Market inefficiencies

[Klomp]

For those who haven't been paying attention, this is the new buzzword for Tim Connelly and the Timberwolves organization. And I think you can really see it playing out in how Connelly is constructing his roster.

There are a few examples I'll bring up to highlight this.

-What Gobert brings to a team does not make the highlight reels, and I think it's a major reason why his valuation gets mocked so often. If you switched his offensive and defensive contributions to team success around, Connelly would be lauded for the trade rather than mocked, if they could still pull off the trade.
-Centers in general are undervalued around the league, but especially big men with movement ability like Naz and Towns. Connelly is loading up, when other teams are avoiding big men.
-Youth and rawness. Connelly says we're going to go in a year early on guys. We potentially have some steals in Minott, Miller and Clark (injury) that other teams didn't want to be patient for.
-Trading an expiring Russell for Conley with an extra year allowed them to pick up extra value in NAW and a few 2nds.

Cornering market inefficiencies is crucial for a small market team in an old arena, where you kinda have to create your own luck in order to win.

[urinesane]

For those who haven't been paying attention, this is the new buzzword for Tim Connelly and the Timberwolves organization. And I think you can really see it playing out in how Connelly is constructing his roster.

There are a few examples I'll bring up to highlight this.

-What Gobert brings to a team does not make the highlight reels, and I think it's a major reason why his valuation gets mocked so often. If you switched his offensive and defensive contributions to team success around, Connelly would be lauded for the trade rather than mocked, if they could still pull off the trade.
-Centers in general are undervalued around the league, but especially big men with movement ability like Naz and Towns. Connelly is loading up, when other teams are avoiding big men.
-Youth and rawness. Connelly says we're going to go in a year early on guys. We potentially have some steals in Minott, Miller and Clark (injury) that other teams didn't want to be patient for.
-Trading an expiring Russell for Conley with an extra year allowed them to pick up extra value in NAW and a few 2nds.

Cornering market inefficiencies is crucial for a small market team in an old arena, where you kinda have to create your own luck in order to win.

Great post. One of the ways to help mitigate the max contracts is to develop youth. The problem with being a lottery team is how much you pay for your rookies, but if you take this concept and draft guys a year earlier (where they are usually in the 2nd round, rather than 1st round or lottery), you get them with 1 less year of college/equivalent play... but that's actually a good thing.

Had they developed another year in college, they may have upped their perceived value, but they also may have been learning things that won't fit as well with your system/culture. By taking them early, you aren't getting someone that can contribute to winning right away (but you also usually aren't getting that in the draft regardless of your pick), but you are probably getting a discount on their 1st contract. Enough of a discount where you end up paying them LESS to develop in a system tailored to your needs, than spending an additional year developing in a college system. Since that last year in college will add to their price, but not necessarily show as much value on development for your team.

Which means that if you can find legit talent later in the draft, you not only get better/team friendly deals, but you also get to develop them for much cheaper (since most players outside of the lottery aren't starting or getting meaningful playing time their first few years unless it's a terrible team). Cheaper players that are developing in your system are much easier to move on from than a lottery pick that is a bust if it doesn't work out. They also can become valuable where you develop them and can either slot them into your lineup for cheaper than the person they replace OR you can sell them at a much higher value than you had to invest (which can either help with facilitating bigger trades or add draft picks etc).

As a small market team I think this is the smartest way to do it. They've already won the lottery twice and got two GREAT players, now it's a matter of having solid role players and a system that feeds talent in, so that they can transition from the older more expensive players down the road to the youth movement, without having to rebuild.

[SO_MONEY]

For those who haven't been paying attention, this is the new buzzword for Tim Connelly and the Timberwolves organization. And I think you can really see it playing out in how Connelly is constructing his roster.

There are a few examples I'll bring up to highlight this.

-What Gobert brings to a team does not make the highlight reels, and I think it's a major reason why his valuation gets mocked so often. If you switched his offensive and defensive contributions to team success around, Connelly would be lauded for the trade rather than mocked, if they could still pull off the trade.
-Centers in general are undervalued around the league, but especially big men with movement ability like Naz and Towns. Connelly is loading up, when other teams are avoiding big men.
-Youth and rawness. Connelly says we're going to go in a year early on guys. We potentially have some steals in Minott, Miller and Clark (injury) that other teams didn't want to be patient for.
-Trading an expiring Russell for Conley with an extra year allowed them to pick up extra value in NAW and a few 2nds.

Cornering market inefficiencies is crucial for a small market team in an old arena, where you kinda have to create your own luck in order to win.

We gave up what amounts to 6 picks and a swap, undervalued? I hope not. And I don't think this is an example of what he is talking about. Market inefficiencies as he talks about them is finding undervalued players.

Examples in the draft are Miniott and Miller, Examples in FA are Anderson and Milton, Example in trade would be NAW. Then you have 2W guys. Value is key... it is called allocative inefficiency. Where the cost of the product doesn't match the value.

What the Gobert trade is an example of is Informational inefficiency to the benefit of Utah. We were an unaware buyer who paid $10 for a $2 product.

EDIT: I should add in a basic sense a market inefficiency is when a result isn't mutually beneficial... perhaps you might view it as zero sum game where you win at the expense of another, though not exact and proportional. It is when the consumer or producer has created an advantage over the other and the outcome isn't maximized for both parties.

[Klomp]

As a small market team I think this is the smartest way to do it. They've already won the lottery twice and got two GREAT players, now it's a matter of having solid role players and a system that feeds talent in, so that they can transition from the older more expensive players down the road to the youth movement, without having to rebuild.

In some ways, I think this is the brilliance of making the Gobert move. It pushes the winning along, while not necessarily forcing the young guys into big situations until they are ready for it.

You could argue that Gobert was Minnesota's Paul Millsap move. Denver had three starters age 23 or younger, and then they go out and spend all of their money on a 32-year old?! Denver missed the playoffs in the first year of "the experiment" so I'm guessing some considered the signing a failure, but it was laying the groundwork. They went from missing the playoffs to winning a first round series in just one season.

Everyone was worried about "two timelines" when in reality it was a runway to extend the timeline farther because you're winning earlier than most young teams do.

[Klomp]

We gave up what amounts to 6 picks and a swap, undervalued? I hope not. And I don't think this is an example of what he is talking about. Market inefficiencies as he talks about them is finding undervalued players.

Take Gobert's production, track record and impact on winning from his first nine seasons. Now take all of that and assign it to a random player that doesn't play center. Any team in the league would pay that price and not bat an eye...if they could get the team to part with said player when he hasn't requested a trade, that is.

The market inefficiency is the center position.

[urinesane]

For those who haven't been paying attention, this is the new buzzword for Tim Connelly and the Timberwolves organization. And I think you can really see it playing out in how Connelly is constructing his roster.

There are a few examples I'll bring up to highlight this.

-What Gobert brings to a team does not make the highlight reels, and I think it's a major reason why his valuation gets mocked so often. If you switched his offensive and defensive contributions to team success around, Connelly would be lauded for the trade rather than mocked, if they could still pull off the trade.
-Centers in general are undervalued around the league, but especially big men with movement ability like Naz and Towns. Connelly is loading up, when other teams are avoiding big men.
-Youth and rawness. Connelly says we're going to go in a year early on guys. We potentially have some steals in Minott, Miller and Clark (injury) that other teams didn't want to be patient for.
-Trading an expiring Russell for Conley with an extra year allowed them to pick up extra value in NAW and a few 2nds.

Cornering market inefficiencies is crucial for a small market team in an old arena, where you kinda have to create your own luck in order to win.

We gave up what amounts to 6 picks and a swap, undervalued? I hope not. And I don't think this is an example of what he is talking about. Market inefficiencies as he talks about them is finding undervalued players.

Examples in the draft are Miniott and Miller, Examples in FA are Anderson and Milton, Example in trade would be NAW. Then you have 2W guys. Value is key... it is called allocative inefficiency. Where the cost of the product doesn't match the price.

What the Gobert trade is an example of is Informational inefficiency to the benefit of Utah. We were an unaware buyer who paid $10 for a $2 product.

For some reason you keep acting as if because Gobert was not at his best last season, that he is somehow a bad player, when NOTHING outside of your personal opinion points to this as fact. Your continued hyperbole is annoying at best and conversation derailing at worst. Please stop using such extremes to try to make your points, it does the opposite, and just makes it seem like you are trying to win something rather than being a fan talking about the Wolves.

I've asked you this in the past, but you mostly have dodged it, because you seem like a person that loves to point out problems, but doesn't have any actual solutions that would work in reality (hence the hyperbole to back up your opinions).

You have the roster from 2021-2022 before the Gobert trade. What do you do with those assets to make this a better team for the longterm?

That's also with hindsight available to you. What would you have done?

Even though it can't be known yet (because we don't know where those picks will convey nor the results of bringing in Gobert and the moves up until now), I have a feeling that the price paid for Gobert will look better and better as time goes on (not worse as you and the other "Sky is Falling" cult have prophesized).

Mainly because as those players that the fans loved ended up not really doing much on their next TEAMS (outside of Walker having a good rookie year and Vando helping the Lakers make the playoffs), AND the fact that most of those picks aren't the types where we are missing out on a generational talent (and most likely not even missing out on a starter/rotational piece).

Regardless of how expensive that deal ends up looking once it's fully played out, I don't think there is any real argument that Tim Connelly hasn't made this team MUCH better than the team he originally inherited. You can take a different path last summer, but I don't think many of them leave the Wolves in this good of a position going into the season, let alone making them better than it currently is. Yeah, if sh*t doesn't work it will be expensive... but isn't that the same for everyone? I personally don't follow the team to daydream over trade scenarios, scout upcoming college prospects, and number crunch. I like to watch basketball, specifically the Wolves, ESPECIALLY if they are winning. Which if they aren't unlucky, they should be doing a sh*tload of winning this year. That's all it takes for me to be happy. I don't care about the longterm future, I want them to win as many f*cking games as possible, period. It's pretty simple for me. The 2029 season can go f*ck itself for all I care.

I get it, you've said the same things 1,000 times on these subjects (I'm pretty sure we could just replace you with a chatbot that read your past posts at this point), but I was interested if you're willing to answer the question this time.

Rather than just saying what you wouldn't have done, how terrible no good very bad things are on the horizon, and that if the team were smart they would trade an All-NBA, All-Star, franchise pillar for 8 seasons player for pennies on the dollar, because "Gobert trade bad".

How would you have made this team a contender, Pre-Gobert and put them in this good of a position or better?

Spoiler:

You wouldn't, because you're just some guy that likes to argue on the internet.

[SO_MONEY]

We gave up what amounts to 6 picks and a swap, undervalued? I hope not. And I don't think this is an example of what he is talking about. Market inefficiencies as he talks about them is finding undervalued players.

Take Gobert's production, track record and impact on winning from his first nine seasons. Now take all of that and assign it to a random player that doesn't play center. Any team in the league would pay that price and not bat an eye...if they could get the team to part with said player when he hasn't requested a trade, that is.

The market inefficiency is the center position.

I heard at least one interview, took note of it, and it isn't what he was talking about he was talking about taking advantage of allocation of resources, where for whatever reason, psychological, environmental, emotional, or any hard science where there is a difference in value the doesn't match the price. If you heard an interview where he is saying that so be it... but it is a stretch of the term, that he didn't do when I was listening. I lead off and you quoted the actual market inefficiency we overpaid for a position and player that isn't valued... that is the imbalance in the market.

[urinesane]

Also, with getting late 1st or 2nd round guys, there is no weirdness when they come in as there may be with a lottery/high pick that is coming in and needs to play from day one. If you draft those guys later, they are looking to earn a role and somehow get into the rotation, usually years down the line. Which creates a better culture that makes it more about what you contribute than where you were picked.

Just think of those weird spots where teams just miss out on the top talent that are clear favorites to make an impact and you end up having to decide between talent/fit. I know that the general opinion is that you always draft for talent, but then often times teams can create an issue with the talent they've already drafted (at a high pick) and are developing (hence Charlotte passing on Scoot). When you pick for fit, if they end up sucking, well that fit didn't really matter.

Sure you can pick for talent, but you may end up alienating the player that's been there, or stifling the development of the guy you drafted. Which can result in one of those players demanding a trade and you getting even less than their trade pick was valued at.

I think the Wolves plan on winning a lot of games, so they don't really care about 1st round picks. They also know the advantage of great scouting and finding really good value on players that just need a bit more time to ripen to show their potential. When they don't work out, you didn't spend much and can easily move on. When they DO workout, you end up with a lot of options and flexibility from a low investment.

I think of it like when the Spurs got Duncan, starting winning a lot, and then transitioned from the Robinson timeline to the Duncan and Friends timeline. They always did it through drafting players at a great value and developing them to play in their system (which with years and years of precedent becomes easier and easier to scout talent for fit/value).

[younggunsmn]

For those who haven't been paying attention, this is the new buzzword for Tim Connelly and the Timberwolves organization. And I think you can really see it playing out in how Connelly is constructing his roster.

There are a few examples I'll bring up to highlight this.

-What Gobert brings to a team does not make the highlight reels, and I think it's a major reason why his valuation gets mocked so often. If you switched his offensive and defensive contributions to team success around, Connelly would be lauded for the trade rather than mocked, if they could still pull off the trade.
-Centers in general are undervalued around the league, but especially big men with movement ability like Naz and Towns. Connelly is loading up, when other teams are avoiding big men.
-Youth and rawness. Connelly says we're going to go in a year early on guys. We potentially have some steals in Minott, Miller and Clark (injury) that other teams didn't want to be patient for.
-Trading an expiring Russell for Conley with an extra year allowed them to pick up extra value in NAW and a few 2nds.

Cornering market inefficiencies is crucial for a small market team in an old arena, where you kinda have to create your own luck in order to win.

I will definitely give you selling Russell at peak value, getting back a player who fits better, and taking a chance on guys who slipped in the draft.
Maybe that also means rolling the dice on guys with upside versus picking a guy with a higher floor.
Finding a rotation player in NAW as part of the salary filler.
Hopefully Milton and Brown will be good value signings.

Centers are valued lower, but he went way against that when he tied 60-65% of the cap into 2 big men.
That's the opposite of market efficiency. He paid a premium price and then some for Gobert, and then did not receive the expected production

Signing Luka Garza to 2 ways 2 years in a row would be an example of taking advantage of a big man market inefficiency.
Drafting Walker Kessler late in the first round and having a shot blocking rebounding big man locked up on a cheap rookie deal was taking advantage of a market inefficiency.
Trading that away for a max contract player for that same role was the opposite of that.
Taking advantage of Naz Reid's friendships on the team to get him to extend before hitting the open market would be an example of a savvy move.
Cutting Taurean Prince before his guarantee date and then watching him sign for a lot less.

Connelly painted himself into a corner with the Gobert move, created cap problems and took a lot of assets off the table.
There are going to have to be a lot of little moves going right over the next few years, the margin for error has shrunk.
Correctly gauging Russell's value to winning and moving on rather than extending him was a huge move, dodged a real bullet there.

[urinesane]

We gave up what amounts to 6 picks and a swap, undervalued? I hope not. And I don't think this is an example of what he is talking about. Market inefficiencies as he talks about them is finding undervalued players.

Take Gobert's production, track record and impact on winning from his first nine seasons. Now take all of that and assign it to a random player that doesn't play center. Any team in the league would pay that price and not bat an eye...if they could get the team to part with said player when he hasn't requested a trade, that is.

The market inefficiency is the center position.

I get what you are saying, good luck getting that fella to (there's really no point to trying).

There are a lot of these inefficiencies, whether it's league trends towards certain styles of play, player, the Wolves know that chasing trends will never be a path towards success for a small market team. Finding value, whether it be in front office, training staff, coaching, players on other rosters that are undervalued (often because of fit/system/opportunity), or in the draft (often times looking at guys with the raw skills AND mentality/mind that are able to be developed in-house, but are being drafted before the rest of the league sees their potential future value).

It's smart. They paid a lot for Gobert, can we move past that yet? It may not turn out to be even a net negative, let alone the worst thing ever. Plus, pretty much every move they've done since has been brilliant.

[Klomp]

I think of it like when the Spurs got Duncan, starting winning a lot, and then transitioned from the Robinson timeline to the Duncan and Friends timeline. They always did it through drafting players at a great value and developing them to play in their system (which with years and years of precedent becomes easier and easier to scout talent for fit/value).

It's wild when looking back at that first Spurs title in his second season. I know the philosophies on how to build teams were much different as young guys rarely got early playing time back then, but Duncan was the only player under age 30 to start a game for the Spurs that season.

[urinesane]

For those who haven't been paying attention, this is the new buzzword for Tim Connelly and the Timberwolves organization. And I think you can really see it playing out in how Connelly is constructing his roster.

There are a few examples I'll bring up to highlight this.

-What Gobert brings to a team does not make the highlight reels, and I think it's a major reason why his valuation gets mocked so often. If you switched his offensive and defensive contributions to team success around, Connelly would be lauded for the trade rather than mocked, if they could still pull off the trade.
-Centers in general are undervalued around the league, but especially big men with movement ability like Naz and Towns. Connelly is loading up, when other teams are avoiding big men.
-Youth and rawness. Connelly says we're going to go in a year early on guys. We potentially have some steals in Minott, Miller and Clark (injury) that other teams didn't want to be patient for.
-Trading an expiring Russell for Conley with an extra year allowed them to pick up extra value in NAW and a few 2nds.

Cornering market inefficiencies is crucial for a small market team in an old arena, where you kinda have to create your own luck in order to win.

I will definitely give you selling Russell at peak value, getting back a player who fits better, and taking a chance on guys who slipped in the draft.
Maybe that also means rolling the dice on guys with upside versus picking a guy with a higher floor.
Finding a rotation player in NAW as part of the salary filler.
Hopefully Milton and Brown will be good value signings.

Centers are valued lower, but he went way against that when he tied 60-65% of the cap into 2 big men.
That's the opposite of market efficiency. He paid a premium price and then some for Gobert, and then did not receive the expected production

Signing Luka Garza to 2 ways 2 years in a row would be an example of taking advantage of a big man market inefficiency.
Taking advantage of Naz Reid's friendships on the team to get him to extend before hitting the open market would be an example of a savvy move.
Cutting Taurean Prince before his guarantee date and then watching him sign for a lot less.

Connelly painted himself into a corner with the Gobert move, created cap problems and took a lot of assets off the table.
There are going to have to be a lot of little moves going right over the next few years, the margin for error has shrunk.
Correctly gauging Russell's value to winning and moving on rather than extending him was a huge move, dodged a real bullet there.

He created POTENTIAL FUTURE PROBLEMS. They are not problems right now.

Which means that they do not have to find solutions NOW to future problems, this isn't climate change we are talking about. A single well timed deal in the future can make all of the typing the Chicken Little's have done here in the last year completely pointless (and their anxiety).

I'd rather focus on what they have right now, which is a very talented roster that should win a lot of games. I don't care about those perceived future issues, because it's not the future yet and they don't HAVE to solve them right now (though they should work hard to find a way to solve them when they are an actual issue).

[urinesane]

I think of it like when the Spurs got Duncan, starting winning a lot, and then transitioned from the Robinson timeline to the Duncan and Friends timeline. They always did it through drafting players at a great value and developing them to play in their system (which with years and years of precedent becomes easier and easier to scout talent for fit/value).

It's wild when looking back at that first Spurs title in his second season. I know the philosophies on how to build teams were much different as young guys rarely got early playing time back then, but Duncan was the only player under age 30 to start a game for the Spurs that season.

Which not only says a lot about HIM, but the organization. He was clearly ready to contribute in a meaningful way without the team having to sacrifice success in the short term. Which even if there was some sort of "youth doesn't play" mentality in the franchise, they were smart enough to see what they had in Duncan and didn't get in their own way.

[SO_MONEY]

We gave up what amounts to 6 picks and a swap, undervalued? I hope not. And I don't think this is an example of what he is talking about. Market inefficiencies as he talks about them is finding undervalued players.

Take Gobert's production, track record and impact on winning from his first nine seasons. Now take all of that and assign it to a random player that doesn't play center. Any team in the league would pay that price and not bat an eye...if they could get the team to part with said player when he hasn't requested a trade, that is.

The market inefficiency is the center position.

I get what you are saying, good luck getting that fella to (there's really no point to trying).

There are a lot of these inefficiencies, whether it's league trends towards certain styles of play, player, the Wolves know that chasing trends will never be a path towards success for a small market team. Finding value, whether it be in front office, training staff, coaching, players on other rosters that are undervalued (often because of fit/system/opportunity), or in the draft (often times looking at guys with the raw skills AND mentality/mind that are able to be developed in-house, but are being drafted before the rest of the league sees their potential future value).

It's smart. They paid a lot for Gobert, can we move past that yet? It may not turn out to be even a net negative, let alone the worst thing ever. Plus, pretty much every move they've done since has been brilliant.

If I were to pay $10 for a can of corn then claim I am taking advantage of market inefficiency by saying cans of corn are undervalued it would be a self-own.

I get what he is saying, but the truth is TC proved centers are not undervalued by doing what he did. If I were to pay .$0.25 cents for a can of corn and claim cans of corn are undervalued (close to or below cost) then his argument would hold, it would be a market inefficiency... but that isn't the (positional) market in what was practice. The Gobert trade happened.

As I said I didn't hear TC use the verbiage to explain what the OP is explaining, I could have missed it, missed the interview in question, whatever, but I don't think the term is accurate if he did for the above reasons.

[Klomp]

If I were to pay $10 for a can of corn then claim I am taking advantage of market inefficiency by saying cans of corn are undervalued it would be a self-own.

I get what he is saying, but the truth is TC proved centers are not undervalued by doing what he did. If I were to pay .$0.25 cents for a can of corn and claim cans of corn are undervalued (close to or below cost) then his argument would hold, it would be a market inefficiency... but that isn't the (positional) market in what was practice. The Gobert trade happened.

As I said I didn't hear TC use the verbiage to explain what the OP is explaining, I could have missed it, missed the interview in question, whatever, but I don't think the term is accurate if he did for the above.

For the record, Connelly has never specifically called the center position a market inefficiency. Those posts were me using the center position as an example of what I think could also be a market inefficiency.

[SO_MONEY]

If I were to pay $10 for a can of corn then claim I am taking advantage of market inefficiency by saying cans of corn are undervalued it would be a self-own.

I get what he is saying, but the truth is TC proved centers are not undervalued by doing what he did. If I were to pay .$0.25 cents for a can of corn and claim cans of corn are undervalued (close to or below cost) then his argument would hold, it would be a market inefficiency... but that isn't the (positional) market in what was practice. The Gobert trade happened.

As I said I didn't hear TC use the verbiage to explain what the OP is explaining, I could have missed it, missed the interview in question, whatever, but I don't think the term is accurate if he did for the above.

For the record, Connelly has never specifically called the center position a market inefficiency. Those posts were me using the center position as an example of what I think could also be a market inefficiency.

Thanks, that does clear up some of my confusion.

I think the better way and I think this is what you are really getting at... positional scarcity. Meaning the strategy of TC seems to be to collect talent at a position that has a perceived if not quantifiable shortage of it.

TC is acting as a contrarian. Doing the opposite.

It is a strategy that can work, don't think it will, but if you can find a differential that is beneficial you have gamed conventional wisdom.

[urinesane]

Take Gobert's production, track record and impact on winning from his first nine seasons. Now take all of that and assign it to a random player that doesn't play center. Any team in the league would pay that price and not bat an eye...if they could get the team to part with said player when he hasn't requested a trade, that is.

The market inefficiency is the center position.

I get what you are saying, good luck getting that fella to (there's really no point to trying).

There are a lot of these inefficiencies, whether it's league trends towards certain styles of play, player, the Wolves know that chasing trends will never be a path towards success for a small market team. Finding value, whether it be in front office, training staff, coaching, players on other rosters that are undervalued (often because of fit/system/opportunity), or in the draft (often times looking at guys with the raw skills AND mentality/mind that are able to be developed in-house, but are being drafted before the rest of the league sees their potential future value).

It's smart. They paid a lot for Gobert, can we move past that yet? It may not turn out to be even a net negative, let alone the worst thing ever. Plus, pretty much every move they've done since has been brilliant.

If I were to pay $10 for a can of corn then claim I am taking advantage of market inefficiency by saying cans of corn are undervalued it would be a self-own.

I get what he is saying, but the truth is TC proved centers are not undervalued by doing what he did. If I were to pay .$0.25 cents for a can of corn and claim cans of corn are undervalued (close to or below cost) then his argument would hold, it would be a market inefficiency... but that isn't the (positional) market in what was practice. The Gobert trade happened.

You're mixing two different things in order to make your point (what else is new?).

The Center position is currently undervalued in the NBA (especially before this season) even though the last 3 MVPs were centers.

Tim Connelly paid a big price for one of the best centers in the league.

Those can both be true without having to apply the 2nd to the first or as if that was Connelly's mindset with that trade.

His mindset with the trade was not clearly not grounded in market inefficiency, at least not when negotiating the price.

It was most likely (at least in large part) based on a mandate from new ownership to address the issues the Wolves had against the Grizzlies in the previous playoffs. It's not a very Connelly type move based on his history and it fits with the style of new ownership (taking big swings). The picks he spent in order to keep Jaden were well worth it (if the trade was something new ownership was set on) and they didn't really give up THAT much value. They gave up a lot of nickels, and most likely a handful of pennies to get a quarter. One of those pennies may end up being a rare one worth a lot more than 1 cent, but probably not.

If you are able to stop acting like the Gobert trade is some scarlet letter that somehow taints every post Gobert trade move, you'd be able to wrap your head around the concepts that the NBA undervalues Centers AND Connelly (ownership) overpaid for Gobert.

Unlike your brilliant can of corn analogy, Gobert can actually increase his value even if there isn't a corn shortage!

Not only that, the picks that were sent do not yet have a set value. You can't say they spent $10 dollars, because the picks don't exist yet outside of perceived future value (which is currently very low considering the Wolves current trajectory). As of now they traded:

Walker Kessler
PatBev
Vando
Beasley
Ballermario
Keyonte George (who would be a G league player making $3.9 million this season and $12.2 million his first three seasons)
2025 Can of Corn
2027 Can of Corn
2029 Can of Corn
(Did I miss a can of corn?)

Now while we can't know what those cans of corn will look like when we open them up, we can be PRETTY sure that they will be more expensive than a shiny new can of corn this season (based on the continued revenue increase of the league). Some of them may be amazing, but most of them will probably just be corn.

I think the issue with many fans of dogsh*t teams is that they overvalue the draft, at least the lottery. They conveniently forget how often it doesn't work out (nearly every lottery pick ends up being worse value than their contract), but hold onto the hope that they'll get a franchise changing player... the problem is that's basically a fairytale. Then when things go bad they sit in a corner, rocking back and forth and yammering about draft picks, not realizing that at some point that pick is only as good as the player that comes from it. The issue is, that the lottery has an inherent price tag, those tickets cost WAY more when it comes to flexibility AND money than taking a shot on a later one and being able to easily cut bait on the ones that don't work (and cash in more on the ones that do).

Most teams that suck keep on sucking, because they don't hit it big on the lottery and those picks that they make end up hurting the team more than helping (often times tying up more salary than they should).

The Wolves already have Ant and KAT. They don't need more lottery picks, they need good/great vets (Conley, Anderson, Gobert), and young guys that can develop into positive value based on their draft position/current contract (Naz has already proven this, Minott, Leonard, and Clark all seem to be likely hits in this regard).

You can argue that they could have turned those picks into a better vet (please list some, I'd love to hear who you would have turned them into), but you can't argue that they are valuable. Unless you can predict corn futures or something.

Also, please stop with the analogies, you aren't very good at them.

[SO_MONEY]

I get what you are saying, good luck getting that fella to (there's really no point to trying).

There are a lot of these inefficiencies, whether it's league trends towards certain styles of play, player, the Wolves know that chasing trends will never be a path towards success for a small market team. Finding value, whether it be in front office, training staff, coaching, players on other rosters that are undervalued (often because of fit/system/opportunity), or in the draft (often times looking at guys with the raw skills AND mentality/mind that are able to be developed in-house, but are being drafted before the rest of the league sees their potential future value).

It's smart. They paid a lot for Gobert, can we move past that yet? It may not turn out to be even a net negative, let alone the worst thing ever. Plus, pretty much every move they've done since has been brilliant.

If I were to pay $10 for a can of corn then claim I am taking advantage of market inefficiency by saying cans of corn are undervalued it would be a self-own.

I get what he is saying, but the truth is TC proved centers are not undervalued by doing what he did. If I were to pay .$0.25 cents for a can of corn and claim cans of corn are undervalued (close to or below cost) then his argument would hold, it would be a market inefficiency... but that isn't the (positional) market in what was practice. The Gobert trade happened.

You're mixing two different things in order to make your point (what else is new?).

The Center position is currently undervalued in the NBA (especially before this season).

Tim Connelly paid a big price for one of the best centers in the league.

Those can both be true without having to apply the 2nd to the first or as if that was Connelly's mindset with that trade.

His mindset with the trade was not clearly not grounded in market inefficiency, at least not when negotiating the price.

It was most likely (at least in large part) based on a mandate from new ownership to address the issues the Wolves had against the Grizzlies in the previous playoffs. It's not a very Connelly type move based on his history and it fits with the style of new ownership (taking big swings). The picks he spent in order to keep Jaden were well worth it (if the trade was something new ownership was set on) and they didn't really give up THAT much value. They gave up a lot of nickels, and most likely a handful of pennies to get a quarter. One of those pennies may end up being a rare one worth a lot more than 1 cent, but probably not.

If you are able to stop acting like the Gobert trade is some scarlet letter that somehow taints every post Gobert trade move, you'd be able to wrap your head around the concepts that the NBA undervalues Centers AND Connelly (ownership) overpaid for Gobert.

Unlike your brilliant can of corn analogy, Gobert can actually increase his value even if there isn't a corn shortage!

Not only that, the picks that were sent do not yet have a set value. You can't say they spent $10 dollars, because the picks don't exist yet outside of perceived future value (which is currently very low considering the Wolves current trajectory). As of now they traded:

Walker Kessler
PatBev
Vando
Beasley
Ballermario
Keyonte George (who would be a G league player making $3.9 million this season and $12.2 million his first three seasons)
2025 Can of Corn
2027 Can of Corn
2029 Can of Corn
(Did I miss a can of corn?)

Now while we can't know what those cans of corn will look like when we open them up, we can be PRETTY sure that they will be more expensive than a shiny new can of corn this season (based on the continued revenue increase of the league). Some of them may be amazing, but most of them will probably just be corn.

I think the issue with many fans of dogsh*t teams is that they overvalue the draft, at least the lottery. They conveniently forget how often it doesn't work out (nearly every lottery pick ends up being worse value than their contract), but hold onto the hope that they'll get a franchise changing player... the problem is that's basically a fairytale. Then when things go bad they sit in a corner, rocking back and forth and yammering about draft picks, not realizing that at some point that pick is only as good as the player that comes from it. The issue is, that the lottery has an inherent price tag, those tickets cost WAY more when it comes to flexibility AND money than taking a shot on a later one and being able to easily cut bait on the ones that don't work (and cash in more on the ones that do).

Most teams that suck keep on sucking, because they don't hit it big on the lottery and those picks that they make end up hurting the team more than helping (often times tying up more salary than they should).

The Wolves already have Ant and KAT. They don't need more lottery picks, they need good/great vets (Conley, Anderson, Gobert), and young guys that can develop into positive value based on their draft position/current contract (Naz has already proven this, Minott, Leonard, and Clark all seem to be likely hits in this regard).

You can argue that they could have turned those picks into a better vet (please list some, I'd love to hear who you would have turned them into), but you can't argue that they are valuable. Unless you can predict corn futures or something.

Also, please stop with the analogies, you aren't very good at them.

I covered this in my last post, and believe it or not I agree with a lot of what you said, but I think we are taking positional scarcity, not market inefficiency. I don't think centers are undervalued, it isn't just the Gobert trade, there are still high contracts for average centers... there isn't much talent at the position and because of this up to a point centers are actually overvalued, it does level off some around the bottom 3rd or 4th (slightly sooner?) due to lack of differential and I think the lack of value there is what the OP is really seeing and he is correct in that. I was just questioning that TC said it because as I said it is a self own... but he didn't and that was cleared up.

[KGdaBom]

I get what you are saying, good luck getting that fella to (there's really no point to trying).

There are a lot of these inefficiencies, whether it's league trends towards certain styles of play, player, the Wolves know that chasing trends will never be a path towards success for a small market team. Finding value, whether it be in front office, training staff, coaching, players on other rosters that are undervalued (often because of fit/system/opportunity), or in the draft (often times looking at guys with the raw skills AND mentality/mind that are able to be developed in-house, but are being drafted before the rest of the league sees their potential future value).

It's smart. They paid a lot for Gobert, can we move past that yet? It may not turn out to be even a net negative, let alone the worst thing ever. Plus, pretty much every move they've done since has been brilliant.

If I were to pay $10 for a can of corn then claim I am taking advantage of market inefficiency by saying cans of corn are undervalued it would be a self-own.

I get what he is saying, but the truth is TC proved centers are not undervalued by doing what he did. If I were to pay .$0.25 cents for a can of corn and claim cans of corn are undervalued (close to or below cost) then his argument would hold, it would be a market inefficiency... but that isn't the (positional) market in what was practice. The Gobert trade happened.

You're mixing two different things in order to make your point (what else is new?).

The Center position is currently undervalued in the NBA (especially before this season).

Tim Connelly paid a big price for one of the best centers in the league.

Those can both be true without having to apply the 2nd to the first or as if that was Connelly's mindset with that trade.

His mindset with the trade was not clearly not grounded in market inefficiency, at least not when negotiating the price.

It was most likely (at least in large part) based on a mandate from new ownership to address the issues the Wolves had against the Grizzlies in the previous playoffs. It's not a very Connelly type move based on his history and it fits with the style of new ownership (taking big swings). The picks he spent in order to keep Jaden were well worth it (if the trade was something new ownership was set on) and they didn't really give up THAT much value. They gave up a lot of nickels, and most likely a handful of pennies to get a quarter. One of those pennies may end up being a rare one worth a lot more than 1 cent, but probably not.

If you are able to stop acting like the Gobert trade is some scarlet letter that somehow taints every post Gobert trade move, you'd be able to wrap your head around the concepts that the NBA undervalues Centers AND Connelly (ownership) overpaid for Gobert.

Unlike your brilliant can of corn analogy, Gobert can actually increase his value even if there isn't a corn shortage!

Not only that, the picks that were sent do not yet have a set value. You can't say they spent $10 dollars, because the picks don't exist yet outside of perceived future value (which is currently very low considering the Wolves current trajectory). As of now they traded:

Walker Kessler
PatBev
Vando
Beasley
Ballermario
Keyonte George (who would be a G league player making $3.9 million this season and $12.2 million his first three seasons)
2025 Can of Corn
2027 Can of Corn
2029 Can of Corn
(Did I miss a can of corn?)

Now while we can't know what those cans of corn will look like when we open them up, we can be PRETTY sure that they will be more expensive than a shiny new can of corn this season (based on the continued revenue increase of the league). Some of them may be amazing, but most of them will probably just be corn.

I think the issue with many fans of dogsh*t teams is that they overvalue the draft, at least the lottery. They conveniently forget how often it doesn't work out (nearly every lottery pick ends up being worse value than their contract), but hold onto the hope that they'll get a franchise changing player... the problem is that's basically a fairytale. Then when things go bad they sit in a corner, rocking back and forth and yammering about draft picks, not realizing that at some point that pick is only as good as the player that comes from it. The issue is, that the lottery has an inherent price tag, those tickets cost WAY more when it comes to flexibility AND money than taking a shot on a later one and being able to easily cut bait on the ones that don't work (and cash in more on the ones that do).

Most teams that suck keep on sucking, because they don't hit it big on the lottery and those picks that they make end up hurting the team more than helping (often times tying up more salary than they should).

The Wolves already have Ant and KAT. They don't need more lottery picks, they need good/great vets (Conley, Anderson, Gobert), and young guys that can develop into positive value based on their draft position/current contract (Naz has already proven this, Minott, Leonard, and Clark all seem to be likely hits in this regard).

You can argue that they could have turned those picks into a better vet (please list some, I'd love to hear who you would have turned them into), but you can't argue that they are valuable. Unless you can predict corn futures or something.

Also, please stop with the analogies, you aren't very good at them.

One of those pennies Walker Kessler has IMO already proven to be worth 10 cents and potentially a good deal more. Because of my expectation that may happen I was never fully approving of the trade despite my totally agreeing with it in principle. Hopefully this year Rudy plays at the level I expected him to last year, KAT and others stay healthy and we win an NBA Title.

[TimberKat]

For those who haven't been paying attention, this is the new buzzword for Tim Connelly and the Timberwolves organization. And I think you can really see it playing out in how Connelly is constructing his roster.

There are a few examples I'll bring up to highlight this.

-What Gobert brings to a team does not make the highlight reels, and I think it's a major reason why his valuation gets mocked so often. If you switched his offensive and defensive contributions to team success around, Connelly would be lauded for the trade rather than mocked, if they could still pull off the trade.
-Centers in general are undervalued around the league, but especially big men with movement ability like Naz and Towns. Connelly is loading up, when other teams are avoiding big men.
-Youth and rawness. Connelly says we're going to go in a year early on guys. We potentially have some steals in Minott, Miller and Clark (injury) that other teams didn't want to be patient for.
-Trading an expiring Russell for Conley with an extra year allowed them to pick up extra value in NAW and a few 2nds.

Cornering market inefficiencies is crucial for a small market team in an old arena, where you kinda have to create your own luck in order to win.

In what context did Connelly use the term? Without context, it's basically saying his back office team is smarter than other NBA team's back office. I don't consider taking more risk with younger player is Market Inefficiency. Maybe it's something like we scout in ways that discovery things that other NBA team doesn't pickup. Maybe we see NBA is trending from small ball back to big lineups so we are ahead of the curve. How do they know or perceive a player is under value?