The Tim Connelly Thread (prev./still Fire Him)

[minimus]

Towns plays well because number of factors:

- he plays his natural position C, where is unstoppable
- he plays in the most modern formation five-out, all five guys can shoot, and while Hart is not a good shooter he has IQ and skills to impact the game in other areas
- he plays within group of well established players, who have experience, effort, chemistry and skills. Compare it with young Wiggins and Edwards
- he plays with well established PG Brunson, compare it with Teague, DLo
- and more importantly: Karl is a better player, better person now

[minimus]

Will be an interesting match-up. Rudy will definitely make his life difficult under the rim. Knicks improve with KAT definitely and their defense is not that bad. For ne this game is a real test to show our level.

I feel like the most decisive battle will be between low profile players. At the moment I am more concerned with Hart who can expose our defense with off ball moves, screens, rebounding etc.

[dschroeder01]

Towns is leading the NBA in rebounding. I think people forgot how good a rebounder he is when he plays center. He had four straight years at the start of his career where he was in the top 3-5 in total rebounds. Missing games and playing away from the basket hurt those numbers in later years.

When Towns plays center, he is a match up nightmare. Opposing centers are too slow to guard him, especially his three point shooting, and opposing PF’s often don’t have the size if KAT’s head is on straight that night for his post game. He has every offensive skill. However, if you play KAT at center, it really drags down the defense because he’s so bad at defending the rim, and that’s what you need your big center to do. I’m not saying what people don’t know - Towns hates to stay under the basket, comes out, and blows up his team’s defense.

I really hope KAT plays well here Thursday, and I hope MIN fans give him the credit that many withheld for years. However, I think KAT won’t be able to stop the Conley-Gobert pick-and-roll at all, so he better score 35 on the offensive side to make up for it.

The KAT rebounding numbers this year are interesting. I have no claim as an Xs and Os expert, but Thibs seems to run a system that encourages some of these bigger rebounding numbers from certain guys. Look at Randle. His rebounding is down significantly this year going from NY to MIN. KAT going the other way is way up. Yes, I understand the different positions thing, but Randle played next to Robsinson and Hartenstein the last 2 years and still rebounded well in NY.

I agree with you on KAT playing the 5 keying his numbers. He is a big matchup problem there provided teams guard him with centers. We know though that he can be thwarted by stronger 4s who can shut down his skill/movement advantage vs. 5s. How he fares vs. Boston in a series or a guy like Mobley in a series will be interesting.

This year has only proven what we know on KAT. He's a great offensive and suboptimal defensive 5. He was a good offensive 4 and decent defensive 4 for the Wolves.

[minimus]

The resurgence of Jaden McDaniels is a major boost for the Timberwolves
Everything about his game is improving — defense, shooting and avoiding foul trouble.
by Britt Robson

https://www.minnpost.com/sports/2024/12/the-resurgence-of-jaden-mcdaniels-is-a-major-boost-for-the-timberwolves/

I have been advocating for McDaniels to be more involved in offense and more deployed as roamer, rotational defender. I felt like Finch had this idea as well, before Randle trade (at least I got this impression from Britt Robson article)

https://www.minnpost.com/sports/2024/09/this-could-be-the-breakout-year-for-minnesota-timberwolves-jaden-mcdaniels

McDaniels recent game reminds me that he is a core player for this organisation, his 131mil / 5yrs extension look really good now. One thing I want to say: TC is being blaming for Gobert trade, for Towns trade etc. But. In DEN he was criticised for re-signing MPJ to big contract, but in MIN I guess TC has been doing solid job at re-signing players.

[dschroeder01]

One thing I want to say: TC is being blaming for Gobert trade, for Towns trade etc.

Maybe trade grades shouldn't be final in the first year or so? The Gobert trade eventually led to the best season in Wolves history in conjunction with his trade for Conley and NAW. Seems solid to me. Maybe we should give it more than 3 months to look at the full scope of the KAT trade?

[Klomp]

An offhanded comment from Phil Mackey on yesterday's Flagrant Howls podcast jogged my memory on something. He mentioned that the win shares metric likes Julius Randle. And that reminded me of something I heard a few seasons back, I don't remember if it was from the LoRod group or Tim Connelly himself, but someone said the win shares metric was a factor behind the Gobert trade.

Now, Towns is ironically having a resurgence this season, with .232 win shares per 48 minutes so far in 2024-25, his highest rate since Finch's interim season. The statistic tends to favor centers, so this is probably a significant factor in his jump back up this season. But looking at the Timberwolves starting power forward position since Gobert has been on the team, Julius Randle has a higher win shares per 48 minutes rate in 2024-25 (.159) than Karl-Anthony Towns had in 2022-23 (.133) or 2023-24 (.148).

[Note30]

Hope they can his ass.

[GopherIt!]

his seat is getting very warm. finch too.

i hate watching rudy. i know, analytics, metrics, etc etc, yadda yadda. I get it. I still hate watching him play. he clogs the lane reducing Ant to shooting 3s.

i want to watch the next mj, the biggest, strongest, baddest shooting guard in the league play down hill basketball, not be a damned spot up shooter.

[winforlose]

Just gonna ask periodically if people are starting to change their mind on roster construction and position-less basketball to the determent of the PG and C. For years I have said you win at the PG and C and this year we have no depth at either position. Some of you will call this an agenda or vendetta or any other silly words you like. But I hope in time you will see that I had a good point that relying on a 37 year old starting PG with an undersized rookie with defensive issues (who happens to be 19,) is not the best game-plan in a second apron year. Likewise having Naz and Randle as your 4/5 the year after big ball led you to the WCF is not great if Rudy is having an off night, or a rest night, or is in foul trouble, or is sick, or god forbid injured. TC did a bad job with the free agency (we could be starting Tyus right now,) and he did a bad job with the KAT trade. He tried to fix what wasn’t broken yet and he broke it quite well.

[Guest84]

The more I sit and watch or think about it, it really is a poorly constructed team. Even last years team was, it just so happened to work due to the immense size we had over other teams.

However, I’m also starting to feel like there may have been some pressure from the league to make the Towns deal. We can see it in the media that they want the Knicks to be relevant and have been talking about Towns to NY for quite some time.

Idk if you make it to the WCF I just think you keep that team together at least for the first half of the season.

[dschroeder01]

The more I sit and watch or think about it, it really is a poorly constructed team. Even last years team was, it just so happened to work due to the immense size we had over other teams.

However, I’m also starting to feel like there may have been some pressure from the league to make the Towns deal. We can see it in the media that they want the Knicks to be relevant and have been talking about Towns to NY for quite some time.

Idk if you make it to the WCF I just think you keep that team together at least for the first half of the season.

The immense size compared to this year was more about losing Kyle than losing a few inches in the KAT for Randle swap. Are you saying the Wolves should have kept Kyle too and not done the Dillingham deal? We could have used Dillingham's money for Kyle and just ran it back.

We needed a miracle comeback to make the WCF last year. Conley still would have aged/declined this year. Jaden still wouldn't have taken a step. KAT wouldn't produce his Knicks numbers at PF. How many extra wins do you think we'd have at this point without the trade?

Another thing is that trading in season is going to be really hard with the apron constraints around the league. Pivoting in season would have been REALLY hard. And, if the team didn't look good (which is the only scenario where an inseason trade would make sense) it probably wouldn't have helped trade values of our players.

A very plausible scenario is that the Wolves could have run it back, been 18-11 now, and on track for a first round exit to a team like Memphis or Dallas. How happy would fans be after losing in the first round and have to deal with losing NAW and Naz due to financial constraints? I get that the trade hasn't worked out like hoped. The deal set up this idealized scenario where we traded this known great scenario for the present one even the "known" was far from a given. You don't get graded on maybes so I get the current sentiment. I just don't think it is as simple as people make it out to be.

[winforlose]

The more I sit and watch or think about it, it really is a poorly constructed team. Even last years team was, it just so happened to work due to the immense size we had over other teams.

However, I’m also starting to feel like there may have been some pressure from the league to make the Towns deal. We can see it in the media that they want the Knicks to be relevant and have been talking about Towns to NY for quite some time.

Idk if you make it to the WCF I just think you keep that team together at least for the first half of the season.

The immense size compared to this year was more about losing Kyle than losing a few inches in the KAT for Randle swap. Are you saying the Wolves should have kept Kyle too and not done the Dillingham deal? We could have used Dillingham's money for Kyle and just ran it back.

We needed a miracle comeback to make the WCF last year. Conley still would have aged/declined this year. Jaden still wouldn't have taken a step. KAT wouldn't produce his Knicks numbers at PF. How many extra wins do you think we'd have at this point without the trade?

Another thing is that trading in season is going to be really hard with the apron constraints around the league. Pivoting in season would have been REALLY hard. And, if the team didn't look good (which is the only scenario where an inseason trade would make sense) it probably wouldn't have helped trade values of our players.

A very plausible scenario is that the Wolves could have run it back, been 18-11 now, and on track for a first round exit to a team like Memphis or Dallas. How happy would fans be after losing in the first round and have to deal with losing NAW and Naz due to financial constraints? I get that the trade hasn't worked out like hoped. The deal set up this idealized scenario where we traded this known great scenario for the present one even the "known" was far from a given. You don't get graded on maybes so I get the current sentiment. I just don't think it is as simple as people make it out to be.

Let’s throw some flags on this.

1. Last year we had fairly good roster construction with the exception of the backup PG. We traded for Morris instead of Tyus because we wanted to keep Kyle. That was the mistake. Morris never rounded back into his old pre injury form, and with Tyus’s bird rights we would be sitting pretty right now.

2. Kyle was the one wolf who is addition by subtraction. His spacing was awful, his defense was fine, but by no means were we screaming please bench Jaden or KAT for Kyle. The problem is we replaced Kyle with Jingles and Jingles isn’t an NBA player these days. You cannot lead an NBA locker room if you are not capable of making an NBA rotation.

3. Yes we had to come back against Denver. We also took games 1 and 2 from them in Denver. One better played or officiated game and they never make it to game 7. So if you wanna play the what if game, you gotta play it from all angles.

4. We were a 56 or 57 win team with Karl missing more than 20 games. How do you figure that we are 18-11 at this point and heading for a 1st round exit? Like seriously what is this based on?

[Guest84]

The more I sit and watch or think about it, it really is a poorly constructed team. Even last years team was, it just so happened to work due to the immense size we had over other teams.

However, I’m also starting to feel like there may have been some pressure from the league to make the Towns deal. We can see it in the media that they want the Knicks to be relevant and have been talking about Towns to NY for quite some time.

Idk if you make it to the WCF I just think you keep that team together at least for the first half of the season.

The immense size compared to this year was more about losing Kyle than losing a few inches in the KAT for Randle swap. Are you saying the Wolves should have kept Kyle too and not done the Dillingham deal? We could have used Dillingham's money for Kyle and just ran it back.

We needed a miracle comeback to make the WCF last year. Conley still would have aged/declined this year. Jaden still wouldn't have taken a step. KAT wouldn't produce his Knicks numbers at PF. How many extra wins do you think we'd have at this point without the trade?

Another thing is that trading in season is going to be really hard with the apron constraints around the league. Pivoting in season would have been REALLY hard. And, if the team didn't look good (which is the only scenario where an inseason trade would make sense) it probably wouldn't have helped trade values of our players.

A very plausible scenario is that the Wolves could have run it back, been 18-11 now, and on track for a first round exit to a team like Memphis or Dallas. How happy would fans be after losing in the first round and have to deal with losing NAW and Naz due to financial constraints? I get that the trade hasn't worked out like hoped. The deal set up this idealized scenario where we traded this known great scenario for the present one even the "known" was far from a given. You don't get graded on maybes so I get the current sentiment. I just don't think it is as simple as people make it out to be.

From a general standpoint, I think a lot of ppl tend to undervalue the importance of team chemistry. While not perfect, last years team showed heart, resilience, growing chemistry and trust as an overall unit. They were connected. Considering this, I would've preferred to keep the team as it was, with minor adjustments to see if they could improve on what we saw last year.

I'm not saying they would've went back to WCF or anything like that. However, after losing to Den the prior year, they showed they could come back and pass that obstacle regardless of how they did it. I just don't think you at least allow them one more chance to see how it goes.

I understand why the trade was made. However, I think if you were going to trade Towns, you should've traded him a few years back prob prior to the Rudy trade honestly. But I don't think the issue is that Towns got traded, it's WHO it was for and the poor timing. I don't think DDV is enough to justify it.

[TimberKat]

The more I sit and watch or think about it, it really is a poorly constructed team. Even last years team was, it just so happened to work due to the immense size we had over other teams.

However, I’m also starting to feel like there may have been some pressure from the league to make the Towns deal. We can see it in the media that they want the Knicks to be relevant and have been talking about Towns to NY for quite some time.

Idk if you make it to the WCF I just think you keep that team together at least for the first half of the season.

The immense size compared to this year was more about losing Kyle than losing a few inches in the KAT for Randle swap. Are you saying the Wolves should have kept Kyle too and not done the Dillingham deal? We could have used Dillingham's money for Kyle and just ran it back.

We needed a miracle comeback to make the WCF last year. Conley still would have aged/declined this year. Jaden still wouldn't have taken a step. KAT wouldn't produce his Knicks numbers at PF. How many extra wins do you think we'd have at this point without the trade?

Another thing is that trading in season is going to be really hard with the apron constraints around the league. Pivoting in season would have been REALLY hard. And, if the team didn't look good (which is the only scenario where an inseason trade would make sense) it probably wouldn't have helped trade values of our players.

A very plausible scenario is that the Wolves could have run it back, been 18-11 now, and on track for a first round exit to a team like Memphis or Dallas. How happy would fans be after losing in the first round and have to deal with losing NAW and Naz due to financial constraints? I get that the trade hasn't worked out like hoped. The deal set up this idealized scenario where we traded this known great scenario for the present one even the "known" was far from a given. You don't get graded on maybes so I get the current sentiment. I just don't think it is as simple as people make it out to be.

Let’s throw some flags on this.

1. Last year we had fairly good roster construction with the exception of the backup PG. We traded for Morris instead of Tyus because we wanted to keep Kyle. That was the mistake. Morris never rounded back into his old pre injury form, and with Tyus’s bird rights we would be sitting pretty right now.

2. Kyle was the one wolf who is addition by subtraction. His spacing was awful, his defense was fine, but by no means were we screaming please bench Jaden or KAT for Kyle. The problem is we replaced Kyle with Jingles and Jingles isn’t an NBA player these days. You cannot lead an NBA locker room if you are not capable of making an NBA rotation.

3. Yes we had to come back against Denver. We also took games 1 and 2 from them in Denver. One better played or officiated game and they never make it to game 7. So if you wanna play the what if game, you gotta play it from all angles.

4. We were a 56 or 57 win team with Karl missing more than 20 games. How do you figure that we are 18-11 at this point and heading for a 1st round exit? Like seriously what is this based on?

18-11 would be at 50 games pace. I think if we run it back, we would have 20 wins. Towns seem stronger and release the shots quicker this year. He likely wasn't 100% when he came back. If we kept Towns, I think Dilly would get more chance to play too. Many of us complain about Ant before but was excused because he was young. I think that excuse expired this year. I said many times before, Ant's next level is not measured by shooting 3s but how well he passes the ball. Unfortunately, he has taken a step so far.

[winforlose]

The immense size compared to this year was more about losing Kyle than losing a few inches in the KAT for Randle swap. Are you saying the Wolves should have kept Kyle too and not done the Dillingham deal? We could have used Dillingham's money for Kyle and just ran it back.

We needed a miracle comeback to make the WCF last year. Conley still would have aged/declined this year. Jaden still wouldn't have taken a step. KAT wouldn't produce his Knicks numbers at PF. How many extra wins do you think we'd have at this point without the trade?

Another thing is that trading in season is going to be really hard with the apron constraints around the league. Pivoting in season would have been REALLY hard. And, if the team didn't look good (which is the only scenario where an inseason trade would make sense) it probably wouldn't have helped trade values of our players.

A very plausible scenario is that the Wolves could have run it back, been 18-11 now, and on track for a first round exit to a team like Memphis or Dallas. How happy would fans be after losing in the first round and have to deal with losing NAW and Naz due to financial constraints? I get that the trade hasn't worked out like hoped. The deal set up this idealized scenario where we traded this known great scenario for the present one even the "known" was far from a given. You don't get graded on maybes so I get the current sentiment. I just don't think it is as simple as people make it out to be.

Let’s throw some flags on this.

1. Last year we had fairly good roster construction with the exception of the backup PG. We traded for Morris instead of Tyus because we wanted to keep Kyle. That was the mistake. Morris never rounded back into his old pre injury form, and with Tyus’s bird rights we would be sitting pretty right now.

2. Kyle was the one wolf who is addition by subtraction. His spacing was awful, his defense was fine, but by no means were we screaming please bench Jaden or KAT for Kyle. The problem is we replaced Kyle with Jingles and Jingles isn’t an NBA player these days. You cannot lead an NBA locker room if you are not capable of making an NBA rotation.

3. Yes we had to come back against Denver. We also took games 1 and 2 from them in Denver. One better played or officiated game and they never make it to game 7. So if you wanna play the what if game, you gotta play it from all angles.

4. We were a 56 or 57 win team with Karl missing more than 20 games. How do you figure that we are 18-11 at this point and heading for a 1st round exit? Like seriously what is this based on?

18-11 would be at 50 games pace. I think if we run it back, we would have 20 wins. Towns seem stronger and release the shots quicker this year. He likely wasn't 100% when he came back. If we kept Towns, I think Dilly would get more chance to play too. Many of us complain about Ant before but was excused because he was young. I think that excuse expired this year. I said many times before, Ant's next level is not measured by shooting 3s but how well he passes the ball. Unfortunately, he has taken a step so far.

Ant’s got 3 problems.

1. He lacks trust in his teammates. If Ant trusted his guys more he would be less go it alone in the 4th.

2. Ant is struggling to get to the hoop. Spacing issues are worse than ever with Randle replacing Karl. Ant desperately wants his scoring numbers at or above last season, and that get his mindset is not good for anyone.

3. The culture of the team has shifted. Karl was willing to sacrifice for others. Randle is acting like this is a contract year (semi true,) and that his numbers are more important than his team. Without people willing to sacrifice for Ant, the culture goes from team success to individual success. You combine that with the above pressure Ant feels to improve his own numbers, and his frustration with the spacing, and you get a self defeating fog on the offense. Guys worry they won’t get to contribute and so they are less willing to pass. Guys think they aren’t going shoot anyway, so might as well get out of the way and play defense when the time comes, etc…

We need to snap out of this to win, and that takes leadership. This team has none.

[dschroeder01]

The more I sit and watch or think about it, it really is a poorly constructed team. Even last years team was, it just so happened to work due to the immense size we had over other teams.

However, I’m also starting to feel like there may have been some pressure from the league to make the Towns deal. We can see it in the media that they want the Knicks to be relevant and have been talking about Towns to NY for quite some time.

Idk if you make it to the WCF I just think you keep that team together at least for the first half of the season.

The immense size compared to this year was more about losing Kyle than losing a few inches in the KAT for Randle swap. Are you saying the Wolves should have kept Kyle too and not done the Dillingham deal? We could have used Dillingham's money for Kyle and just ran it back.

We needed a miracle comeback to make the WCF last year. Conley still would have aged/declined this year. Jaden still wouldn't have taken a step. KAT wouldn't produce his Knicks numbers at PF. How many extra wins do you think we'd have at this point without the trade?

Another thing is that trading in season is going to be really hard with the apron constraints around the league. Pivoting in season would have been REALLY hard. And, if the team didn't look good (which is the only scenario where an inseason trade would make sense) it probably wouldn't have helped trade values of our players.

A very plausible scenario is that the Wolves could have run it back, been 18-11 now, and on track for a first round exit to a team like Memphis or Dallas. How happy would fans be after losing in the first round and have to deal with losing NAW and Naz due to financial constraints? I get that the trade hasn't worked out like hoped. The deal set up this idealized scenario where we traded this known great scenario for the present one even the "known" was far from a given. You don't get graded on maybes so I get the current sentiment. I just don't think it is as simple as people make it out to be.

Let’s throw some flags on this.

1. Last year we had fairly good roster construction with the exception of the backup PG. We traded for Morris instead of Tyus because we wanted to keep Kyle. That was the mistake. Morris never rounded back into his old pre injury form, and with Tyus’s bird rights we would be sitting pretty right now.

2. Kyle was the one wolf who is addition by subtraction. His spacing was awful, his defense was fine, but by no means were we screaming please bench Jaden or KAT for Kyle. The problem is we replaced Kyle with Jingles and Jingles isn’t an NBA player these days. You cannot lead an NBA locker room if you are not capable of making an NBA rotation.

3. Yes we had to come back against Denver. We also took games 1 and 2 from them in Denver. One better played or officiated game and they never make it to game 7. So if you wanna play the what if game, you gotta play it from all angles.

4. We were a 56 or 57 win team with Karl missing more than 20 games. How do you figure that we are 18-11 at this point and heading for a 1st round exit? Like seriously what is this based on?

1. How did we wind up with Tyus Jones in this scenario? You're assuming he'd have come here as a backup?
2. Kyle wasn't great offensively, but he was a big part of why the defense was great last year. He's been a 90+% defender by EPM basically his whole career. He's really long and is a big part of the reason we were just bigger than everyone all the time. As far as Ingles, who else were we getting for the minimum to be the 9th man, or the 8th man in the scenario that KAT is still here?
3. Blaming the officiating? Sure, things can always bounce different ways, but the reality is that we were down 20 in the 2nd half in game 7 and pulled off a miracle. My point is that we refer to the baseline as the WCF was a given when in reality it was much closer than that.
4. The team had the same winning % with and without KAT. It's just a guess on the record. What we know is that Conley has declined quite a bit. Jaden isn't any better. Why do you think we'd have been the same or better with decline in one of our top players and stagnation of the other? As far the 1st round exit, I'm just guessing as I don't think we'd be a better team than the top 4 and could've faced a team like Dallas in the first round.

[dschroeder01]

18-11 would be at 50 games pace. I think if we run it back, we would have 20 wins. Towns seem stronger and release the shots quicker this year. He likely wasn't 100% when he came back. If we kept Towns, I think Dilly would get more chance to play too. Many of us complain about Ant before but was excused because he was young. I think that excuse expired this year. I said many times before, Ant's next level is not measured by shooting 3s but how well he passes the ball. Unfortunately, he has taken a step so far.

So we'd be at the same pace as last year despite one of our top players clearly declining? KAT's play this year is about him having better matchups vs other centers and the spacing around him. He wouldn't have that here. We saw KAT with this squad for a long stretch of time. One could make a case that KAT would've been worse with the Wolves this year given the worse spacing playing with Jaden and Conley who have both regressed as shooters. Ant's shooting is up, but it's not like he was ever being ignored anyway.

We we won at the same pace with and without KAT last year including when he was healthy.

Dilly playing more surely would mean more losses. I know people love his electric style (I do too), but his minutes on the court are currently still better for the other team than ours. Rookies just don't positively impact winning except in rare cases.

[winforlose]

The immense size compared to this year was more about losing Kyle than losing a few inches in the KAT for Randle swap. Are you saying the Wolves should have kept Kyle too and not done the Dillingham deal? We could have used Dillingham's money for Kyle and just ran it back.

We needed a miracle comeback to make the WCF last year. Conley still would have aged/declined this year. Jaden still wouldn't have taken a step. KAT wouldn't produce his Knicks numbers at PF. How many extra wins do you think we'd have at this point without the trade?

Another thing is that trading in season is going to be really hard with the apron constraints around the league. Pivoting in season would have been REALLY hard. And, if the team didn't look good (which is the only scenario where an inseason trade would make sense) it probably wouldn't have helped trade values of our players.

A very plausible scenario is that the Wolves could have run it back, been 18-11 now, and on track for a first round exit to a team like Memphis or Dallas. How happy would fans be after losing in the first round and have to deal with losing NAW and Naz due to financial constraints? I get that the trade hasn't worked out like hoped. The deal set up this idealized scenario where we traded this known great scenario for the present one even the "known" was far from a given. You don't get graded on maybes so I get the current sentiment. I just don't think it is as simple as people make it out to be.

Let’s throw some flags on this.

1. Last year we had fairly good roster construction with the exception of the backup PG. We traded for Morris instead of Tyus because we wanted to keep Kyle. That was the mistake. Morris never rounded back into his old pre injury form, and with Tyus’s bird rights we would be sitting pretty right now.

2. Kyle was the one wolf who is addition by subtraction. His spacing was awful, his defense was fine, but by no means were we screaming please bench Jaden or KAT for Kyle. The problem is we replaced Kyle with Jingles and Jingles isn’t an NBA player these days. You cannot lead an NBA locker room if you are not capable of making an NBA rotation.

3. Yes we had to come back against Denver. We also took games 1 and 2 from them in Denver. One better played or officiated game and they never make it to game 7. So if you wanna play the what if game, you gotta play it from all angles.

4. We were a 56 or 57 win team with Karl missing more than 20 games. How do you figure that we are 18-11 at this point and heading for a 1st round exit? Like seriously what is this based on?

1. How did we wind up with Tyus Jones in this scenario? You're assuming he'd have come here as a backup?
2. Kyle wasn't great offensively, but he was a big part of why the defense was great last year. He's been a 90+% defender by EPM basically his whole career. He's really long and is a big part of the reason we were just bigger than everyone all the time. As far as Ingles, who else were we getting for the minimum to be the 9th man, or the 8th man in the scenario that KAT is still here?
3. Blaming the officiating? Sure, things can always bounce different ways, but the reality is that we were down 20 in the 2nd half in game 7 and pulled off a miracle. My point is that we refer to the baseline as the WCF was a given when in reality it was much closer than that.
4. The team had the same winning % with and without KAT. It's just a guess on the record. What we know is that Conley has declined quite a bit. Jaden isn't any better. Why do you think we'd have been the same or better with decline in one of our top players and stagnation of the other? As far the 1st round exit, I'm just guessing as I don't think we'd be a better team than the top 4 and could've faced a team like Dallas in the first round.

1. Tying Kyle’s money to Shake’s was enough to bring in Tyus. I said last season and in the off season you promise Tyus starting role, just not last season. You would be acquiring him as PGOF with a promise of moving Mike to the bench in 24/25. Just like in the offseason that same promise would have Tyus here instead of on the Suns. Tyus would have been a great fit, but we blew that play.

2. You don’t need Kyle if you develop Minott. Every team has to develop their own when they play the super high salary game. With Karl at the 4 and 5 you are legit bigger than almost everyone else. Naz and Jaden at the 3 is really good size. Losing KAT meant that you have Naz playing the 5 or Randle playing the 5, that is small ball.

3. The theme of last year was physical defense. When the refs let us play it we won. When they blew a soft whistle we struggled.

4. NAW is better, Ant’s 3 point shooting is better. Mike would be on the bench for Tyus which makes us way better. KAT’s playing his best ball and that should apply here as well. I am sorry, the biggest issues we have are caused by Randle and his negative effect on the culture.

[dschroeder01]

1. Tying Kyle’s money to Shake’s was enough to bring in Tyus. I said last season and in the off season you promise Tyus starting role, just not last season. You would be acquiring him as PGOF with a promise of moving Mike to the bench in 24/25. Just like in the offseason that same promise would have Tyus here instead of on the Suns. Tyus would have been a great fit, but we blew that play.

2. You don’t need Kyle if you develop Minott. Every team has to develop their own when they play the super high salary game. With Karl at the 4 and 5 you are legit bigger than almost everyone else. Naz and Jaden at the 3 is really good size. Losing KAT meant that you have Naz playing the 5 or Randle playing the 5, that is small ball.

3. The theme of last year was physical defense. When the refs let us play it we won. When they blew a soft whistle we struggled.

4. NAW is better, Ant’s 3 point shooting is better. Mike would be on the bench for Tyus which makes us way better. KAT’s playing his best ball and that should apply here as well. I am sorry, the biggest issues we have are caused by Randle and his negative effect on the culture.

1. The Wizards reportedly wanted a 1st for Tyus and stuck to that to the point that he wasn't traded. What were we giving in trade to get them to give him up?
2. So we assume something would be good when we don't know it to be true? My alternative scenario is based on history of how guys played previously and are playing now. It's obviously still conjecture, but it's based on things that have or are happening. We have no idea if Josh Minott can be a rotation level player on a good team. I hope he can, but that kind of assumption isn't strategic assessment.
3. True, but we the reffing was what it was and refs don't change midgame. I'm talking about how close we came to not being a WCF team. We shot the moon with that comeback and now it's the definition of last season.
4. Again, assuming we have Tyus isn't realistic IMO given that Washington clearly wasn't willing to trade him for less than a 1st and we didn't have a 1st to trade last year. As far as spacing, Ant shooting better from 3 hasn't really changed spacing. Teams were blitzing him all the time last year before he started shooting more 3s. NAW's 3pt attempt rate is slightly down this year and he was already a nearly 40% shooter. How is his slightly better shooting changing spacing? The fact is that Conley's game has clearly declined and Jaden hasn't improved. A big part of the reason that KAT has thrived in NY is that he's got great spacing around him which he wouldn't have had here playing PF.

I get that my position is harder to appreciate. It's not going great for lots of reasons. I'm just pushing back on the easy narrative that it's all because of the trade and Randle is the worst player who is killing the team. I don't deny he's not a seamless fit. I'm just trying to look at the bigger picture too. I think the assumption that the Wolves could have been a 55 win team this year with KAT are too optimistic. We'll never know.

[winforlose]

1. Tying Kyle’s money to Shake’s was enough to bring in Tyus. I said last season and in the off season you promise Tyus starting role, just not last season. You would be acquiring him as PGOF with a promise of moving Mike to the bench in 24/25. Just like in the offseason that same promise would have Tyus here instead of on the Suns. Tyus would have been a great fit, but we blew that play.

2. You don’t need Kyle if you develop Minott. Every team has to develop their own when they play the super high salary game. With Karl at the 4 and 5 you are legit bigger than almost everyone else. Naz and Jaden at the 3 is really good size. Losing KAT meant that you have Naz playing the 5 or Randle playing the 5, that is small ball.

3. The theme of last year was physical defense. When the refs let us play it we won. When they blew a soft whistle we struggled.

4. NAW is better, Ant’s 3 point shooting is better. Mike would be on the bench for Tyus which makes us way better. KAT’s playing his best ball and that should apply here as well. I am sorry, the biggest issues we have are caused by Randle and his negative effect on the culture.

1. The Wizards reportedly wanted a 1st for Tyus and stuck to that to the point that he wasn't traded. What were we giving in trade to get them to give him up?
2. So we assume something would be good when we don't know it to be true? My alternative scenario is based on history of how guys played previously and are playing now. It's obviously still conjecture, but it's based on things that have or are happening. We have no idea if Josh Minott can be a rotation level player on a good team. I hope he can, but that kind of assumption isn't strategic assessment.
3. True, but we the reffing was what it was and refs don't change midgame. I'm talking about how close we came to not being a WCF team. We shot the moon with that comeback and now it's the definition of last season.
4. Again, assuming we have Tyus isn't realistic IMO given that Washington clearly wasn't willing to trade him for less than a 1st and we didn't have a 1st to trade last year. As far as spacing, Ant shooting better from 3 hasn't really changed spacing. Teams were blitzing him all the time last year before he started shooting more 3s. NAW's 3pt attempt rate is slightly down this year and he was already a nearly 40% shooter. How is his slightly better shooting changing spacing? The fact is that Conley's game has clearly declined and Jaden hasn't improved. A big part of the reason that KAT has thrived in NY is that he's got great spacing around him which he wouldn't have had here playing PF.

I get that my position is harder to appreciate. It's not going great for lots of reasons. I'm just pushing back on the easy narrative that it's all because of the trade and Randle is the worst player who is killing the team. I don't deny he's not a seamless fit. I'm just trying to look at the bigger picture too. I think the assumption that the Wolves could have been a 55 win team this year with KAT are too optimistic. We'll never know.

Of course we cannot know. I do think Kyle might have been worth a late first to a different playoff team and that gets us Tyus, but I cannot be sure of that either. I think either way we had a clear shot at him before he signed with the Suns. I think we know based on how the defense is performing with Randle and without Randle that he is a problem. I also just don’t buy the narrative that we get bounced in the first round. If you want to say we had a year maybe in the 2nd, but Denver wasn’t round 1, Phoenix was, and we swept them. As for Minott, I am saying this year. Assuming we couldn’t attract any better free agents, Minott would have taken the Kyle minutes, and from what I have seen, he might not be better, but I do think he is much worse either. He is a willing 3 point shooter and teams seem to respect him, that extra spacing plus his energy plays and board crashing have plenty of value.

Not trading KAT might not get us where we are going, but selling low on him has been a disaster, and we are seeing it worsen game by game as the deadline approaches.