Second verse, same as the first
by Stop-n-Pop on Feb 20, 2010 7:46 AM CST
25 comments
Didn't I just write this post? The Wolves line-up against a post-trade deadline new-look team with a bunch of new players and their best front court player out of action and they get torn apart by getting massively worked over in the paint and near the rim.
Last night the Wolves allowed the Bulls to go for 18-27 at the rim compared to their own 16-28 mark (led by Kevin Love's not-so-good 0-6 effort up close). They were torn apart on the offensive boards (32.0% to 16.7%) and at the free throw line (35.2 to 23.8). Hakim Warrick ended up with 6 offensive rebounds (compared to the Wolves' 7) and Luol Deng was a constant presence at the free throw line (with 14 FTAs).
What all of this led to was a physically dominating Bulls victory over a team that simply didn't have the personnel to run up against big and athletic forwards who, for one shining night, were able to do whatever the hell they wanted to do.
Well folks, that about does it for today. Lots of stuff to get done around the house today and I have to get movin'.
Until later.
0 recs |
25 comments
|
Email
Print
Comments
If the Wolves were a movie, they would be:
Currently playing, Groundhog Day.
Perhaps this would be a good Fanpost thread.
"Never make predictions, especially about the future." Casey Stengel
On a different note
Did anyone else notice Steph Curry’s line last nite? A whopping 10, count ’em 10, turnovers.
Nice
Been watching a ton of live Ramones stuff lately on Youtube. Can’t ever get enough.
Basketball.
I blame Rambis
Well, I blame Love and Jefferson for having simultaneous bad games. We’re not going to win anything when both of them are off, even if everyone else on our team plays relatively well, as they did last night.
I’m getting really sick of Rambis’s rotations. Six players got more minutes than Love’s 21. Love wasn’t playing well, but the team was still +6 with him out there, so it’s not like they were getting killed because of him.
Our two best players play power forward, yet Rambis gave Gomes 14 minutes at the position last night. This has the double wammy effect of causing Gomes to play fewer minutes at SF, opening up time for Sasha to play. Can anybody justify these rotations? If Rambis’s excuse for not playing Love and Jefferson together is that he doesn’t like their collective defense, does instead using frontcourts of Gomes/Jefferson or Gomes/Love make him anything other than a hypocrit?
I hope we’re tanking, because if this is Rambis actually trying to win, we’ve got bigger problems.
I really think this is just Rambis setting expectations for Love
and sticking to his demands. He wants Love focused and busting his ass, and when he isn’t, it’s bench time. I actually think this shows he wants Love here long term, tough love kinda thing. Something I haven’t seen posted is that they may also be showcasing Jefferson for a trade this summer. Keep his minutes high to show he is healthy, and also let him add to his stat line.
As to the Gomes/Sasha issue….I thought the Sasha signing was a waste of money then, and still do. I rally wish they had passed on Sasha and Hollins, saved the money and use the savings on a slightly overpaid player next season, (like Hinrich) who would actually have some value.
Love was hangdogish last night
I think when you start standing around on the court feeling sorry for yourself, you give your coach a good reason to pull you from the game.
Not a fan of the man's recent work
There was one sequence where he missed a shot down low, complained about not getting a call, slowly came back up the court and poked at the ball in a sassy way while Rose was dribbling out by the three point line, allowing Derrick to pass down low for an uncontested dunk. That’s a party foul.
But we still have a silver lining!
Corey Brewer: 20 games and counting
He is, all things considered, probably our best player. Which is fantastic for him, that he’s gotten to a level where we’d even consider saying that. But really really really sad that we don’t have someone better.
Not sure if I agree with your assessment but
just the mere fact of even reflecting on it says much about the state of this franchise. Smiley Brewer, our best player? We do indeed live in interesting times.
"Never make predictions, especially about the future." Casey Stengel
That's crazy talk
By almost any objective measure, Love is our best player.
by Rascal Flatts on Feb 20, 2010 6:09 PM CST up reply actions
really?
in the two games prior to the Chicago game, Love played 28 and 27 minutes and had 22 and 15, and 13 and 13 (pts, rbs).
Not too bad and arguably the wolves best player in both games. His minutes have gone down. Now you may argue that’s because he hasn’t been playing well but I disagree.
I think the Wolves are going to trade Love this offseason.
This board focuses on trading Jefferson because he’s a big contract. But, by the most straightforward metric: minutes played, Jefferson appears to be more the future of this club and Love more of an ill-fitting after thought.
I’m a huge Love fan, but I just can’t ignore the lack of minutes. Rambis clearly views him as a bench player and an energy guy. Every other story that explains his lack of minutes, while possibly true, a bit of twisted logic. 9 times out 10 a guy who gets 24 minutes a game is not a future building block.
If Rambis thought Love was the future starting 4 for this squad why we he play him less than 25 minutes a game?
by littleboxes on Feb 20, 2010 10:00 PM CST up reply actions
Couple of things
Oceanary has regularly criticized Love’s game (and there is no doubt Love indeed has flaws) and gone against the grain on him as a player compared to the general sentiment on this board. A man has a right to his opinion, but don’t expect him to post a bunch of stats supporting his argument.
The bottom-line is that both of these guys need to be hidden on defense. The reason he gives more minutes to Jefferson is because he’s a vet and paid the most. There is a certain amount of political capital that buys in the NBA. Rambis isn’t going to screw with him too much. Love is still on his rookie contract and still a very young player. His bad habits can still be molded; Jefferson less so. If you surround either of these guys with a legit Center and pogo stick SF, their defensive deficiencies start to melt away. If you surround them with each other and Ryan Gomes, well…..there you have it.
I think Love stays. For one thing, he’s cheaper for the moment. And for another, he’s simply a better all around player.
by Rascal Flatts on Feb 20, 2010 10:28 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
And yes, Jefferson needs to be hidden on defense as well
And for the record, were it my decision, I’d probably trade them both and start over in the frontcourt like we did in the backcourt. I just have a really hard time seeing how we’ll ever compliment either of them in a way that at least breaks us even on defense. They both require a very specific type of player to really not have their weaknesses hurt their team in the long run.
cheaper and better all around player
1. Agree
2. It also makes him a more attractive trade asset
Only bad thing is that he doesn’t make enough to get a high salary guy back, unless you package him with Gomes and filler.
I surprise myself my liking Kahn so far. But, this is the guy who drafted Flynn over Curry. [and I think there were/are legitimate reasons for doing it, even though it was a shock at the time.]
Why do we (fans) think that Kahn is definitely going to keep the better all around player rather than be distracted by the “flash” that is Jefferson’s offensive ability.
We can talk all we want about efficient scoring, the value of offensive rebounding, and getting the to line, but we have no idea if David Kahn or Kurt Rambis have any of this stuff on their radar. All the evidence points to team thinking Al is better than Love. Period. The end of story.
I think it’s insane. I think Love is a more valuable player than Jefferson and that Jefferson should be traded. But if the team thinks that, why don’t they play Love more?
by littleboxes on Feb 20, 2010 11:36 PM CST up reply actions
Well, for one, I've always said that Love's ultimate role on a championship team...
….is sixth man. So to be blunt, appealing to me from the position that Love isn’t getting the minutes or the role he should for a future building block or whatever….that’s lost on me. In my opinion, he’s in the role he should be in right now.
But in the case of his minutes, if we do want to address it, it’s really in my eyes the exact thing that already got posted above. He’s having a lot of problems playing even average defense lately, and he’s not giving full effort.
I mean in the case of last night, it got to a point where pretty much everyone saw it. I was one of maybe 5 or 6 fans that posted about that last night and today, questioning why Love was playing when his body language was so poor. In the play that museum referenced…I mean, there is no excuse….none….for that kind of lacksidasical effort, and Rambis has been very consistent, even with Flynn lately, of pulling guys off the floor when they don’t play hard. If Love is going to stand on the sidelines and hang his head while his man throws down a reverse dunk on the other end of the floor, then he 100% deserves to get yanked off the floor.
This is where I think fans get divided over Love. Some look at his numbers and go “this guy is awesome, if Rambis would just let him loose we’d be fine”. Others watch him play and go “well, he’s doing some good things out there, but he’s getting lit up on defense and starts moping around when things don’t go his way”.
Which is also why I think Brewer is our best player right now. Not just that he’s actually being productive since New Years, but that he gives 100% effort, rain or shine, no matter how things are going or what the score is or who he’s staring down at the defensive end.
Agree about Love's defense
Bottom line: I think Love does not play very much because he’s a low priority for this team. They don’t care about developing him because he’s not part of the future. He’s like Sessions: he’s better than the guy who is starting (Hollins) but not part of the future. Flynn plays more than Sessions because Flynn is the future and Sessions is not. Hollings plays more than Love because Hollins might be part of the future. They know Love is not part of the future.
In December Love averaged over 30 minutes a game. In January around 28 and in February around 24 (reciting these from memory). Everyone else on this team, save Brewer, dogs it, often. Gomes dogs it. Jefferson is a dog 90% of the time on defense, Flynn dogs it, Hollins dogs it in a hyperactive sort of way. What in the hell does Hollins bring last night for 27 minutes. A pile of crap is what he brings. Sure, he looks “high energy” and actually blocked a shot but the guy is not an NBA rotation player and Love IS. So you bring out the development chip, but Love is 21, younger than Hollins. Why not develop Love? So then you have to turn to answers like “Rambis has a special way of motivating Love.” I call bullsh#t. Love is on the way out.
So, I disagree that he’s not playing because of his defense. I think his defense in Feb is just as good as it was in December. Love still shows more effort on defensive rotations and boxing out than Jefferson does. So, it appears we do have to appeal to the political argument (Al is paid more and is a veteran) to explain Rambis’ rotation decisions based on defense.
I see Love’s emotions as well and am annoyed by the whining. But the dude plays hard, much much harder than Jefferson. But we can argue about that all night and not get anywhere.
I just think Rambis has decided that one of them has to go and that he thinks Love should go. Kahn may want to evaluate all year, but Rambis is done evaluating and Love’s goose is cooked.
Bye bye Kevin.
by littleboxes on Feb 20, 2010 11:30 PM CST up reply actions
I think Al plays more because...
….we just badly need his scoring to stay competitive. It’s the one big edge Al has over Love, and unfortunately for Kevlar, we just need that offense more than Love’s rebounding and passing.
But again, to be blunt, I’m not going to cry if Love (or Jefferson, for that matter) are traded. I’ve always said one of them needs to go, and honestly, I think they both do if players like Rubio and Brewer are our future.
This is the accepted dogma
but the truth is that Jefferson is not a better scorer than Love. Not this year. Per 40 minutes he scores one more point than Love. And he demands that the offense runs through him to do so. The problem is that there is no credible alternative to either player to see how much their presence or absence on the court would be missed with a reasonable replacement. No, you can’t run your offense through Love, (well, you can, but not as the primary scoring option) but you don’t get much more production for the team even when running your offense through Al.
I'm glad Rambis is pulling guys when they start going thru the motions
In a season like this, as a coach you can’t let bad losing habits get engrained.
Last 10 games for Brewer:
Scoring
52-120 for .433 shooting overall;
16-42 for .381 from three;
16-24, .667 from the line;
13.6 ppg, or 16.4p/36 minutes.
_
2.5 rpg
2.7 apg
1.6 spg (with Jefferson #2 at 1.3 spg!)
_
Corey’s got 1 block and 1 offensive rebound, total, over the last 10 nights.
This team is in the doldrums, waiting to catch a breeze.
"It has come to the editor’s attention that the Herald-Leader neglected to cover the civil rights movement. We regret the omission."
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
Related FanPosts on Canis Hoopus
Related FanShots on Canis Hoopus
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2010 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
