Hmmm, guess I’ll just have to continue to disagree on Foye. To my mind he was the second best player (for the Wolves) on the court last night. A few observations in response to your post: first, I think the D at the end of the game on Roy was fine. There were 2 key possessions here: first, Roy took Foye into the lane and got fouled; second, he hit that fadeaway jumper. As to the first possession, I think Jim Peterson made the best point a bit earlier in the quarter: Roy’s move to the basket is essentially to barrel in like a bull and hope to get fouled. It’s a lot like Wade in the finals a few years ago. And it’s a smart move – it works, in part because of the way the game is called in the NBA. But Roy definitely got the benefit of a few strange calls, because he’s Brandon Roy and because the NBA wants “action,” i.e. players going to the hoop. So on said drive, there was a reason both Foye and Wittman were livid: Foye played textbook defence, stayed in front of Roy the whole time, had his arms straight up, made Roy miss…and got called for a foul. I think Brandon Roy got that call because he was Brandon Roy.

On the last Roy bucket, I think you make an excellent point when you ask why Brewer wasn’t in to play D on Roy. (Then again, Brewer and Telfair were guarding Tony Parker a few games ago…and the problem with Brewer is that if he’s in the game, Jefferson doesn’t have that absolutely dominant performance down the stretch, or has a harder time doing it, because Brewer’s man can double down.) But it’s tough to see what more Foye could have done. He kept Roy in front of him, didn’t let him get to the rim…and it would be tough for anyone to force him into a different shot without someone coming over to help. Again, Brewer might have been a better defender here just because of his length…but if Roy is isolated at the top, and has the luxury of basically backing his man in (with various spin moves etc.) without any help coming over, it’s going to be pretty hard to stop him.

I do have one question about Foye: I know you say he has matador defence, and others here have remarked on his supposedly poor D. But can someone point out a few examples? I mean this in the friendliest way possible – I only ask because I don’t see it. I started paying closer attention a couple of games ago because people were talking about it. A couple of posts ago I remarked on how good his D was on a couple of possessions against Sacramento. And last night, while I’m not saying he’s Ron Artest, it seemed basically fine – in fact anything but matador at the end of the game, insofar as he kept Roy in front of him on both of those key possessions. Anyways I’m not saying anyone’s wrong, I’d just like to get a better idea of what specifically people are talking about. I think a large part of what hurts Foye, like all the Wolves perimeter defenders (as evidenced by the Spurs game), is the lack of a shot blocker: opposing guards/forwards know there’s no gatekeeper back there and drive with more confidence; Wolves players know the same thing, and aren’t able to pressure as much, can’t take chances, etc.

Anyways last point about him: in my view, he was better than Telfair last night at the point. Not too difficult because Telfair, like Love, had an off night. But as well as Telfair runs the team, his limitations last night were pretty clear: he can’t shoot well enough to keep the D honest (at one point he was on the same side of the floor as Jefferson, and Jefferson immediately passed the ball back out, because Telfair’s man was just doubling down), he can’t get right to the rim against any team with length (his layup attempts last night were either blocked or extremely erratic; the taller Foye, on the other hand, made one at the very end of the first half); and he has trouble on D (as evidenced by the SA game). Don’t get me wrong, I like Telfair starting because I think he’s the better point right now (last night notwithstanding), and I like the idea of Foye coming in at the 2, getting comfortable, and taking over the point when Telfair takes a breather. But for the reasons listed above, I think Foye has the greater upside than Telfair, even at the point, albeit as a non-traditional PG.

Anyways, as stated above, I mean these as the friendliest disagreements possible. Good luck with the move – at least the weather’s holding up, my mom moved this past week in a snowstorm! Show that carpet who’s boss. ;)

pliny, as always i appreciate you keeping us honest on foye. the first two points you make, however, need to be refined. the first lends itself to a dialectical reversal: as you say, foye gets screwed by that foul call on the roy drive because he’s foye — not roy. roy gets the call because he’s managed to make a name for himself as a big-name player — hence he gets the call. in contrast, the only name foye has made for himself thus far is mud. so it seems here fair to point out that in this particular case foye’s deficiency is real and is in fact precisely the consequence of his not being roy — i.e. a spectacularly good player (and all this is amplified since we will have to pit these two players forever and anon against each other for draft-night-historical reasons).

on the second point let me echo pliny and say i’m interested to hear more details on foye’s purported lack of defensive grit — i’m not seeing the games except via the boxscore and recap so i haven’t any fresh grounds on which to base a real judgment. pliny, if i take your word on the second point as valid, it consequently only reinforces the original argument s-n-p was angling at. one can’t really fault foye for not being long enough (at least not in this instance) — that’s like blaming pliny the elder for not being pliny the younger. but you CAN fault der witz for letting the broomstick sit in the utility closet when he should be in there sweeping opposing shooters out of their comfort zone. ultimately whatever foye’s defensive weaknesses may be, they’re surely intensified by nobody else pitching in (and esp. by the absence of a legit big man standing sentry).

I think it’s getting pretty obvious our “starters” should be bassy, brew, miller, love and Jefferson. That group is the group of players I’d really like to stick around. The bench though, needs some serious shuffling.

Foye/Mccants: I’m still undecided here. Foye seems to be “just ok”, so if we could get a real PG (like Rubio), I’d rather have the new guy and Foye is out. Mccants, even tough a year younger than Foye, has a year more under his belt in the NBA. I’ve never liked me against the other team kind of players, maybe it’s because my moms always pushed me to be a team player, don’t know.
I’m not saying that Mccants is selfish per sé, he only plays his style because the coach told him to. That said, I just don’t like him, he reminds me to much of Ricky Davis, a guy who can “put the ball in the basket” but just doesn’t make your team better. Look at the teams where he goes and how they fare after he’s gone. I say trade while we can.

Gomes/Carney: I still really like Gomes, if only for limited minutes and the going small/going big thing he enables, he does seem to have some inconsistency in his game, or is it just me? Anyone else noticed it?. Need to see more from Carney.

Smith/Madsen: they both are decent players, but they both shouldn’t be playing rotation minutes on this team. I’m OK with our starters being a bit short, I think they can be ok on defense, at least enough to outweigh their performance with stellar offense. BUT, if we go with Love+Big al in the starting lineup we gotta at least have one big ass defense gatekeeper, I wholehartedly agree with plinty on that point. I really believe it would help our perimeter D as well. But, that’s not enough, I think we also need to change our PF. As much as I like Craig, we already got a starting lineup with 2 guys under 6’10", we need someone else as our 2nd string PF.

I’m looking at Tyson Chandler in 2010 (yup, still hoping), Pekovic (though not really a defensive guy) and maybe Thabeet in this years draft.

For the PF, I don’t really have an idea, how about AL Harrington in FA 2009? Any other suggestions who would fit? Especially age-wise?

Let’s start some trade proposals? :)

I agree with Pliny on the question of the last couple of plays. Foye did the best he could, and generally seems to try on defense, which is more than you can say for Miller and AJ sometimes. That being said, I come back to coaching, which was brough up in the post, and have 2 key issues:

1. Why isn’t Brewer on the floor there? I can’t remember if that was after a timeout (i think it was), but there have been MULTIPLE instances in games this year where there’s a dead ball going into an opponent’s possesion and we know we’re going to have a dead ball AFTER the opponent’s possesion (either because of a foul or because we’re going to call a timeout after a make or a rebound). You HAVE to go defense for offense there. It seems like maybe Brewer is in the doghouse, which i think has to be because of his D (too much gambling) and not his O (which I think has improved this year).

2. What are we trying to prove by not doubling there? This is the same problem with the SA game. The guy is on fire or is their best perimiter player. Why not make someone else beat you? As long as you guard Aldridge (or Duncan in SA’s case) I sleep better at night knowing that Outlaw or Frye or whoever beat me, rather than giving Roy a shot that he likes.

These things seem like coaching 101 to me and it frustrates me to no end that we don’t do it.

On the rotation, it’s a mess. Clearly, the Wolves were hoping that Foye would take over the lead PG responsibilities and he and Telfair would divide up the PG minutes, leaving Miller/Brewer/McCants and maybe Carney to divide up minutes at the 2/3. Of course that hasn’t happened, so now there are too many guys that all have their flaws and haven’t separated themselves. It also appears that they were expecting to go smallball again this year and expecting Gomes to start at the 4. The one good problem to have is that Love has shown he clearly deserves those minutes, which means right now, your supposed best frontcourt “backups” are Gomes and Smith, creating a comically short and poor defensive rebounding front line in the second unit. These are mistakes made by the front office, but are being compounded by Wit’s rotations (maybe it gets better when Collins comes back, but I don’t see how adding more players that are deserving/undeserving of minutes is really going to help our overmatched coach).

The hope had to be that some of these people would have established themselves in training camp/first part of the season as clearly deserving of minutes (or not), but so far all we seem to know is that these players have all the same flaws that they had last year (big shock). To my mind, if Witman wants to keep his job, then he needs to make some tough choices and shorten his rotation and make sure everyone knows their roles. If it were me, I’d use Collins and Smith as our frontcourt backups and use gomes, foye and mccants as our backup backcourt players. I know that’s 10 guys, but i would expect Colins and probably shaddy to get very few minutes. Not my ideal situation because I think Shaddy is a better player than Foye, but I think the bridges have been burned with this organization.

He was the 6th man of the year a few years ago, so he should be comfortable with it. He’d go more for his own shot without having to defer to AJ, and would help the second unit offensively. He has been a bit of a dissapointment (he just KILLED us and looked great doing it at the end of last year at Tarjay). Not sure what’s differnt, other than it looks to me like he’s trying to be an extra good teammate, which he shouldn’t be doing. He’s on the court to make shots, otherwise we should go with someone else.

I’d love to see Shaddy in the starting lineup, but I’m clearly biased towards him in the McFoye question. I think it could help him, if only because you could use it as motivation — “You can start, but you’ve got to be the second option after AJ and a good team player”. It does seem like maybe he took a bit of a step back (at least in terms of personality on the court) after he started coming off the bench last year. Plus then Wit really has a chance to use the quick hook, with both Foye and Miller on the bench rested and ready to replace him.

And i’m all for using Love as the “best big off the bench” IF we start someone who’s defensive/rebounding focused next to AJ (say Collins or MadDog). You know those guys are going to get into foul trouble a significant amount of the time, so it shouldn’t cut into Love’s minutes. But sitting him while Gomes tries to play the 4 against whoever’s starting PF is just going to dig a hole in the 1st and 3rd quarters. If you’re concerned about having no offense with a lineup that includes Brewer, Telfair and the stiff big man, then start Gomes ahead of Brewer.

Anyway you slice it, this team NEEDS to get up and down the floor more. Telfair, Miller, Brewer and Love were all made to play in a more uptempo style (even if Love is just tossing outlet passes and crashing the offensive glass).