Is our bench bad?

[Narf]

Crawford is really bad if his awful shots aren't going in.

He's the go-to guy with the shot clock running out. So half of his "awful shots" are actually really good and useful shots because he's bailing out the rest of the team by being an expert at shooting garbage shots effectively.

The other half are just garbage shots, but it's offset by his real value as an end of shot clock shot creator.

[Vindicater]

Our bench is not fantastic.

I am not unhappy with where it is now however. A bench normally takes time to build and you start doing that after you get your strating five right.

We got our starting five right this offseason and will get our bench sorted over the next two offseasons.

[coolcono]

Bump.

[Klomp]

Read on Twitter

[King Malta]

Add Belly and Patton and the bench goes from being a source of worry to slightly below league average at worst IMO. Helps that Jamal is feeling it at the moment.

[minimus]

Add Belly and Patton and the bench goes from being a source of worry to slightly below league average at worst IMO. Helps that Jamal is feeling it at the moment.

I would not count on Patton this year. But I would be happy with Dieng-Belly-MGH/Brown-JC-Tyus bench. Where MGH/Brown take turns depending on what we need offense/defense.

[Klomp]

Just thinking more about this.

We've talked for years about how bad our bench is. And it's still true. Using tonight as an example, it's too up and down for my liking. In the first half, they didn't squander the lead, but they didn't really build on it either. They actually had expanded it from 14 (end 1st) to 21 in just 3.5 minutes. But by the time the bulk of the starters came back in 2 minutes later, it was back down to a 14-point lead. I know that it equates to a 0 anyways, but I'd rather have a second unit that's much more steady than hot and cold.

That being said, it's important to remember where we've come from. In previous years, we were talking about how a bench would bring us from being a 30-win team to a fringe playoff contender. Now, a bench would make a difference in possibly being a first-round playoff exit and maybe challenging the rest of the top teams in the league consistently.

[Dewey]

still gonna come down to how they value defense ... as the starters play better defense, the bench will want to play better defense. From there its about the willing and the able. The bench needs to keep the game simple...
1. Know your shooters
2. Rebound
3. Take care of the ball

[wolves_89]

The more I've watched the Wolves and looked at the advanced stats it's become clear that the biggest problem with the bench is Jamal Crawford. He is a really fun player to watch, but in terms of winning basketball he's a disaster. When's on the court with the bench unit there is no ball movement on offense as Crawford basically takes iso jumpers every possession. When he's hot the bench can play roughly even with the opponent, but when he's missing shots (over half the games) things go bad very quickly. Factor in that he's one of the worst defensive players in the league and in total he's a huge liability. The advanced stats back up this conclusion as Crawford's RPM is 460th out of 468 players in the NBA and his BPM and NetRtg are also terrible.

Overall I'd say the Wolves point guards and bigs are solid, we just need to find a way to improve the wing rotation. Bjelica has been getting some minutes at SF, but that doesn't work well when he has to guard more athletic wings. Muhammad has played himself out the rotation and MGH doesn't seem ready for a bigger role. At this point I'd be giving Brown a shot at SF while also working hard to find a competent bench wing in trade.

[AirP.]

The more I've watched the Wolves and looked at the advanced stats it's become clear that the biggest problem with the bench is Jamal Crawford. He is a really fun player to watch, but in terms of winning basketball he's a disaster. When's on the court with the bench unit there is no ball movement on offense as Crawford basically takes iso jumpers every possession. When he's hot the bench can play roughly even with the opponent, but when he's missing shots (over half the games) things go bad very quickly. Factor in that he's one of the worst defensive players in the league and in total he's a huge liability. The advanced stats back up this conclusion as Crawford's RPM is 460th out of 468 players in the NBA and his BPM and NetRtg are also terrible.

You're absolutely right Crawford is the problem currently for how the bench is currently constructed.

Thibs in the past has utilized one offensive only minded player(usually pretty close to league minimum contract) which usually was an undersized PG and tried to put defensive players around that player. So until the rest of the 2nd team is made up of mostly good defensive players, Crawford will stick out like a sore thumb.

Here's a pretty good writeup of Chicago's benches under Thibs although it was written in 2013. You'll see that there were a lot of nearly defensive only players around an offensive guard.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1783802-comparing-past-three-versions-of-the-chicago-bulls-bench-mob

Basically for the first 4 years on the bench...

PGs - CJ Watson, J.Lucus III, N.Robinson
Wings - R.Brewer, K.Korver, J.Butler, Belinelli
Bigs - T.Gibson, Asik, K.Thomas, N. Mohammed


What's great about how Thibs created his benches was that they were very cheap allowing more money to be spent on the starters. One side of the ball players are usually cheap so putting 1 or 2 offensive only players with defensive players seemed to work out well.

Although I've said in the past that Shabazz should be good in China next year, I could absolutely see him retained if he'll accept just a few million a year to stay with the Wolves, he could end up being a good 6th man for the Wolves. Dieng is too much of an all-around talent which also means not strong offensively or defensively and Thibs normally goes with better defensive bigs to try to offset the lack of defense at other positions.

[Klomp]

Although I've said in the past that Shabazz should be good in China next year, I could absolutely see him retained if he'll accept just a few million a year to stay with the Wolves, he could end up being a good 6th man for the Wolves. Dieng is too much of an all-around talent which also means not strong offensively or defensively and Thibs normally goes with better defensive bigs to try to offset the lack of defense at other positions.

Bazz as 6th man is OVER.

[AirP.]

Although I've said in the past that Shabazz should be good in China next year, I could absolutely see him retained if he'll accept just a few million a year to stay with the Wolves, he could end up being a good 6th man for the Wolves. Dieng is too much of an all-around talent which also means not strong offensively or defensively and Thibs normally goes with better defensive bigs to try to offset the lack of defense at other positions.

Bazz as 6th man is OVER.

I'm not so sure, he won't get much money if he wants to stay but after pulling shabazz out of the lineup Thibs was slow to replace him and even though MGH finally got minutes, he's not gotten the minutes Shabazz once got.

I will say this, I don't think you can successfully play J.Crawford and Shabazz together because their defense is so lacking. I wouldn't be surprised if Shabazz is gone next year, I wouldn't be surprised if he was retained since Minnesota has his bird rights and it doesn't matter if they're over the cap to sign him. It's either retain him at the end of the bench or give someone the minimum to do the same thing.

If there's an injury where Crawford has to play with the starters for a stretch(Jimmy or Wiggins gets hurt) or he gets hurt himself, I could see Shabazz getting solid court time because they'll need a scorer with the 2nd team.

[Klomp]

At some point before next season, I see MGH getting a bigger role. He hasn't really played poorly, and I see solid potential in him. He can easily be a 3D rotational piece and isn't a complete liability with the ball in his hands either.

[AirP.]

At some point before next season, I see MGH getting a bigger role. He hasn't really played poorly, and I see solid potential in him. He can easily be a 3D rotational piece and isn't a complete liability with the ball in his hands either.

Sure, but you need cheap quality on the roster, both MGH and Shabazz could be that. In a couple of seasons someone cheap will need to be a solid scorer with the 2nd unit, Shabazz could be that, but you need defense around him to make it work(like you need with Crawford).

[minimus]

At some point before next season, I see MGH getting a bigger role. He hasn't really played poorly, and I see solid potential in him. He can easily be a 3D rotational piece and isn't a complete liability with the ball in his hands either.

Sure, but you need cheap quality on the roster, both MGH and Shabazz could be that. In a couple of seasons someone cheap will need to be a solid scorer with the 2nd unit, Shabazz could be that, but you need defense around him to make it work(like you need with Crawford).

I think that Shabazz saga is over.

[Mattya]

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Surprised this was even a question,

[Mattya]

The more I've watched the Wolves and looked at the advanced stats it's become clear that the biggest problem with the bench is Jamal Crawford. He is a really fun player to watch, but in terms of winning basketball he's a disaster. When's on the court with the bench unit there is no ball movement on offense as Crawford basically takes iso jumpers every possession. When he's hot the bench can play roughly even with the opponent, but when he's missing shots (over half the games) things go bad very quickly. Factor in that he's one of the worst defensive players in the league and in total he's a huge liability. The advanced stats back up this conclusion as Crawford's RPM is 460th out of 468 players in the NBA and his BPM and NetRtg are also terrible.

Overall I'd say the Wolves point guards and bigs are solid, we just need to find a way to improve the wing rotation. Bjelica has been getting some minutes at SF, but that doesn't work well when he has to guard more athletic wings. Muhammad has played himself out the rotation and MGH doesn't seem ready for a bigger role. At this point I'd be giving Brown a shot at SF while also working hard to find a competent bench wing in trade.

The catalyst is Bjelly. When he plays well the bench plays well. There is a ton of action between him and Crawford. We just haven’t had too many games where the bench has been in a groove. Dieng struggled early when a Crawford/Bjelica played well. Practically had zero production from back up SF with Bazz’s cratering. Tyus has played well. Now Dieng is back to what we expect. Bjelica needs to get back in a groove. Then I think we have a decent bench.

[AirP.]

At some point before next season, I see MGH getting a bigger role. He hasn't really played poorly, and I see solid potential in him. He can easily be a 3D rotational piece and isn't a complete liability with the ball in his hands either.

Sure, but you need cheap quality on the roster, both MGH and Shabazz could be that. In a couple of seasons someone cheap will need to be a solid scorer with the 2nd unit, Shabazz could be that, but you need defense around him to make it work(like you need with Crawford).

I think that Shabazz saga is over.

I posted this on the general forums, putting it here too.

FG% .471 / .447
3pt% .317 / .329
FT% .749 / .746
REB 5.7 / 4.0
AST 1.1 / 2.1
Stls .6 / 1.0
Blk .2 / .5
TO 1.4 / 2.1
Pts 18.6 / 19.9
TS% .547 / .528
ORTG 111 / 105
DRTG 115 / 114
PER 15.5 / 15/3

Those are career PER36s and totals of 2 players on the Timberwolves roster, one of those players had to take a minimum deal(Shabazz), the other was handed a max contract(Wiggins). One was handed the keys to the franchise, the other wasn't. It would be highly interesting to me what would happen if Wiggins were hurt for a few weeks and Thibs leapfrogged Shabazz into the starting lineup. I'm really not sure how much(if any) of a dropoff the team would take.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.fcgi?request=1&sum=1&player_id1_select=Shabazz+Muhammad&player_id1=muhamsh01&idx=players&player_id2_hint=Andrew+Wiggins&player_id2_select=Andrew+Wiggins&player_id2=wiggian01&idx=players

[Klomp]

LOL

[TaylorTag]

I think Teague playing with the bench unit more would help this team. It would take the ball out of Crawford's hands and the team could play with pace more as apposed to iso ball with Crawford at the half court.