis getting him to take the fall-back out of his jumper and summer workouts with skills trainer Rob McClanaghan has him shooting 43 percent from the arc, better than sharpshooters Anthony Morrow and Kyle Korver.

"At first I was wondering why Kurt wanted to mess with my shot, but I kept my mind open to it and it has helped," he said.


Just getting Darko to stay in the NBA and work on his game again is a minor miracle. All the reclamation projects we have here, be they minor or major, have shown improvements and aspects of their games I have not noticed they had before. I would say he can develop players just fine but as others have mentioned could stand to improve his play calling.

Remember how we all said KG is the perfect 2nd Banana, and playing with another superstar would lead him to championships?
Remember how it took many of us a good 10 years before we realized or accepted that?

I think Rambis is like the coaching version of KG. He's the perfect assistant coach because of what he can provide as a teacher, motivator, and "players coach".
I also think - Right now - he needs someone ahead of him in the pecking order who knows how to make in-game decisions that lead to wins.

Since no head coach is ever demoted to assistant, I'm not sure what this means for our team.
We gave KG a long time, but coaching is different than players. That said, I'm willing to give Rambis the length of his contract because he has improved as a coach, and maybe the in-game stuff will come.

I think Rambis could be the in-game guy. Just give him time with this healthy group.

I feel like most of our mistakes in the 4th quarter are pretty obvious and consistent. If Rambis was as good of a teaching coach as we say he is he wouldn't be as bad of an in-game coach as we say he is.

They're getting better but it's hard to coach the panic out of guys. It's like, you can read all of the books and get all the advice in the world about dating but the first time you meet a hot girl you'll still be crapping your pants. Same sort of deal with the 4th. They just need to get to know each other a little better.

To answer the original question, yes. He was the development guy in LA and Bynum raved about him a couple of times. Last year he was the main reason behind Brewer's improvement, although that's disappeared this year for whatever reason. Darko doesn't need a lot of development but I'll give Rambis credit for showing him love. Love's improved jump shot is probably Rambis too, as that seems to be his "thing".

With Beasley, I think it's a combination of both development and confidence. He's visibly improved as the season has gone on but some of it would also be the confidence Rambis has shown in him.