2024 Free Agency

[thinktank]

[gfycat][/gfycat]

Did you actually watch the Dallas series? Or the Denver series?
Gafford and Lively look like prime Dwight Howard against us but get shut down and embarrassed by old man Al Horford?
Should Boston give Horford a max extension now too?

Saying Rudy is worth 20-24 is not a knock on Rudy, it's addressing the reality of what a defense only player is worth at the most talent saturated position in the game.
That's about what 2023 DPOY Brook Lopez got and that guy can stretch the floor too.

Rudy had the best on/off of any Wolf against Dallas, I believe.

Two players are not the whole Dallas team. You win by beating the whole team, not just two guys.

Better re-watch the series.

On/off means **** all.

That’s a very eloquent defense. LOL.

We also have a bunch of other advanced stats and even counting stats that show us Rudy was valuable all playoffs, even against the Mavs.

Wolves vs Mavs:

Rudy 2nd on team in D rating.
Rudy 1st on team in O rating.

Open your **** eyes.

Our perimeter D couldn't guard Doncic and Irving. That was the main factor. Celtics kept Doncic and Irving out of the lane with physicality and without helping much. That’s the difference. It wasn’t Rudy’s fault we lost, and the numbers bear that out.

[Note30]

[gfycat][/gfycat]

Rudy had the best on/off of any Wolf against Dallas, I believe.

Two players are not the whole Dallas team. You win by beating the whole team, not just two guys.

Better re-watch the series.

On/off means **** all.

That’s a very eloquent defense. LOL.

We also have a bunch of other advanced stats and even counting stats that show us Rudy was valuable all playoffs, even against the Mavs.

Wolves vs Mavs:

Rudy 2nd on team in D rating.
Rudy 1st on team in O rating.

Open your **** eyes.

Our perimeter D couldn't guard Doncic and Irving. That was the main factor. Celtics kept Doncic and Irving out of the lane with physicality and without helping much. That’s the difference. It wasn’t Rudy’s fault we lost, and the numbers bear that out.

If I actually break down the plays are you going to concede or would you just cite your stats again?

Cause I can break it down for you on offense and defense why Gobert was ****, but not if you're just gonna go silent afterwards.

I'll breakdown all 5 games for you and put notes on all of them, I don't mind but if you're gonna just bitch out then I don't want to do that.

[thinktank]

On/off means **** all.

That’s a very eloquent defense. LOL.

We also have a bunch of other advanced stats and even counting stats that show us Rudy was valuable all playoffs, even against the Mavs.

Wolves vs Mavs:

Rudy 2nd on team in D rating.
Rudy 1st on team in O rating.

Open your **** eyes.

Our perimeter D couldn't guard Doncic and Irving. That was the main factor. Celtics kept Doncic and Irving out of the lane with physicality and without helping much. That’s the difference. It wasn’t Rudy’s fault we lost, and the numbers bear that out.

If I actually break down the plays are you going to concede or would you just cite your stats again?

Cause I can break it down for you on offense and defense why Gobert was ****, but not if you're just gonna go silent afterwards.

I'll breakdown all 5 games for you and put notes on all of them, I don't mind but if you're gonna just bitch out then I don't want to do that.

As long as you’re talking basketball you can do whatever you want. I watched the games and told you why our loss to the Mavs wasn’t Gobert’s fault, citing advanced stats.

You haven’t talked basketball yet so… zzzzzzzz.

[Klomp]

If Garza moves on, I wonder if we could get Andre Drummond to come here...

[Norseman79]

I really think Xavier Tillman could help this team as an affordable big. Defend, rebound, dirty work guy.

[FrenchMinnyFan]

Hope we got some scoring from the bench. We loose against Dallas mostly because ANT and Mike play at 70% of their level. I know all teams have injured players but I’m still upset we push too much during regular season and run out of gas against Mavs . West is packed so ending 1 or 5 does not matter but having fresh players to make a run is mandatory. Dallas got exactly the same issues in the final we got against them. East is so weak that Boston came with 120% energy in the final where Dallas was tired. Hope we learn from this year and next year we will the there!

[younggunsmn]

[gfycat][/gfycat]

Rudy had the best on/off of any Wolf against Dallas, I believe.

Two players are not the whole Dallas team. You win by beating the whole team, not just two guys.

Better re-watch the series.

On/off means **** all.

That’s a very eloquent defense. LOL.

We also have a bunch of other advanced stats and even counting stats that show us Rudy was valuable all playoffs, even against the Mavs.

Wolves vs Mavs:

Rudy 2nd on team in D rating.
Rudy 1st on team in O rating.

Open your **** eyes.

Our perimeter D couldn't guard Doncic and Irving. That was the main factor. Celtics kept Doncic and Irving out of the lane with physicality and without helping much. That’s the difference. It wasn’t Rudy’s fault we lost, and the numbers bear that out.

Our scheme is for our perimeter defenders to run Luka and Kyrie off the 3 point line and funnel them into Rudy, and the only part of that which failed was that Rudy Gobert played some of the most atrocious interior defense of his career in the Dallas series.

If his advanced stats are slightly less horrible than the other 2 horrible bigs he was playing with against Dallas that doesn't make him a good defender. And he was a disaster trying to guard Jokic. Naz and Kat were the only guys who even slowed him down.
Luka Garza could have done a better job on Jokic than Gobert did.

And Luka Doncic did the same thing to Rudy, in the playoffs, when he was with Utah.

When you are the quarterback, how you play matters more than the other guys.
And Gobert is supposed to be the quarterback of our defense.

Mike, NAW, Jaden, Ant are all great defenders and did what they were supposed to do for the most part all series against Dallas, but they were let down badly by their bigs.
Especially Gobert, who had no interest in playing the trap scheme we needed to switch to after his disgusting effort at playing drop in game 1.

He's supposed to be good enough on that end to justify turning a top 10 offense with 2 generational talents into a bottom 10 offense.
Regular season, yeah that worked out OK this year.
When the competition got better, not so much.

[thinktank]

On/off means **** all.

That’s a very eloquent defense. LOL.

We also have a bunch of other advanced stats and even counting stats that show us Rudy was valuable all playoffs, even against the Mavs.

Wolves vs Mavs:

Rudy 2nd on team in D rating.
Rudy 1st on team in O rating.

Open your **** eyes.

Our perimeter D couldn't guard Doncic and Irving. That was the main factor. Celtics kept Doncic and Irving out of the lane with physicality and without helping much. That’s the difference. It wasn’t Rudy’s fault we lost, and the numbers bear that out.

Our scheme is for our perimeter defenders to run Luka and Kyrie off the 3 point line and funnel them into Rudy, and the only part of that which failed was that Rudy Gobert played some of the most atrocious interior defense of his career in the Dallas series.

If his advanced stats are slightly less horrible than the other 2 horrible bigs he was playing with against Dallas that doesn't make him a good defender. And he was a disaster trying to guard Jokic. Naz and Kat were the only guys who even slowed him down.
Luka Garza could have done a better job on Jokic than Gobert did.

And Luka Doncic did the same thing to Rudy, in the playoffs, when he was with Utah.

When you are the quarterback, how you play matters more than the other guys.
And Gobert is supposed to be the quarterback of our defense.

Mike, NAW, Jaden, Ant are all great defenders and did what they were supposed to do for the most part all series against Dallas, but they were let down badly by their bigs.
Especially Gobert, who had no interest in playing the trap scheme we needed to switch to after his disgusting effort at playing drop in game 1.

He's supposed to be good enough on that end to justify turning a top 10 offense with 2 generational talents into a bottom 10 offense.
Regular season, yeah that worked out OK this year.
When the competition got better, not so much.

Thank you for talking basketball.

I couldn’t disagree more.

Celtics knew that it’s suicide to funnel Irving and Doncic inside, so they didn’t do that. Period. And they won with very few lobs yielded as a result.

The Celtics didn’t win by funneling Irving and Doncic into Horford or Porzingis and trapping them.

They played fresh and physical defense and kept them from the middle of the floor, where they can do the most damage. Our guys weren’t there physically for the challenge. Ant himself said they were fatigued, and Ant was targeted.

Stick around. We’re better than Dallas and we’ll show it.

You disagree. Fine.

[Norseman79]

I also feel like we need more physicality inside. Someone that will put someone down on their ass. That's why I like the idea of signing Tillman. Big physical aggressive coming off the bench and can send a message.

[younggunsmn]

They played fresh and physical defense and kept them from the middle of the floor, where they can do the most damage. Our guys weren’t there physically for the challenge. Ant himself said they were fatigued, and Ant was targeted.

Stick around. We’re better than Dallas and we’ll show it.

You disagree. Fine.

This is exactly what the high wall scheme we played from game 2 onward was supposed to do.
We played drop in game one to placate Gobert and when that was a disaster had to switch.

Our players, especially our bigs, failed to execute it because they didn't know what they were doing.
Gobert up top did not keep the ballhandler out of the middle of the floor, was not aggressive enough, and did not cut down passing lanes or angles AT ALL.
KAT and Naz were late and tentative rotating off the corner shooter to cut off the rolling big but the pass to that guy was made WAY too easy because of the lack of ball pressure.

Our bad hands, feet, and angles didn't cut the floor in half and force bad shots like Boston did because we were fundamentally terrible, starting with the freshly minted 4 time DPOY.

Dallas was not better than us, but they executed what their coach asked of them WAY better than we did on the defensive end, and had a coherent offensive scheme while ours was an absolute failure because of our atrocious spacing.

[winforlose]

Did Monte’s poor 23-24 season lower his market value for 24-25? Does he take a prove it deal? Or does he maybe sign on to start the season with a promise from TC that at mid season if he wants to move on he can and keep his bird rights in the trade? I see us keeping Morris even with RD, but either way I expect us to resign him for this season, even if it is only to trade him.

[younggunsmn]

Roster lock (10):
PG: Conley, Dillingham

Wing: Edwards, Mcdaniels, Shannon, Alexander-Walker

Big: KAT, Gobert, Naz, Miller

Under contract, future in ? (2):
Moore (guaranteed), Minott (unguaranteed until 6/29)

Draft picks: Pick#37

Free Agents: Anderson, McLaughlin, Morris, Garza (RFA)

2 Way (1/3 filled): Jaylen Clarke

We re-sign McLaughlin for the vet min, and bring back Anderson or sign another F/C for the vet min.
Minott gets cut unless we use 37 on a draft and stash or find a team to take Moore.
We fill one 2-way with a prospect and keep the other open for an injury replacement.

[wolves_89]

One side effect of trading future draft capital for Dillingham is that I think it even less likely that any of our free agents are back unless they are on minimum or slightly above deals. Dillingham's contract will be $6.3M next season which makes the money situation even tighter that it was already.

[Klomp]

One side effect of trading future draft capital for Dillingham is that I think it even less likely that any of our free agents are back unless they are on minimum or slightly above deals. Dillingham's contract will be $6.3M next season which makes the money situation even tighter that it was already.

Correct.

I think our 37 might end up not on a standard contract too.....someone like Cam Christie, Tyler Smith or maybe a stash like Nunez.

[winforlose]

One side effect of trading future draft capital for Dillingham is that I think it even less likely that any of our free agents are back unless they are on minimum or slightly above deals. Dillingham's contract will be $6.3M next season which makes the money situation even tighter that it was already.

There is a flip side to this argument. If you have the cash to afford the team you want you want to increase short term spending to provide room to operate.

We had coming into the draft. I can see us moving Moore at the first opportunity which drops us to 9. We added 2 so far so back to 11. Reporting suggests we want Kyle back. JMAC will get offered more than the minimum elsewhere (Spurs would be a good place for him. Memphis might also want him, and there a few crappy teams who could use a good facilitator to help develop their young guys,) and we will have to decide if we can afford him. I cannot see a scenario in which Monte Morris is not a Timberwolf. His connection to TC and his high upside combined with reduced value after a bad/injured contract year. Assume we keep Kyle and Monte, lose JMAC and pick up a vet minimum ring chaser and you have a 14 man roster.

PG: Mike, Monte, RD
SG: Ant, NAW, Shannon/Minott
SF: MCD, Kyle, Minott/Shannon
PF: KAT, Naz, Miller
C: Rudy with a mix of other bigs and probably a free agent big ring chasing.

[minimus]

One side effect of trading future draft capital for Dillingham is that I think it even less likely that any of our free agents are back unless they are on minimum or slightly above deals. Dillingham's contract will be $6.3M next season which makes the money situation even tighter that it was already.

There is a flip side to this argument. If you have the cash to afford the team you want you want to increase short term spending to provide room to operate.

We had coming into the draft. I can see us moving Moore at the first opportunity which drops us to 9. We added 2 so far so back to 11. Reporting suggests we want Kyle back. JMAC will get offered more than the minimum elsewhere (Spurs would be a good place for him. Memphis might also want him, and there a few crappy teams who could use a good facilitator to help develop their young guys,) and we will have to decide if we can afford him. I cannot see a scenario in which Monte Morris is not a Timberwolf. His connection to TC and his high upside combined with reduced value after a bad/injured contract year. Assume we keep Kyle and Monte, lose JMAC and pick up a vet minimum ring chaser and you have a 14 man roster.

PG: Mike, Monte, RD
SG: Ant, NAW, Shannon/Minott
SF: MCD, Kyle, Minott/Shannon
PF: KAT, Naz, Miller
C: Rudy with a mix of other bigs and probably a free agent big ring chasing.

Read on Twitter

I doubt Anderson and Morris will be back, but I hope I am wrong. I see it this way:

PG: Mike, RD, NAW
SG: Ant, NAW, Clarke
SF: MCD, Shannon, Minott
PF: KAT, Naz, Miller
C: Rudy, KAT, ???

I love how Dillingham bad defense kind of meshes with Clark, NAW excellent defense

[winforlose]

One side effect of trading future draft capital for Dillingham is that I think it even less likely that any of our free agents are back unless they are on minimum or slightly above deals. Dillingham's contract will be $6.3M next season which makes the money situation even tighter that it was already.

There is a flip side to this argument. If you have the cash to afford the team you want you want to increase short term spending to provide room to operate.

We had coming into the draft. I can see us moving Moore at the first opportunity which drops us to 9. We added 2 so far so back to 11. Reporting suggests we want Kyle back. JMAC will get offered more than the minimum elsewhere (Spurs would be a good place for him. Memphis might also want him, and there a few crappy teams who could use a good facilitator to help develop their young guys,) and we will have to decide if we can afford him. I cannot see a scenario in which Monte Morris is not a Timberwolf. His connection to TC and his high upside combined with reduced value after a bad/injured contract year. Assume we keep Kyle and Monte, lose JMAC and pick up a vet minimum ring chaser and you have a 14 man roster.

PG: Mike, Monte, RD
SG: Ant, NAW, Shannon/Minott
SF: MCD, Kyle, Minott/Shannon
PF: KAT, Naz, Miller
C: Rudy with a mix of other bigs and probably a free agent big ring chasing.

Read on Twitter

I doubt Anderson and Morris will be back, but I hope I am wrong. I see it this way:

PG: Mike, RD, NAW
SG: Ant, NAW, Clarke
SF: MCD, Shannon, Minott
PF: KAT, Naz, Miller
C: Rudy, KAT, ???

I love how Dillingham bad defense kind of meshes with Clark, NAW excellent defense

I don’t remember who told me this, I know it was someone on this board about midway through the season. Someone said that NAW was drafted as a scorer and not that good at defense when he entered the league. I am not saying RD will be as good as NAW defensively, nor is that a reasonable expectation. But I can see RD becoming as good as say Monte Morris with coaching and culture. This is the best place to learn both defensive technique and defensive hunger.

[minimus]

TC resigned for one more year, Finch signed four year extension, either ownership group are willing to pay luxury tax, MIN have just made bold moves in first round draft. I see this as unusual for MIN, because it speaks about continuity, stability and identity. MIN have a vision and system that you can see.

I wonder what ripple effect it might have on FA market. Will veterans seeking playoff opportunities look at MIN as place to showcase their skills and experience? Does Anderson and Morris have less leverage? We could use one, maybe two battle tested veterans

[minimus]

I don’t remember who told me this, I know it was someone on this board about midway through the season. Someone said that NAW was drafted as a scorer and not that good at defense when he entered the league. I am not saying RD will be as good as NAW defensively, nor is that a reasonable expectation. But I can see RD becoming as good as say Monte Morris with coaching and culture. This is the best place to learn both defensive technique and defensive hunger.

I hope so, although NAW always had physical attributes to play defense, for instance 7'0" wingspan. I'd rather develop RD as Steph Curry who developed over years, core strength and balance, that helped him to avoid injuries. Also Steph was leading in off ball screens among guards, making off ball screens a huge part of GSW offense.

[winforlose]

I don’t remember who told me this, I know it was someone on this board about midway through the season. Someone said that NAW was drafted as a scorer and not that good at defense when he entered the league. I am not saying RD will be as good as NAW defensively, nor is that a reasonable expectation. But I can see RD becoming as good as say Monte Morris with coaching and culture. This is the best place to learn both defensive technique and defensive hunger.

I hope so, although NAW always had physical attributes to play defense, for instance 7'0" wingspan. I'd rather develop RD as Steph Curry who developed over years, core strength and balance, that helped him to avoid injuries. Also Steph was leading in off ball screens among guards, making off ball screens a huge part of GSW offense.

Sure, that works too. My point is, he is in the right place to learn both how to play defense, and why you want to. Here defense and defensive effort is how you fit in. Want to goes a long way in going from 0 to 3 out of 10 in defense. From there we can work on getting him a few numbers up with bulking up, better technique, film review, ect…