Who Wants Malik Monk?

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TheZachAttack
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Re: Who Wants Malik Monk? 

Post#61 » by TheZachAttack » Mon Jan 13, 2025 4:15 pm

bpcox05 wrote:
TheZachAttack wrote:
bpcox05 wrote:Malik Monk for Jaden McDaniels?


I personally would do this 100%. McDaniels is a really good player, especially as we've started to use I'm as a 4 and take advantage of his midrange/floater touch/body control & length around the rim. On defense, he's one of the best POA defenders but he's also one of the best help defenders. It's tough though because we have Gobert and McDaniels has been an inconsistent shooter and so with Gobert, Jaden, and Randle... teams just absolutely load up on Ant and faceguard him even if he doesn't pass half court, hard double, and even hedge at the elbows behind a face guard and don't worry about the short roll or shooters.

The Wolves need ball handers who can get defenses into rotation, kick to 3 point shooters, and score to created more spaced floors and help Ant out. Ant probably has the worst offensive structure around him of any star in the league right now

Monk
Dante
Ant
Randle
Gobert

Naz
Naw
Conley
Rob/Minott/Shannon

This would be a pretty good group. I think then next year:

Monk
Dante
Ant
Naz
Gobert

with

NAW, Rob, Conley, Minott, and Shannon JR plus the Detroit FRP off the bench gets the Wolves to a lot better roster construction.

Yeah I think it makes a lot of sense for both parties. I’m going to post this as its own thread and get some more feedback. Thanks for chiming in!


Agreed! I will add that you will see some people talk about McDaniels inconsistent shooting, but in his own right he would be a lot better offensively for a team where he didn't have to play with Gobert and Randle. For a team that played more up tempo and more flow, he would look a lot better. McDaniels shot over 50% in the floater range and on long 2's and over 60% at the rim last year. He's a pretty good cutter and legit is probably close to 6'10 with over a 7 foot wingspan. For his career, he generally "has" also been close to 40% on catch and shoot 3 point shots. Again, many of these shots are pretty wide open but in the Wolves roster construction and spacing you see a lot of players struggling offensively on the Wolves. You've seen how much better KAT is playing with a more spread floor and a PG that can collapse defenses/score/dribble the ball to draw defenders and give KAT good touches. Spacing and roster construction does matter when it comes to counting stats and efficiency.
TheZachAttack
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Re: Who Wants Malik Monk? 

Post#62 » by TheZachAttack » Mon Jan 13, 2025 4:33 pm

One other Monk video:

I would make an argument that given contracts Monk > Fox
greg4012
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Re: Who Wants Malik Monk? 

Post#63 » by greg4012 » Mon Jan 13, 2025 4:40 pm

bpcox05 wrote:Interesting to see so many people in favor of trading Fox to keep Monk. We have to remember that we need top end talent if we have hopes of being a top team one day. Monk is a good player (and is best as a 6th man IMO), but he’s not a top shelf player like Fox.

To illustrate the point, below are some advanced impact stats and how Fox and Monk rank in each of them…

VPM: Fox = 38th / Monk = 128th
EPM: Fox = 37th / Monk = 132nd
LEBRON: Fox = 39th / Monk = 71st
DARKO: Fox = 13th / Monk = 203rd

As you can see, Fox has been significantly more impactful than Monk this season. We should be trying to keep our top end talent. Not exchange it for a few quarters and dimes.

Sabonis also comes through as very impactful in these metrics…

VPM:  Sabonis = 18th
EPM:  Sabonis = 20th
LEBRON:  Sabonis = 22nd
DARKO:  Sabonis = 59th

…and Markkanen is solid in these metrics as well despite him having a down year thus far…

VPM:  Markkanen = 52nd
EPM:  Markkanen = 33rd
LEBRON:  Markkanen = 224th (23rd last season)
DARKO:  Markkanen = 103rd (51st last season)


This suggests that swapping Monk for Markkanen could actually improve our team substantially, and when you consider the fit on paper between those 3 stars and the rest of the roster, I’d expect those impact stats to hold or maybe even increase. There’s a lot to like about a potential roster of…

PG - Fox / Carter
SG - Ellis / Jones
SF - Murray / DeRozan
PF - Markkanen / Lyles
C - Sabonis



Look we all love Monk (just as we all loved Jason Williams) but sometimes hard decisions need to be made if you want to continue elevating the team.


Pairing Sabonis and Markkanen as a frontcourt duo would be absolutely disastrous when it comes to playing defense and winning anything of note in high stakes situations.

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