BKlutch wrote:Chanel Bomber wrote:robillionaire wrote:
I think if we for a second forget the players and the teams involved and just strip my opinion down to bare bones it’s that I straight up don’t think a team with a rim runner at the 5 can win a championship in the year 2025 and they’ll eventually run into the playoff exposure regardless of their regular season success whereas I am now a stretch big 5 out maximalist and think you need to have that in order to win a championship. Having that = window open. Starting rim
Runner = window closed. That’s how I see the league. Maybe I’m wrong.
I thought differently in 2011. I liked Tyson Chandler a lot. But the 10 and 10 rim protector isn’t the archetype of player who I’m giving up the farm for in 2025. Especially if it might self sabotage the situation with a historic stretch big.
They had everything they needed already. They should have used that package for an elite PG.
Anyway it’s not my job to fix that dumpster fire organization I’m just glad we are now the ones locked and loaded with the mold of player that I think is necessary for a team serious about winning
Oh I see interesting, that's a fair argument to make.
I think having a skilled 7-footer definitely gives you a massive comparative advantage in contending for a championship. It's one of the reasons I'm so optimistic about the Knicks outlook with KAT with the defenders we put around him.
But I think it's still feasible to win a chip with an elite rim runner like Gobert, and Minnesota had the horses to go 5-out (with KAT) at any time if they needed to. They no longer have that luxury.
But Gobert had the least bad net rating among their rotation players in the WCF at -3.1. Towns was a -6.7. Edwards -8.1. Reid -11.7. McDaniels -5.6. Conley a -13.9. This is not to put the blame on any of these players. But what those numbers suggest is that Gobert wasn't really the obstacle to them making the Finals. The fact that he's an unlikeable, goofy-looking giant doesn't help his cause, to be fair.
The Towns-Gobert lineups were +0.5 per 100 possessions in the WCF.
The Towns-Reid lineups were -17.0 per 100 possessions.
Skill matters I fully agree but so does defense. And Minnesota's defense collapsed without Gobert, even at the highest level of competition.
It's not surprising that KAT's net rating was so poor because his scoring was hampered by the way the team played offense. I suspect that if he were better utilized, his rating would have been better. Their starting rotation was flawed by their offensive sets and the way each player was used.
I don't know to be honest.
They were one of 4 last teams standing. They lost games 1 and 2 by very small margins. I think Dallas was just a terrible matchup for them.
You surely know this but net rating is a lineup stat so individual net ratings are heavily affected by team performance. So what I do pay attention to when looking at specific teams is extreme values within the team. I think players in the lower end of the distribution tend to have a more negative impact on team performance, while players in the higher end tend to be more positively impactful/less negatively impactful. The players in the middle have a much more ambiguous impact and this is why generally don't draw conclusions from their net rating. This is where impact metrics come in handy because they are designed to extract the noise from lineup data.
What these individual net rating values for the WCF show is that the Timberwolves were collectively outmatched. And it seems that Gobert didn't drag team performance down. KAT was always going to be a floor spacer with Gobert being the roll man or occupying the dunker spot. And whenever Gobert sat, Minnesota's defense completely fell apart. So while the offense may not have made the best use of KAT's skill set, it was the best decision for Minnesota's collective performance.
I don't think too many conclusions can be drawn from KAT's net rating in the series, except that he wasn't tremendously positive, nor excessively negative. Minnesota competed when KAT and Gobert shared the floor, and completely faltered when Gobert sat.
I think Minnesota's issues had more to do with Conley being a liability on defense and the defense falling apart with Naz Reid replacing Gobert. That's because Gobert covered for a lot of their weaknesses on the perimeter and these cracks were exposed whenever he sat. McDaniels and Edwards simply couldn't slow down Luka and Kyrie - they got torched.
RIP mags
