Peezo wrote:mandurugo wrote:I think Darko has been a reasonable return on investment - if he turns out the way everyone wishes he would, he'd have been a ridiculous steal at the price. I do think they are asking him to do too much, basically he initiates the offense and on defense he matches up with the best opposing big, plus is expected to be a shot-blocking terror. That's the job description of a superstar, so no surprise he is struggling in the role. Ideally he could play as a back-up, but there's no one close to pushing him out of the starting line-up yet for the wolves as far as I can tell.
I agree with a lot of this. I was trying to say something similar that he is not quite what we want him to be (and probably never will be) because the expectation for his potential is pretty high. He has limitations that we keep hoping he will get over, and I'm just not sure he ever will.
One of his big problems is that he may NOT be willing to accept a lesser role even with a better player. I think we've seen that he is certainly not willing to accept a lesser role with players of a similar caliber (and that probably has more to do with him being jerked around by teams before us). The only reason I say that is because last he said he would consider coming back as a starter. He is at a point in his career where he doesn't want to watch anymore. I wonder if he would do that behind a clearly better player. I wonder if we will ever be capable of obtaining someone CLEARLY better than Darko...?
it's a valid point but one thing I find puzzling is, why would a basement lottery team want to marginally upgrade their center?
It's an old line but: that would be like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
We would be blessed if our biggest issue was Darko. Our team has a lot of holes, and what's to say Darko wont perform much better with a quality play maker running the team?
Either way, most of the big men prospects are either wayyy more finesse than Darko (perry jones, Motiejunas)
Much shorter (Jared Sullinger)
Kanter seems promising, I can't lie, but he seems like one of those athlete guys (but please I'm not draft expert)
Darko at the worst is an above average post scorer (not counting those bunnies which is a lack of focus), above average defender, above average athlete and a legit 7 feet.
So for me, I'm fine with giving Darko one more year to prove himself, granted I have an agenda. I really want the Darko mystery resolved. I sympathise with the bad hand he was dealt early on and really do believe I've seen flashes of a tremendously talented player.
Like I said, if he was the one thing holding us back, or we were anywhere but the lottery it would be a different story, but we aren't. Hoping Darko finds his game is one of the things giving me hope for the Twolves future, I know, I know it's a long shot, but man, how awesome that would be.
