Beasley key to draft

[NebWolvesFan]

I am completely against drafting a SG. It's not just Beasley, but Minnesota also has Okogie, Culver and to lesser extent, Nowell. For me, Minnesota needs to draft forwards. I would love to see the Wolves draft a SF and PF. If the Wolves end up with Edwards and Kira Lewis, the draft is an F for me.

I understand drafting best player available if that player is going to instantly become your best or second-best player, but this is not the draft for that. This a "solid player for 10 years" draft and there are about a dozen players who could end up being really solid. Pick the forwards from that 12.

Also, Beasley's numbers as a starter are hard to ignore. He was also lights out as a starter for Denver last year. Some guys are more comfortable coming off the bench and some guys are most locked in if they start - Dieng is another example. I think Beasley will put up strong numbers this year as Minnesota's starting two-guard.

[Klomp]

OK Jedzz, I think you are confusing things people are saying.

Drafting a guard does NOT mean they want to bench Beasley, underpay Beasley or replace Beasley. I know personally my thought for months has been to draft a guard but use the draftee as the third guard in the rotation behind both Russell and Beasley.

I have two problems with this.

1. The third overall pick comes with a high salary. We would essentially be paying a backup SG or backup PG considerably more than we would a backup vet with a proven track record. Also in that vein, if they player is a bust we are stuck for a longer period of time, with a higher cap investment.

The salary price point is a fair-ish argument. That's part of why I would like the player to have combo guard ability to back up both spots, giving him more time on the court as almost a sixth starter.

I look at how James Harden was used in Oklahoma City. He was technically a backup SG, but still getting 25-30 mpg early in his career. This guy wouldn't be playing behind a 25 mpg starter like Harden was, but he'd be taking minutes as a defacto PG with Beasley to make up the difference.

[Klomp]

I am completely against drafting a SG. It's not just Beasley, but Minnesota also has Okogie, Culver and to lesser extent, Nowell. For me, Minnesota needs to draft forwards. I would love to see the Wolves draft a SF and PF. If the Wolves end up with Edwards and Kira Lewis, the draft is an F for me.

To me, watching the post-trades rotations it seemed clear to me that they were using Okogie and Culver as SFs in the system. And when you think about it, the guy who was getting those minutes earlier in the season was Graham while Wiggins was essentially in the Beasley role on the wing. That tells me they want one defense-focused wing position out there at what would essentially be called SF. That's where Okogie and Culver will get their minutes. They'll be on the court for their defense.

I'm not factoring Nowell into my draft plans and neither should the Wolves. If he blossoms into a star, great. If not, move on in a year with no harm done.

And at PF, the Wolves already have Hernangomez and Johnson, and I haven't even factored Layman or Vanderbilt into the rotation discussion. Based on how the team runs its lineups I'd argue that SF and PF are more stacked than SG and PG, where all there is behind Beasley is Nowell and all that's behind Russell is McLaughlin.

[Mattya]

Right. We are going to trade for Beal, pay him 25 million. Get Beasley to play for 1Mil so he can play on the bench. I get your dreams now. Carry on.

Spoiler:

lieing sack of dung. I know you have a rookie in your heart behind that thought.

Imagine getting exposed like you did here today and not even having the guts of name calling without a spoiler tag. How pathetic. Then on top of that you want to straw man in the very next post after getting exposed for strawmanning. Absolutely classic fail. That is how natural your BS comes to you.

Mattya. You can go play games with somone else. Your 'exposed' proclamation might work on little kids from the 90s but these things don't even work on kids today. Nobody was Pwnd! Nobody won or lost anything. Your post was not well thought through and you are just having trouble accepting that. Cut little snippets out all you want now. I don't have the time for you or this. I've asked you multiple times to give you a chance to explain your post further by offering examples of who you would suggest if not a rookie that would/should push him to a bench role and you won't/haven't. You just want to play games. cya

You don’t deserve my responses on basketball if you are going to straw man and lie. I haven’t cut out snippets of any posts liar. Quote me on the things you claim I said. You love playing victim every time I call you on this nonsense because in reality it should be easy to quote me if you weren’t full of it, but you go back and read your posts after getting called out realize you made “dung” up and you double down.

Simple way to get my opinions is to ask questions and not straw man my posts. You can’t seem to do that and it upsets you and you are lashing out.

A

[NebWolvesFan]

I am completely against drafting a SG. It's not just Beasley, but Minnesota also has Okogie, Culver and to lesser extent, Nowell. For me, Minnesota needs to draft forwards. I would love to see the Wolves draft a SF and PF. If the Wolves end up with Edwards and Kira Lewis, the draft is an F for me.

To me, watching the post-trades rotations it seemed clear to me that they were using Okogie and Culver as SFs in the system. And when you think about it, the guy who was getting those minutes earlier in the season was Graham while Wiggins was essentially in the Beasley role on the wing. That tells me they want one defense-focused wing position out there at what would essentially be called SF. That's where Okogie and Culver will get their minutes. They'll be on the court for their defense.

I'm not factoring Nowell into my draft plans and neither should the Wolves. If he blossoms into a star, great. If not, move on in a year with no harm done.

And at PF, the Wolves already have Hernangomez and Johnson, and I haven't even factored Layman or Vanderbilt into the rotation discussion. Based on how the team runs its lineups I'd argue that SF and PF are more stacked than SG and PG, where all there is behind Beasley is Nowell and all that's behind Russell is McLaughlin.

I don't like Okogie or Culver at SF long-term. Okogie played there, but he was out of position. Culver's numbers were a lot better at the 2 than the 3. With Minnesota's tax issues, Hernangomez is going to be a causality - unless he takes a really small deal, and Johnson will either be traded on draft night or the at the deadline. He's a short term Timberwolf.

Minnesota's roster will look a lot better in a couple of years if Minnesota drafts a SF and PF than if Minnesota takes two guards.

[Jedzz]

Let’s pump the brakes a bit here. Beasley is a good shooter, not elite. Last year, Beasley shot 38.8%, which was 47th in the NBA. 38.8% is also his career average.

In addition, 3 point percentage is one of the most variable stats because of smaller sample size, and we want to extrapolate his 14 games here at 42.6% to believe he’ll be a 42.6% three point shooter. Towns isn’t even a career 40% three point shooter, so I doubt 42.6% is likely to be who he is forever.

Now, I am a big advocate of adding better three point shooting, and 38.8% is pretty good, but 47th doesn’t get you to the elite level.

I agree with you though that he may get a deal slightly above the MLE. I am concerned that it will be a deal we regret.

His career average as a bench sub. The moment he got more he jacked that percentage above 42%. It did not go down. He also has averaged over 40% in a season. Name all the greats playing now that even have. He's in that tier of shooter. It's not like when he averaged 40% he was only attempting 1 a game. This is a real example.

He's an elite shooter in this league.

and we want to extrapolate his 14 games here at 42.6% to believe he’ll be a 42.6% three point shooter.

Do you think this argument is fair? Umm no. "We" are not suggesting he's automatically going to be 42.6 for the remainder of time in Minnesota. That's just you playing a wee bit a funny business, yeah?

What you can take from that number, like mentioned already, is that the moment he was handed starts and more 3s, that number went up, his involvement going up improved him. It didn't drop through the floor like often is the case with others.

Given he's shot 40% in a season prior at just over 7 attempts per game, to show us 42.6% when attempting 8.8 shots per game is a nice little indicator of an Elite NBA shooter.

For the record, there are only 4 active players in the NBA right now that have a career 3P% at 42.6% .. the two Curry’s, Duncan Robinson, and Korver. So if 42.6% became his career average (and he would have to shoot better than this to average out his seasons in the 30’s!) I would say being #5 would be truly elite. At the same time, since we see only four players at that level, it shows that it is a truly difficult level to repeat.

He was shooting 36% in DEN last season before he got here, and while he shot 40.2% the previous year In his best season (is 17th in the nba “elite?”), you didn’t mention the 32.1% and 34.1% his first two years.

I think you are putting way too much stock into 14 games, especially in such a volatile stat as 3P%.

Sorry man. It seems you are going to lock in on this 42.6 as an unsustainable number thing and hold your ground as if that is anyone's argument being pushed here. You know it's not the argument or requirement, and I would rather not play games.

A recent season at Denver at over 40%.
A split season at Denver/Here at 36/42.6. The rest of this season was robbed from that run. The diff? Wolves started him and believed in him fully to take the shots and play. That and the Rosas system maybe. It's a fit.
When will you take note? Only after he's playing for a different team?

I would hope you could try focusing on the fact he got even more accurate with more minutes and more shots. This is no small feat. As already shown, he's already had a season over 40%. Not 38, over 40. Please stop trying top cheapen that.

If you want an example of the opposite, let's take a look at what occured with Treveon Graham. Who in the offseason was discussed in depth by myself and Klomp. Klomp pointed out a moment in his history where he shot decentlly. However we also found out that the one time he previously had increased minutes above 20/g, his shooting stats dropped harshly. Come time for preseason games, and Graham was really shooting well. I was so surprised by the preseason showings. However, once the season started and he was given starting roles supposedly due to "fit" we found out now he was one of the worst shooters on the team. Graham is an example of how increased minutes, starting roles and increased shots can really filter out the bad shooters. Their numbers will drop. It would have been different if it was just one start and one or two bad days of shooting, but Graham got plenty of play to start that season and get acclimated and could not.

[Jedzz]

I am completely against drafting a SG. It's not just Beasley, but Minnesota also has Okogie, Culver and to lesser extent, Nowell. For me, Minnesota needs to draft forwards. I would love to see the Wolves draft a SF and PF. If the Wolves end up with Edwards and Kira Lewis, the draft is an F for me.

To me, watching the post-trades rotations it seemed clear to me that they were using Okogie and Culver as SFs in the system. And when you think about it, the guy who was getting those minutes earlier in the season was Graham while Wiggins was essentially in the Beasley role on the wing. That tells me they want one defense-focused wing position out there at what would essentially be called SF. That's where Okogie and Culver will get their minutes. They'll be on the court for their defense.

I'm not factoring Nowell into my draft plans and neither should the Wolves. If he blossoms into a star, great. If not, move on in a year with no harm done.

And at PF, the Wolves already have Hernangomez and Johnson, and I haven't even factored Layman or Vanderbilt into the rotation discussion. Based on how the team runs its lineups I'd argue that SF and PF are more stacked than SG and PG, where all there is behind Beasley is Nowell and all that's behind Russell is McLaughlin.

Sort of going with what your are saying here. Although, just because they had started to use Culver/Okogie at SF doesn't mean they can't use them at SG if a bunch of injuries occur. And we can't expect to have elite players at every level. Having Mclaughlin behind Russel is a solid PG set to me. But I haven't seen them sign him yet. If they want another rookie learning behind these guys, fine. Nowell, just needs solid bench minutes and he will come around and be more effective than Culver was with minutes last year at SG. But they are both young and can both improve yet. I agree Okogie/Culver could get the defensive wing role that graham had. I just hope they improve shooting a little more.

[Dewey]

I'm gonna stick with our forward position as #1 priority, preferrably re-sign Beasley, and add a defensive big somewhere along the way. Hermangomez cannot physically handle heavy minutes IMO, but along with Layman, could be a nice long-term 6-7-8th guy. Reid is questionable and still has alot to prove he is an everyday player in a rotation. Then we will need to see where the Culver/Okogie/Nowell thing is headed in terms of improvement, fit, need.

[Klomp]

Although, just because they had started to use Culver/Okogie at SF doesn't mean they can't use them at SG if a bunch of injuries occur.

Of course, I'm just speaking to how I believe the primary roles will look when everyone is healthy.

[Klomp]

I'm gonna stick with our forward position as #1 priority, preferrably re-sign Beasley, and add a defensive big somewhere along the way. Hermangomez cannot physically handle heavy minutes IMO, but along with Layman, could be a nice long-term 6-7-8th guy. Reid is questionable and still has alot to prove he is an everyday player in a rotation. Then we will need to see where the Culver/Okogie/Nowell thing is headed in terms of improvement, fit, need.

While a lot of people seem to want a Charles Oakley/PJ Brown type at PF, that doesn't seem to be the direction the team wants to go. I think they value switchability and flexibility, which is why they have given guys like Hernangomez, Covington, Layman, Martin, etc time there over more traditional old-school PFs.

Regarding Reid, I wouldn't be upset with an "upgrade" but I'm not sure fans are looking for the same type of upgrade the coaches would be. To me, Reid is a near perfect fit for the offensive system the team wants to run so a talent upgrade may not even translate to an improvement on the court if the player isn't as good a system fit.

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[Norseman79]

I'm gonna stick with our forward position as #1 priority, preferrably re-sign Beasley, and add a defensive big somewhere along the way. Hermangomez cannot physically handle heavy minutes IMO, but along with Layman, could be a nice long-term 6-7-8th guy. Reid is questionable and still has alot to prove he is an everyday player in a rotation. Then we will need to see where the Culver/Okogie/Nowell thing is headed in terms of improvement, fit, need.

While a lot of people seem to want a Charles Oakley/PJ Brown type at PF, that doesn't seem to be the direction the team wants to go. I think they value switchability and flexibility, which is why they have given guys like Hernangomez, Covington, Layman, Martin, etc time there over more traditional old-school PFs.

Regarding Reid, I wouldn't be upset with an "upgrade" but I'm not sure fans are looking for the same type of upgrade the coaches would be. To me, Reid is a near perfect fit for the offensive system the team wants to run so a talent upgrade may not even translate to an improvement on the court if the player isn't as good a system fit.

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Yeah, I don't want Oakley or Brown, but I def don't want Roco or Layman either...I will take a KG/Rasheed/CWeb/Amar'e type with 3pt shot of course.

[Klomp]

Yeah, I don't want Oakley or Brown, but I def don't want Roco or Layman either...I will take a KG/Rasheed/CWeb/Amar'e type with 3pt shot of course.

Garnett might be only one who'd be a PF in the system.

[Jedzz]

Although, just because they had started to use Culver/Okogie at SF doesn't mean they can't use them at SG if a bunch of injuries occur.

Of course, I'm just speaking to how I believe the primary roles will look when everyone is healthy.

Agree if nothing changes. Can see them doing that. Although Layman is pretty useful when healthy. Kind of expecting one of Culver/Okogie to get traded, the other one gets the job.

[shrink]

Yeah, I don't want Oakley or Brown, but I def don't want Roco or Layman either...I will take a KG/Rasheed/CWeb/Amar'e type with 3pt shot of course.

Garnett might be only one who'd be a PF in the system.

Man, you’re making me miss the “slim-KG-the-SF” days. Can you imagine that guy next to Towns in this system?

[Jedzz]

This brings us back to Beasley and the importance he brings to our offseason. Regardless, the Wolves will have holes remaining no matter what, Rome wasn't built in a day, but how many and how big those holes are remains to be seen.

I agree he's important! Beasley solidifies the SG role as a starter. It's all fine as long as they lock up Beasley. If they lose him the team is in a giant hole on shooters and this team's scheme isn't going to fly without a substantial replacement. If gone the draft picks could no longer be questionable to bad shooters. They would need to be surefire shooters as first requirement.

JJ and McLaughlin are the other two big offseason questionmarks. Their play level has been high here, including their shooting and they could be very useful if kept. If gone, will need good replacements. There is already talk by some these guys aren't in plans or aren't pivotal.

45 threes seemed to be the goal often in this scheme. It dug the team out of many holes in the last two quarters and proved this scheme can work. But the shooting skills can't be decreased. They need to be increased if anything because we saw many games where 30% was the team goal. It was ugly at times.

If you go back through the majority of games, we often saw the 3pt pace was slow in the first half. It was slow at first because they were often making eary decisions about starters/scheme that had nothing to do with winning or following the scheme. Selling players Graham/Napier/Wiggins/Dieng/Teague/RoCo and ego/value pushing Culver, et al were getting in the way of competing at top team level. I think we can throw Okogies name in that as well. We can get into that if someone wants to. But the point is it took increased attempts in the second half at a significant rate increase to pull the team back into games. Games started with a first half 3pt attempt rate that would only have amounted to sub30 attempts if that pace was maintained. Second half rate often climbed to a 55-60 attempt pace to catch up and this is where the team was most effective in this scheme. More of the players that would shoot and could hit those shots were playing more then.

I bring this up because I think some are not seeing what's going to be left if Beasley is gone or "pushed to bench minutes", McLaughlin is gone, JJ is gone.

The 3pt % of players with decent minutes this season, and what you would be left with.

1 Malik Beasley .426
2 Juan Hernangómez .420
3 Karl-Anthony Towns .412
4 Gorgui Dieng .383
5 Jordan McLaughlin .382
6 Jeff Teague.379
7 James Johnson.370
8 Robert Covington.346
9 D'Angelo Russell .345
10 Jake Layman .333
11 Andrew Wiggins.331
12 Keita Bates-Diop.330
13 Naz Reid .330
14 Jarrett Culver .299
15 Shabazz Napier.296
16 Josh Okogie .266
18 Treveon Graham .241
http://bkref.com/pi/shareit/WAbsH

So the team has already lost a couple of their better 3pt shooters, and so if they lose Beasley/Jmac/JJ they will have tossed out 6 of their 10 best 3pt shooters. Juancho shot really well for Wolves, however his attempts have been low. 4 to 5 attempts here are highest in his career. Still, his accuracy went up with the increase which is a good sign. Doubt many are going to admit to this shooting weakness if these players are gone though. So many are talking like they would want replacements for most of Wolves best 3pt shooters. Let's just talk about defense again.

[Jedzz]

I'm not factoring Nowell into my draft plans and neither should the Wolves. If he blossoms into a star, great. If not, move on in a year with no harm done.

How does one "blossom into a star" playing a few games a season and then having new draft picks annointed to play ahead of him because they were drafted higher than him.

How come frp's like Culver/Okogie don't have to live up to that kind of talk when they are getting over 1500-2000 minutes a season to develop and actually cost something that hurts a bit. Highly drafted players can stink for years but undrafted need to blossom into stars before our eyes before given two thoughts about. A hint of star player qualities early on doesn't seem to be enough either given the lack of respect Jmac gets.

[minimus]

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[Calinks]

Ya Beas ya Cheese

[shrink]

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Not sure we should trust these stats. Beasley shot 38.8% from 3 last season.

People can name themselves anything they want on twitter. “Elite Media Group” doesn’t even have 1000 followers.

[NebWolvesFan]

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Not sure we should trust these stats. Beasley shot 38.8% from 3 last season.

People can name themselves anything they want on twitter. “Elite Media Group” doesn’t even have 1000 followers.

Beasley still has to prove he's a legit NBA starter, but I'm optimistic because his play as a starter in Denver and Minnesota was very solid. I hope he's a guy who's just more comfortable as a starter. It would be great if he can extend his solid play to a full season. Minnesota has to get lucky eventually.