FinnTheHuman wrote:HotelVitale wrote:AbeVigodaLive wrote:The Timberwolves have a storied history where there's a lack of accountability. A storied history of young promising players posting great volume stats on poor efficiency for bad teams. And not just bad teams... the very worst teams in the NBA.... a tanking season for a tanking organization with a history of tanking. What's often learned from bad players and bad coaches on a bad team? Bad habits. So by all means Timberwolves... throw the young, raw and talented Edwards to the proverbial wolves... it's worked out so well the last time. And the time before that... and the time before that...
I don't know enough about the Wolves' internal stuff over the past 15 years or so to comment well on this but I will offer two possible alternative perspectives:
--In this 'storied history' you're talking about the Wolves haven't been a static entity at all but rather have constantly changed coaches, GMs, staffers, etc; so instead of seeing a simple pattern there, isn't it possible that they just happened to draft a series of players who had some promise but weren't quite up to being great NBA players (like 75% of NBA draft picks)? Hence the narrative that the 'Wolves' are somehow responsible is just an error of perspective, and it's just been a handful of competent coaches and staffs not getting quite the right players?
--Plenty of the players and coaches you're calling 'bad players' and 'bad coaches' who are teaching these supposed losing habits do just fine on other teams. Thibodeau, Adelman, D Casey, McHale, etc have all failed to get the Wolves far but have done solid work elsewhere and in some cases have been pretty big difference makers. And many players who were important/key guys for the Wolves went on to contribute positively to good cultures on other teams. So again, isn't it possible that the Wolves never managed to get a winning squad together because they just never found particularly good+compatible talent, rather than attributing their lack of success to 'culture' that a series of leaders failed to instill?
EDIT: bonus one: how many times do we have to see really good players play mistake-ridden and inefficient ball as rookies, on teams fresh from tanking, before we stop making the assumption that 'rookie accountability' is a major factor in any of this? Isn't it possible that rookie accountability or tanking 'culture' doesn't effect destiny that much, and that the rookies' ability to learn and develop how to be effective in the NBA comes down more to tangible, natural, biological stuff than it does to airy things like 'culture'? (Sidenote that it always strikes me as odd that NBA fans think there's something simple a team can do to win--like create a 'good culture' or 'invest in quality scouting'--that GMs in a billion-dollar, extremely high profile industry aren't doing out of laziness or something.)
Agreed on pretty much everything, I don't think Wolves ever had a "culture" problem, just never had good enough rosters to win, both because of draft misses and disadvantageous position in the free agency. No coaching staff can make or break a potential star except if the guy doesn't get enough minutes to adapt to the nba.
I'm well-versed on the Timberwolves plight of the past 17 (or 32) years.
The culture and accountability starts at the top... the one constant through all the coaches and all the players and all the tanking... is owner Glen Taylor. I won't bore you guys with a 50,000-word soliloquy on Taylor. But I'll try to illustrate how he's presided over the constant dysfunction in Minnesota to shed light on what I'm talking about.
1. April 19, 2006. Game #82. The 33-win Wolves are battling Memphis in the final game of the season. And they want as many lottery ping pong balls as possible. So... they tell Mark Madsen to shoot as many shots as possible. Remember, this is a guy who shot 18% on only dunks and layups and 19% from the line over his final two NBA seasons.
But it's not enough. The game goes to OT. Let's double down on it. Let's have Madsen shoot three pointers!
Madsen finishes 1 - 15 fg and 0 - 7 on three pointers. He took only 5 (non-heave) three pointers the rest of his career. Whew... the Wolves lost. They got an extra ping pong ball! So what does Taylor do with that higher pick? He trades it for $2M cash... in his own pocket.
... Fast forward to March 8, 2008. As Garnett is leading Boston to a title... Glen Taylor goes public a year after trading Garnett... saying he tanked the end of the 2017 season. Ummm...
2. October 11, 2017. Andrew Wiggins is about to start his 4th season in the league. It's been relatively promising, although volume numbers on poor efficiency has not led to wins. And there have been many concerns about Wiggins' effort, intensity and motor.
So before handing Wiggins a max deal ($146M)... Taylor makes Wiggins look him in the eye and "promise" to try harder. This actually happened. And it wasn't in a 5th grade rec program.
Yes, a billionaire was rewarding a 22-year-old with the most money imaginable even though that player hadn't earned it... nor put in anything close to the effort to earn it... expecting him to suddenly change his ways entirely despite being rewarded for NOT doing it that way.
Hmmm...
Wiggins went on to average a career low in points the next season. He never improved in any tangible way. And the Wolves ended up having to attach a lightly protected #1 pick to him in a deal to get another max player well-known for lacking intensity, focus and intensity.
____________
The Timberwolves have a history of handing the keys to their bevy of top prospects and giving them A LOT of freedom. And then rewarding them financially for individual stats despite extremely poor team success. Over and over again.
Case in point of history repeating itself... Anthony Edwards has played the most minutes on the team (33 mpg) over the past 13 games. The Wolves are 1 - 12. In the past 7 games (all losses), Edwards is shooting 30.7%... on 117 shots (most on team) and while widening his lead as the Wolves player with the most minutes (34 mpg).
Meanwhile, Taylor ripped the ONLY superstar in team history... the only player with any meaningful winning resume... while he's winning a title in a new city after Taylor forced him out of town.
This IS a culture issue. And it's a culture built and cultivated by Glen Taylor.
