The Comparsion of Varejao with Shaq and Big Z. Here’s Hollinger’s scouting report of Varejao:

“Varejao’s flopping gets everyone talking, but the rest of his defense is the real story. He’s an elite defender who deserved All-Defense honors, as he can guard 4s on the perimeter or defend the post with equal effectiveness. He defends pick-and-rolls, he gets back quickly in transition, and he hustles like crazy to get loose balls. He’s not a leaper, but at 6-foot-11 and 260 pounds he possesses unusual mobility for a player of his size.

Offensively, Varejao can handle the ball fairly well for his size but is a poor shooter, with a line-drive, below-the-chin, elbow-out release that will never appear in a textbook. He runs the floor well and scraps his way to a lot of second shots, plus he’s great at moving without the ball, particularly as the roll man in screen-and-rolls. For him to score on his own is quite difficult, however, and opponents routinely dare him to fire away from the perimeter. Too often, he takes the bait. "

Why not at least try playing Flynn with Sessions? Unless they believe that Damien is a shutdown Defender.

1) Stay healthy. I know that’s not within any player or coaches’ control, but I believe this team will be poised for a very nice second half of the season if the key guys stay healthy.

2) Effort. This will be a proxy for judging Rambis as well.

3) Flynn’s maturation in lifting the whole unit, not just himself. I’m not saying he’s selfish, I just don’t think he knows how to orchestrate an NBA offense yet. A guy like Ty Lawson does because he had 3 years at NC where he was surrounded by superb talent he had to get involved. I actually think +/- is a stat I will be paying attention to on Flynn because that will be a key indicator of his ability to lift the whole unit. Obviously that needs to be done in context with the fact Sessions is in the game when Flynn is out. I realize that could negatively affect his Net +/-. I just want to see an improving trend line over the season.

4) Corey Brewer’s ability to calibrate the speed at which he plays the game. Last night he went up for an offensive board and actually tried to put it back while on the way down. No dice. He was woefully short. It gets back to SnP’s observation about Brewer’s propensity to find himself in excellent position to score, only to totally throw up all over himself.

I could list more, but those are the things I’m watching the closest early this year. In terms of Big Al, #1 applies. I just want to see him stay healthy. The conditioning and touch will gradually come back.

Best Wolf so far: Flynn. He’s a scoring PG and we need someone who can score. Obviously good in 4th quarter and getting to the line.

Other OK Wolves:
Jefferson — He is only 70%, but he’ll be fine and be best wolf soon.
Brewer — Only slightly improved offensively but our best defender. Pick up the option.
Sessions — Should be backup PG to Flynn, but I like the Flynn/Sessions rotation better than any we’ve had in years.
Hollins — A nice backup center, athletic.
Love — When comes back.

Hot/Cold:
Stewie — He really is the best shooter on the team. And everytime he touches the ball, he’ll try to show why. I’d pick up his option and find a way to get him more shots. Really. He may actually help us stretch the defense.
Ellington — He’s supposed to be the guy to stretch the defense, but he’s shooting 31% so far. Still, he looks like he could be good.
Pavlovic — Doesn’t look aggressive. Can make shots sometimes, but he can’t be part of any long term plan. OK player on a bad team not a good one.
Jawai — Project, but only bulky player.

Bad start:
Gomes — Playing himself out of an extension so far. I liked him last year. It’s early, but what’s wrong?
Cardinal — Great (compared to Mark Madsen)
Wilikins — Nope. Made game winner but that may be it for the year. Needs to come off bench/not start.

I can only see the occasional game and last nite was my first of the year. That being said here are a couple of my thoughts that I haven’t seen posted yet.

• Hollins has nice athleticism, BUT his basketball IQ is horrible. Just check out his court awareness, spacing, and offensive or defensive positioning. He reminds me of the typical awkwardly tall kid in high school that was taught nothing more than to stand near the FT lane. Lambeer needs to work night and day with him. If his positioning and awareness were better, he could be an asset instead of a liability.
• Jawai reminds me of another ‘baby Shaq’, Stanley Roberts; nice soft touch, but not polished at all.
• Where was Sessions? Rambis is really sacrificing early season minutes for him to get Flynn & Ellington some minutes. He should be turned loose a bit more.
• Brewer, for all the criticism he gets, as SnP point out is often in the right place at the right time even if he doesn’t finish. That tells me three positive things about his game; 1) he has the IQ to know what to do, 2) he has the athletic ability to put himself there, and most importantly 3) he puts forth a solid (if less than effective) effort. So, as down on Brewer as I have been during his brief career, I’ll still take these 3 positives over the negatives of his shooting and ball handling. I can’t believe I just said that… I only wish more of the Wolves had these 3 traits.

I have no particular position regarding player extensions other than to note if Brewer or Gomes are not extended, both are gone at the end of the season or before. The idea that they would still somehow be retained is not at all likely. Their value as an-important “asset” is negligible. What team would give anything of substance for either of them? They are more valuable to us, but that does not mean Kahn wouldn’t dismiss them in exchange for a bag of chips. He has done that before already. They are anything but perfect players right now. But it is early. And who, exactly, do you propose to replace them with (at least within a time frame where there will still be fans of this franchise left)? I found it a bit off-putting that the Wolves had such a lackluster crowd for the only visit of one of the league’s biggest stars, and when the team was not yet saddled with a huge losing record. What does the future portend?

no one’s taken it on, so i figure i’ll give it a shot. not that i nesc. believe everything i’m sayin…

1. flynn needs time to learn the triangle. not just any offense, but one that requires the player to read the defense. in the blink of an eye. we hear that the first thing rookies struggle with is the speed of the game, and PG’s struggle more because they’ve got more to think about, and we’re piling a twitch requirement on him, too? i understand why he’s just putting his head down and going for the basket…

2. and a slight addendum to 1: if you have a flynn/sessions backcourt, you have two playmakers out there, and flynn can freelance while sessions has the ball. maybe good in the box scores and in the short term, but i think for flynn’s long term development you’ve got to make him sink or swim out there, and learn from experience.

3. lack of a consistent outside shot in the backcourt. not that Brewer is Mr. 3 Point Shot or anything, but we’d lose a lot with those two on the court in that dept. especially once Mr. Jefferson gets things going. there would be no reason for any player on the opposing team to leave the block on defense.

and, of course, people have brought up the height situation, too, hmm, i guess that kinda ruins my statement that i’m the only one to bring up negatives about this.

so i’ll shut up, and go back to hiding in the back of my dark house cause i didn’t have time to buy candy.

want to see this lineup at some point in a game for a decent stretch?

Hollins
Love
Brewer
Ellington
Flynn.

The reason I say this is that 1. Hollins and Flynn would be pretty damn good out of the pinch post. If Hollins defender doesn’t collapse on Flynn…he scores. If he does, Flynn just passes it back to an undetered Hollins (who we all know has hops. It just seems like the kind or easy option set within the triangle that requires teams to trot out specific lineups to stop. Plus, you could replace brewer with Sasha and have arguable the best shooting lineup out there at the same time for when teams do correct their lineups.

http://www.bulletsforever.com/2009/11/1/1109486/the-wizards-new-secret-weapon#storyjump

Well, yes, it’s quite true that had Glen Taylor kept the 2008-09 team basically together (with a few subtractions and a few additions like Flynn via the draft or Sessions via free agency), the TWolves would probably be playoff bound and definitely out of the lottery come next spring. Also, in posting the link to Mike Prada’s story I didn’t mean to be rubbing people’s noses in it, as the loss of talent is a done deal and nothing is to be gained now by the “if only’s”.

I do hope, however, that this will put an end to the “mediocre vets with no upside” talk, when referring to Foye and Miller. My read on last season continues to be that we had a much better team than certain selective stats and end-of-road-trip Target Center games showed. Allowance should have been made (but wasn’t) for health factors and mid-season remakes when assessing the team; several TWolves players were badly overextended post-Big Al’s ACL but McHale nevertheless did a decent job at keeping the team competitive. Perhaps even more important, FO also had made some very smart moves which would have positioned the TWolves well for the future.

That’s all gone now, and people commenting here say they can be patient with 20+ win seasons, but will that prove to be true? There was precious little patience found as the second year of the post-KG rebuilding ground to a close last spring. Southham writes “tear it all down” and, between the hatred towards McHale and the draft frenzy, all I heard was TWolves fans howling for blood.

Be that as it may, there are some very nice positives this year, such as Flynn, Rambus, Sessions, and Brewer. We’ll have a long, sobering season, however, to think about where to go from here.

Sorry to be so blunt about it, Xand1, but it seems that you can’t evaluate talent even when it’s staring you in the face. Out of all the posters here you are the one who’s constantly dissed Miller/Foye, even going to the extreme of calling them “very mediocre vets”.

There are roughly 500 players in the NBA. What would it take for you to concede that a player is top-notch talent: … the top 10% in a positive statistical category? … the top 5% ? (i.e., 25th or better)

Right now your “below average passer” Randy Foye rates in that top five percent in Assists and in AST/TO. He rates #1 in FT% and in the top 10% in two other assists-related categories and FGM. Not bad for a new guy on a talent-loaded team who was projected to only be a sixth or seventh man off the bench when Arenas needed a rest.

Miller’s stats are even more impressive: top 5% in no less than eleven categories (including #11 in steals and #8 in defensive rebounds… the latter all the more surprising as he’s a SF/SG) and top 10% in two others.

Granted, the sampling size is small though shows continuation over from pre-season. As for upside, Foye is young and evidentally still growing; Miller, on the other hand, seems to have re-made himself in the past year into the most valuable player possible while recognizing his shooting limitations within team goals. Fan-post criticism about his reluctance to shoot to the contrary, this highly valuable personal development strategy – along with his hustle – was obvious to most everyone but you, and has only further strengthened with the Wizards.

But I suppose that your saying it’s so makes it so. God forbid, it couldn`t just be that you might be wrong. `Course, that’s nothing that you’d ever admit to, so I’ll be awaiting your normal weak, opinionated rebuttal.