Around the NBA - 2024-25 Season Continued

[spree2kawhi]

Trading Randle for KAT was a no brainer trade. KAT is the better talent, the issue is the coach has run him into the dirt and now he has a lingering knee issue. He also needs to play PF.

Trading for Mikal was a huge mistake and Leon cannot be afraid to pivot this summer.

Trade Mikal, move Tom to the FO

I don't think it's a no-brainer. Better talent doesn't mean better fit in Thibs' established system. Having 2 ISO players was clicking because teams needed to decide who they were going to double. I think both rosters has their strengths and weaknesses. I said all along, if Thibs (and JB) don't know how to utilize KAT, I rather have Randle and Donte with Hart going to the bench. I'm not happy with Thibs overall performance this year. He has taken a step back in the growth he had last season. I guess perceived growth at this point. Thibs offensive playbook is ISO heavy. If he's preaching ball movement and the team isn't listening, then that's a different issue.

It's a poor stretch from KAT at the moment, so I don't want to dump on him too much, but this team needs that November KAT to roar back. Anything less is a failure.

He was one of the top 5 players in this league from October to January, basically all the way until he literally broke his shooting hand. It’s wild how this can be ignored if it fits what somebody wants to say about other favorite ex-players or cherry-picked months in previous years… please notice how I won’t say agenda. I come in peace.

[3toheadmelo]

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[god shammgod]

the conversation really shouldn't be about randle and kat. it should be about what else we could have got for randle's expiring and the picks we used on mikal. i see people talk about trading kat for giannis or whoever but kat doesn't really have a ton of value. or the twolves would have gotten more for him than randle and some throw-ins. a player you all think kinda sucks. so what does that say about kat.

[Wildcat]

Trading Randle for KAT was a no brainer trade. KAT is the better talent, the issue is the coach has run him into the dirt and now he has a lingering knee issue. He also needs to play PF.

Trading for Mikal was a huge mistake and Leon cannot be afraid to pivot this summer.

Trade Mikal, move Tom to the FO

I don't think it's a no-brainer. Better talent doesn't mean better fit in Thibs' established system. Having 2 ISO players was clicking because teams needed to decide who they were going to double. I think both rosters has their strengths and weaknesses. I said all along, if Thibs (and JB) don't know how to utilize KAT, I rather have Randle and Donte with Hart going to the bench. I'm not happy with Thibs overall performance this year. He has taken a step back in the growth he had last season. I guess perceived growth at this point. Thibs offensive playbook is ISO heavy. If he's preaching ball movement and the team isn't listening, then that's a different issue.

It's a poor stretch from KAT at the moment, so I don't want to dump on him too much, but this team needs that November KAT to roar back. Anything less is a failure.

He was one of the top 5 players in this league from October to January, basically all the way until he literally broke his shooting hand. It’s wild how this can be ignored if it fits what somebody wants to say about other favorite ex-players or cherry-picked months in previous years… please notice how I won’t say agenda. I come in peace.

I don't have an agenda. Thibs has a play style that doesn't utilize KAT and his early success was in spite of Thibs. Before he was injured, that old KAT with the bad habits starting peeking his head out. Awful A/TO ratio, careless fouls, and the lapses on defense. Hell, we just witnessed OG pushing KAT to Zubac because KAT lost the biggest white dude on the court. This is the stuff that pissed me off 2 years ago when I was watching T-Wolves games regularly.

As I said, my approach on this KAT/Randle thing was a preference in style and the fact that it costed this team Donte further pisses me off. I prefer the other team deciding who is going to get the regular double team. I think it's fair to say NBA coaches have adjusted to what Thibs wants to do on offense because we're right back to what this team was doing last year with the heavy JB usage rate and that's only going to get higher when we get into the playoffs.

And injury or not, your BB IQ shouldn't dip because I thought KAT was showing a fair amount of awareness on both ends of the court back in November. Bottom line, he has to be better. If that 3 ball isn't going down, Thibs should run some plays he ran with I-Hart on the high post. KAT is flatly not being utilized more here where he creates his own gravity.

[RHODEY]

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[Reign23]

the conversation really shouldn't be about randle and kat. it should be about what else we could have got for randle's expiring and the picks we used on mikal. i see people talk about trading kat for giannis or whoever but kat doesn't really have a ton of value. or the twolves would have gotten more for him than randle and some throw-ins. a player you all think kinda sucks. so what does that say about kat.

according to this board, the wolves also got the greatest role player of all time in this deal.

[Reign23]

in all seriousness, we won the trade by a landslide, despite the recent struggles. don‘t be a prisoner of the moment here.
that said, the wolves still got decent value. An All star caliber player, a fine role player and a protected first is not bad. It‘s just the fit-downgrade from Towns shooting to Randles that will kill Minnesota in the Playoffs imo.

[Capn'O]

They’re using Randle as their playmaking hub.

He takes awhile to ramp up as a playmaker. Each year... I'm not surprised he's playing better now.

[Wildcat]

in all seriousness, we won the trade by a landslide, despite the recent struggles. don‘t be a prisoner of the moment here.
that said, the wolves still got decent value. An All star caliber player, a fine role player and a protected first is not bad. It‘s just the fit-downgrade from Towns shooting to Randles that will kill Minnesota in the Playoffs imo.

It is what it is. Unless there's another gear I'm not seeing, do you really trust Thibs' ISO heavy system to utilize the most out of KAT? Because it's going to be "easy" to shut down JB dribbling for 14 seconds.

Just to be clear, even though KAT has looked awful these last few games, I'm not necessarily down on him, I'm down on Thibs philosophy. This team should not be basically arse last in 3PT attempts. 3/5 players are playing out of position. And KAT is unfortunately not the sort of player that's going to say, "F it, I'm carrying you all. Let's go." That's not who he is and there's nothing wrong with that.

[B8RcDeMktfxC]

They’re using Randle as their playmaking hub.

He takes awhile to ramp up as a playmaker. Each year... I'm not surprised he's playing better now.

Without getting into the KAT/Randle thing, I watched the TWolves last night and some of the previous game and Randle was actually pretty good in the distributor role.

[B8RcDeMktfxC]

in all seriousness, we won the trade by a landslide, despite the recent struggles. don‘t be a prisoner of the moment here.
that said, the wolves still got decent value. An All star caliber player, a fine role player and a protected first is not bad. It‘s just the fit-downgrade from Towns shooting to Randles that will kill Minnesota in the Playoffs imo.

It is what it is. Unless there's another gear I'm not seeing, do you really trust Thibs' ISO heavy system to utilize the most out of KAT? Because it's going to be "easy" to shut down JB dribbling for 14 seconds.

Just to be clear, even though KAT has looked awful these last few games, I'm not necessarily down on him, I'm down on Thibs philosophy. This team should not be basically arse last in 3PT attempts. 3/5 players are playing out of position. And KAT is unfortunately not the sort of player that's going to say, "F it, I'm carrying you all. Let's go." That's not who he is and there's nothing wrong with that.

I rarely read the General Board, but I happened to come across a post (well, two posts) responding to someone who hadn't seen much of the Cavs genuinely asking for information on why they have such a good record. I thought the answer(s) was(were) extremely illuminating in the light of much of the conversation over Thibs (and - to promote my Thibs must go thread - my OP there).

[B8RcDeMktfxC]

in all seriousness, we won the trade by a landslide, despite the recent struggles. don‘t be a prisoner of the moment here.
that said, the wolves still got decent value. An All star caliber player, a fine role player and a protected first is not bad. It‘s just the fit-downgrade from Towns shooting to Randles that will kill Minnesota in the Playoffs imo.

It is what it is. Unless there's another gear I'm not seeing, do you really trust Thibs' ISO heavy system to utilize the most out of KAT? Because it's going to be "easy" to shut down JB dribbling for 14 seconds.

Just to be clear, even though KAT has looked awful these last few games, I'm not necessarily down on him, I'm down on Thibs philosophy. This team should not be basically arse last in 3PT attempts. 3/5 players are playing out of position. And KAT is unfortunately not the sort of player that's going to say, "F it, I'm carrying you all. Let's go." That's not who he is and there's nothing wrong with that.

I rarely read the General Board, but I happened to come across a post (well, two posts) responding to someone who hadn't seen much of the Cavs genuinely asking for information on why they have such a good record. I thought the answer(s) was(were) extremely illuminating in the light of much of the conversation over Thibs (and - to promote my Thibs must go thread - my OP there).

Ok, so these were the posts:

Can someone explain the dynamics and reasons behind the Cavs being so good? I’ve barely followed them this season so I really don’t know as much as I’d like. I have a general idea of what they look like as a team.

1. Their bench is arguably the best in the NBA. They have two sixth men of the year candidates in Hunter and Jerome, an underrated 3/D forward in Dean Wade, and both Okoro and Merrill provide positive value too. This is with one of the most effective starting lineups in the NBA featuring three all stars.

2. Evan Mobley's having a breakout season. Part of the reason for this is that he's being used far better under Kenny (more on him in a minute), but he also put in a lot of effort in improving his three point shooting in the offseason.

3. Darius Garland is healthy again and back to his all star form.

4. Kenny Atkinson has done a masterful job with the Cleveland rotations and keeping everyone's minutes in check, resulting in everyone having near career lows in minutes while still being extremely effective players. This has also helped minimized Cleveland's injuries, which has been a key issue over the past few years. He also completely revamped the Cleveland offense.

This pretty much covers it.

To slightly expand I think it’s a few things that stick out

1. They are good to great at basically every team skill. Incredible ball handling, passing, shooting. They pressure the rim off the dribble, with cutters and rollers, and vertically with Mobley and Allen. They have a lot of shooting that works off catch and shoot as well as off dribble. Lots of good rebounders, defenders.

2. They are deep and can play big, small, fast, or slow.

3. Our best skill is movement. We rarely take bad looks or go in funks with bad shot quality

[WaltFrazier]

Raptors been benching Barnes RJ Poeltl IQ at the end of close games lately trying to lose. Twice they beat Orlando by 2 with scrubs finishing. Tonight they almost beat the Wizards the same way but Shead had a layup disallowed because it was barely still on a fingertip at the buzzer. RJ and other starters were laughing it up in the tunnel

Silver changing the lottery odds hasn't worked at all. Teams are resting players with 20 games to go is really wild and a **** product. Raptors for example are literally signing 10 day guys and throwing them in there the next day to lose more games. imagine buying tickets for this bs.

And when Shead hit a great buzzer beater layup to win the other night, fans in the arena cheered like crazy. So did the starters on the bench, they mobbed the rookie. Until it was ruled too late a minute later.

Point is the fans deserve better than this mockery. But posters on the Raptors board are mostly ok with it

[WaltFrazier]

It is what it is. Unless there's another gear I'm not seeing, do you really trust Thibs' ISO heavy system to utilize the most out of KAT? Because it's going to be "easy" to shut down JB dribbling for 14 seconds.

Just to be clear, even though KAT has looked awful these last few games, I'm not necessarily down on him, I'm down on Thibs philosophy. This team should not be basically arse last in 3PT attempts. 3/5 players are playing out of position. And KAT is unfortunately not the sort of player that's going to say, "F it, I'm carrying you all. Let's go." That's not who he is and there's nothing wrong with that.

I rarely read the General Board, but I happened to come across a post (well, two posts) responding to someone who hadn't seen much of the Cavs genuinely asking for information on why they have such a good record. I thought the answer(s) was(were) extremely illuminating in the light of much of the conversation over Thibs (and - to promote my Thibs must go thread - my OP there).

Ok, so these were the posts:

1. Their bench is arguably the best in the NBA. They have two sixth men of the year candidates in Hunter and Jerome, an underrated 3/D forward in Dean Wade, and both Okoro and Merrill provide positive value too. This is with one of the most effective starting lineups in the NBA featuring three all stars.

2. Evan Mobley's having a breakout season. Part of the reason for this is that he's being used far better under Kenny (more on him in a minute), but he also put in a lot of effort in improving his three point shooting in the offseason.

3. Darius Garland is healthy again and back to his all star form.

4. Kenny Atkinson has done a masterful job with the Cleveland rotations and keeping everyone's minutes in check, resulting in everyone having near career lows in minutes while still being extremely effective players. This has also helped minimized Cleveland's injuries, which has been a key issue over the past few years. He also completely revamped the Cleveland offense.

This pretty much covers it.

To slightly expand I think it’s a few things that stick out

1. They are good to great at basically every team skill. Incredible ball handling, passing, shooting. They pressure the rim off the dribble, with cutters and rollers, and vertically with Mobley and Allen. They have a lot of shooting that works off catch and shoot as well as off dribble. Lots of good rebounders, defenders.

2. They are deep and can play big, small, fast, or slow.

3. Our best skill is movement. We rarely take bad looks or go in funks with bad shot quality

It's a good summary. Their superior bench hurts, compared to ours. I think hypothetically Atkinson or a comparable coach could make the Knicks have a similar jump/improvement next season. But Cavs bench is much deeper and better constructed.

Hopefully they have apron problems looming soon?

[Capn'O]

Roger Murdock is a good poster but I can't read his posts without hearing Kareem's incredulous voice in Airplane.

Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes!

[Chanel Bomber]

the conversation really shouldn't be about randle and kat. it should be about what else we could have got for randle's expiring and the picks we used on mikal. i see people talk about trading kat for giannis or whoever but kat doesn't really have a ton of value. or the twolves would have gotten more for him than randle and some throw-ins. a player you all think kinda sucks. so what does that say about kat.

At worst, KAT's trade value is equal to Randle's expiring. Most likely, it is superior with him rejuvenating his career and being named an All-Star starter. He was arguably our best player and the best center in the Conference before he injured his hand.

The issue has always been the Mikal trade, because it was a massive overpay and therefore we can't recoup the value lost in the deal. We paid a superstar price for a role player. Not only that, a role player who stopped excelling at his bread and butter (3-point shooting and defense).

We didn't lose value in the KAT deal (or marginally at most of you're on the pessimistic side). His contract can possibly still be used as salary filler, as Randle's contract could have been (except Randle put a timer on making a trade).

Where we lost value was in the Mikal deal. We lost a ton of value that we'll never get again. A complete waste of assets at that level.

[god shammgod]

the conversation really shouldn't be about randle and kat. it should be about what else we could have got for randle's expiring and the picks we used on mikal. i see people talk about trading kat for giannis or whoever but kat doesn't really have a ton of value. or the twolves would have gotten more for him than randle and some throw-ins. a player you all think kinda sucks. so what does that say about kat.

At worst, KAT's trade value is equal to Randle's expiring. Most likely, it is superior with him rejuvenating his career and being named an All-Star starter. He was arguably our best player and the best center in the Conference before he injured his hand.

The issue has always been the Mikal trade, because it was a massive overpay and therefore we can't recoup the value lost in the deal. We paid a superstar price for a role player. Not only that, a role player who stopped excelling at his bread and butter (3-point shooting and defense).

We didn't lose value in the KAT deal (or marginally at most of you're on the pessimistic side). His contract can possibly still be used as salary filler, as Randle's contract could have been (except Randle put a timer on making a trade).

Where we lost value was in the Mikal deal. We lost a ton of value that we'll never get again. A complete waste of assets at that level.

i don't know that a lot of teams want to spend 55 mill a year for the next 3 years on him. the new cba doesn't really allow you to overspend on the wrong guys anymore if you're looking to contend. he might be the very best of the group of guys like sabonis, trae, de'aaron fox, randle, ingram. but he's one of those guys to me. that's his tier. and there isn't a ton of interest in those guys around the league at the salaries they make.

[Wildcat]

I rarely read the General Board, but I happened to come across a post (well, two posts) responding to someone who hadn't seen much of the Cavs genuinely asking for information on why they have such a good record. I thought the answer(s) was(were) extremely illuminating in the light of much of the conversation over Thibs (and - to promote my Thibs must go thread - my OP there).

Ok, so these were the posts:

This pretty much covers it.

To slightly expand I think it’s a few things that stick out

1. They are good to great at basically every team skill. Incredible ball handling, passing, shooting. They pressure the rim off the dribble, with cutters and rollers, and vertically with Mobley and Allen. They have a lot of shooting that works off catch and shoot as well as off dribble. Lots of good rebounders, defenders.

2. They are deep and can play big, small, fast, or slow.

3. Our best skill is movement. We rarely take bad looks or go in funks with bad shot quality

It's a good summary. Their superior bench hurts, compared to ours. I think hypothetically Atkinson or a comparable coach could make the Knicks have a similar jump/improvement next season. But Cavs bench is much deeper and better constructed.

Hopefully they have apron problems looming soon?

You joke, but they're definitely going to run into that apron issue as early as next season. I don't think they can afford to pay Sam and Ty (those two may even walk) if I remember how they run their money because they'll be over 200 mil even without those 2.

[Wildcat]

It is what it is. Unless there's another gear I'm not seeing, do you really trust Thibs' ISO heavy system to utilize the most out of KAT? Because it's going to be "easy" to shut down JB dribbling for 14 seconds.

Just to be clear, even though KAT has looked awful these last few games, I'm not necessarily down on him, I'm down on Thibs philosophy. This team should not be basically arse last in 3PT attempts. 3/5 players are playing out of position. And KAT is unfortunately not the sort of player that's going to say, "F it, I'm carrying you all. Let's go." That's not who he is and there's nothing wrong with that.

I rarely read the General Board, but I happened to come across a post (well, two posts) responding to someone who hadn't seen much of the Cavs genuinely asking for information on why they have such a good record. I thought the answer(s) was(were) extremely illuminating in the light of much of the conversation over Thibs (and - to promote my Thibs must go thread - my OP there).

Ok, so these were the posts:

1. Their bench is arguably the best in the NBA. They have two sixth men of the year candidates in Hunter and Jerome, an underrated 3/D forward in Dean Wade, and both Okoro and Merrill provide positive value too. This is with one of the most effective starting lineups in the NBA featuring three all stars.

2. Evan Mobley's having a breakout season. Part of the reason for this is that he's being used far better under Kenny (more on him in a minute), but he also put in a lot of effort in improving his three point shooting in the offseason.

3. Darius Garland is healthy again and back to his all star form.

4. Kenny Atkinson has done a masterful job with the Cleveland rotations and keeping everyone's minutes in check, resulting in everyone having near career lows in minutes while still being extremely effective players. This has also helped minimized Cleveland's injuries, which has been a key issue over the past few years. He also completely revamped the Cleveland offense.

This pretty much covers it.

To slightly expand I think it’s a few things that stick out

1. They are good to great at basically every team skill. Incredible ball handling, passing, shooting. They pressure the rim off the dribble, with cutters and rollers, and vertically with Mobley and Allen. They have a lot of shooting that works off catch and shoot as well as off dribble. Lots of good rebounders, defenders.

2. They are deep and can play big, small, fast, or slow.

3. Our best skill is movement. We rarely take bad looks or go in funks with bad shot quality

These are all things I agree with.

[Spree2Houston]

the conversation really shouldn't be about randle and kat. it should be about what else we could have got for randle's expiring and the picks we used on mikal. i see people talk about trading kat for giannis or whoever but kat doesn't really have a ton of value. or the twolves would have gotten more for him than randle and some throw-ins. a player you all think kinda sucks. so what does that say about kat.

I would’ve done Bojan and some picks for Myles Turner and ran it back. Wait until the deadline and see if we could trade Randle for a better star.

Brunson/Payne
Divo/Mcbride
Anunoby/Hart
Randle/Anunoby
Turner/Robinson