NoDopeOnSundays wrote:HopelessKnick wrote:Timberwolves last season:
With KAT 42-20 (68%)
Without KAT 19-1 (95%)
People bring on the Timberwolves season as a kind of prove of KAT being very net positive but if you look at their season more closely--including playoffs-- you get why the Timberwolves traded him after making the WCF.
KD on the Suns this season: 33-29
without KD: 3-17
in 22/23:
Suns with KD: 8-0
without him: 37-37
KAT is a bigtime defensive liability. Like I said he will need to dominate teams on offense to make up for that. Characterwise I like KAT much more than KD and I hope he succeeds here but even in 3 years KD's impact will be much bigger than KAT. I don't have anything against KAT personally but people saying he is better than KD at this point just conveniently disregard all the trouble KAT poses defensively. Keep in mind the Timberwolves last year were a nasty defensive squad outside Towns....they surrounded him with Conley-Edwards-McDaniels and Gobert....that's elite defense...we on the other side have another defensive liability in the line-up. We won't be able to overcome that and eventually (after next season) you'll see Leon achnowledge that fact and trade KAT for more defense minded players or better fits.
But overall KD will either end up in Minny or Houston---I think there is less than 0.1% chance he ends up here. Especially after his most recent comments.
Yeah you are right I mixed it up---thought they won 61 games last season for some reason. Let's see how this pans out with KAT in the playoffs. I'm rooting for him and like him but he must aggressively score really. We all should be rooting for him and Bridges---a good playoff showing is always not only a great confidence boost but also a great trade value boost. Hoping KAT can get 25/10 throughout...
The Wolves won 56 games, they were 14-6 last year without KAT, not 19-1. They were 49-33 this year and had a worse net rating as a team withot him and somehow their defense got worse vs last season.
The KD stuff isn't going to happen, but some of the points being made don't really hold water. KD has been a trainwreck in the playoffs on defense the last couple seasons, this isn't prime KD, this isn't even peak KD, this is KD that has been swept two times in his last 3 playoff appearances in large part because he cannot guard anyone, for all the talk about KATs defense it's comical that they actually guarded one another in the playoffs and KAT got the better of that matchup.