USA Today on Rambis

[Klomp]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketba ... ense_N.htm

A nice little diddy of an article. Here's an excerpt:

Rambis says he hears from Jackson at least three times a week. In one conversation, Jackson told Rambis he wanted to use an excerpt from Minnesota's game video, because the T'wolves executed the triangle better than his Lakers.

Rambis says people are making too much of the triangle anyway.

"It's not even our primary offense," he says. "The way I'm using it, it's just something we flow into. First and foremost, I want to push the ball upcourt. If we don't have something good out of the break, it's a format to play out of that they all understand."

[Tekkenlaw]

I wish I could catch more Wolves games, the streams are so unreliable. That free preview of league pass was awesome, too bad it happened to end the day before the Wolves-Celtics game.

[john2jer]

Love the respect coming from Phil, but can you really ever trust a thing he says? If that little blip comes out that one of the worst teams runs an offense better in their first year than the defending champs who have been running it for almost a billion, the idea becomes to motivate a team coming off a ring and maybe slightly slacking.

[slinky]

I am curious to see how much they use it...it seems to be their half court offense. Yes, Rambis wants up tempo, but not every play can be a fastbreak.

I thought it was interesting that Jerry Zgoda(yes, that guy) thought it was curious why the Wolves drafted 2 PG's and signed another young PG, when they run a half court offense that doesnt exactly maximize the talents of the PG. Even ZGoda says, it doesnt minimize their talents either, but he brought up Skiles' PG oriented offense with Brandon Jennings as a comparison.

http://blogs2.startribune.com/blogs/wol ... et-center/

[Worm Guts]

I have to confess, I've wondered the same thing.

[C.lupus]

Me too.

[Devilzsidewalk]

I thought we already unanimously understood this - PGs were clearly the best players available. If we didn't take Flynn or Rubio then it should've been Curry or Jennings. Derozan and T. Williams have been okay, but they aren't really even in that conversation with those 4 PGs. Even on that next level, you might have to take Lawson over those 2 swingmen, he's been fantastic too.

And I think it's overstated that point guards aren't important in the triangle, it's that the triangle doesn't rely on PGs to run the offense, which is fine especially for Flynn because he's more of a scorer anyways. The whole team is in read/react mode so the whole team runs the offense, but having guys like Flynn/Sessions that can break down the defense is still valuable.

[slinky]

I agree with you, its BPA. And its also important to note that he didnt sign Rambis until after the draft, so maybe offensive concept wasnt discussed before the draft.

And I agree with Zgoda, that it doesnt minimize their talents either. But it is an interesting comparison because I have seen people on some of the boards ridicule the wolves for not taking Jennings over Flynn(and their reasoning is "look at what Jennings has done so far, he is a beast") Obviously, we know there is more to that, but I do think a different offense would play more to Flynn and Sessions strengths, but it might minimize the strengths of someone like Brewer or Love. (Personally, I think it will be a great offense for both of them)

[Worm Guts]

I thought we already unanimously understood this - PGs were clearly the best players available. If we didn't take Flynn or Rubio then it should've been Curry or Jennings. Derozan and T. Williams have been okay, but they aren't really even in that conversation with those 4 PGs. Even on that next level, you might have to take Lawson over those 2 swingmen, he's been fantastic too.

And I think it's overstated that point guards aren't important in the triangle, it's that the triangle doesn't rely on PGs to run the offense, which is fine especially for Flynn because he's more of a scorer anyways. The whole team is in read/react mode so the whole team runs the offense, but having guys like Flynn/Sessions that can break down the defense is still valuable.

I'm specifically wondering about Sessions. Is he worth the contract if we're not going to run the offense through the PG? Of course, I think he was signed after we hired Rambis.

[Devilzsidewalk]

Sessions can underperform the contract after the fact, but at the time I got the feeling most people were rather amazed Sessions was available for such a low price

[Worm Guts]

But is he underperforming because he's not in the right offense? That's something that could have been predicted by Rambis and Kahn when he was signed, but not by us (since we didn't know the offense). Anyway, it's early, and even if Sessions turns out to be a bad contract it's probably not a terrible contract.

[john2jer]

I think it's going to be pretty hard for Sessions to turn out to be a bad contract. He's cheap, young, talented, and signed long term. Even if he doesn't perfectly fit the offense he's going to have value to other teams that he does fit.

[Devilzsidewalk]

But is he underperforming because he's not in the right offense? That's something that could have been predicted by Rambis and Kahn when he was signed, but not by us (since we didn't know the offense). Anyway, it's early, and even if Sessions turns out to be a bad contract it's probably not a terrible contract.

I do think the system is a hindrance, but not because he's a PG and it's the triangle, but because its a new system and they don't understand the spacing and movement yet. Flynn is actually having more problems than Sessions, but because he's an elite player in generating his own offense he's looked pretty decent overall.