Wolves Updates 9/10
by SG on Sep 10, 2010 1:03 AM CDT
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Bjelica garners attention and more
From Michael Lee/Washington Post:
And, going into Spain's quarterfinal game against Serbia, Rubio was perhaps the most intriguing player to Wizards fans, given all the excitement he generated at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But after the game, Nemanja Bjelica emerged as another prospect to keep an eye on down the road.
The Wizards drafted Bjelica with the 35th pick last June before dealing him, and the 30th pick (Lazar Hayward), to the Timberwolves as part of a pre-arranged deal to get Trevor Booker and Hamady Ndiaye. And, while he has had a relatively quiet tournament, Bjelica -- a 22 year old point guard trapped in the body of a 6-foot-10 power forward -- made all five of his shots, including three three-pointers, and finished with 14 points in 14 minutes to help Serbia advance to the semifinals.
From Kurt Helin/ProBasketballTalk: Ricky Rubio is good, but until his shot falls more the legend part is on hold
From Kurt Helin/ProBasketballTalk: Do the Timberwolves have a Euro sleeper in Nemanja Bjelica?
From Bethlehem Shoals and Tom Ziller/Fanhouse:
So let's not talk about what Rubio did (or didn't) do in Spain's loss to Serbia on Wednesday. It took a last-second three to send the defending FIBA champs home. Unrelatedly, Ricky Rubio played 26 minutes, going 1 for 4 from the floor. That lone make was one of his two 3-point attempts. He also chipped in three boards, three assists and two steals, while turning the ball over twice.
All of Spain's other starters have proven themselves at the NBA level; they put up perfectly respectable numbers in defeat. Too bad that detail can't help us understand Ricky any better.
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Rubio Flops in a Spain Loss, Love missing in a pivotal match
…hope things start looking better soon for our “can’t-miss-players-to-build-a-championship-around.” guys.
I hope to see more of Love if we blowout Lithuania.
Ya
and the Rockets are stupid for not making Scola the focal point of their offense and for failing to trade for Yi Jianlian. Those two guys are for sure NBA cornerstones given how they’ve played and been used/featured this tournament.
Seriously – we’re putting stock into this line of reasoning? SnP, you asked for material to write about in these off-season doldrums – how about a piece on the effect a given role on a team has on any player’s production. Meaning how well would Dwayne Wade produce if he played Wayne Ellingtons role, or how well would Big Al play if he played Love’s role off the bench last year? I think sometimes certain guys’ value or talent gets inflated because they’re in a position where everything caters to them. For example, why couldn’t Eric Gordon be averaging 30 pts a game this tournament? If he played Durants role he could. My point, and I’m sure a whole messload of people will squabble with or even dismiss me, is that the roles and degree to which any player is featured has as much if not a greater impact on their production and ‘cornerstone’ ability than anything else. And please don’t be ridiculous – I’m not saying that Hollins could be the guy if he was featured, but rather how is Love any worse than Al or Boozer as a cornerstone guy? He’s simply never had the same chance as those other guys.
"Styx might be the mullet of bands."
by biggity2bit on Sep 10, 2010 9:20 AM CDT via mobile up reply actions
This isn't NBA camp. Players shouldn't just get opportunities because they are on the team
They should earn those chances in practice and in the limited time they get. Dwyane Wade could never be in a Wayne Ellington role because his talents would eclipse that role. Wayne is a guy who can fade into the background and be a spot up shooter. Wade would look for more opportunities to assert himself, and since he has the talent and skills to do so, he would shine through and force the coach to give him more time.
Players, by and large, earn roles, not the other way around. Gordon can’t play Durant’s role because he hasn’t proven that he can take on that responsibility. He has not shown that he can be “the man”, even on the Clippers. Love has not shown that he can be a cornerstone guy. I think Al failed at being a true cornerstone and Boozer likely has, too, so maybe you can say Love can’t do worse. But can Love be a cornerstone? Maybe…he has to prove it to me though, not just convince me through hypotheticals and production rates that don’t actually reflect his true production.
Sure, playing time and a player’s role will have a huge impact on that player’s production. But lets not pretend that the playing time and role a player receives are all the result of a dumb coach. I don’t feel sorry for Kevin Love that he was a 6th man last year or didn’t get the minutes he felt he deserved. I want him to work harder to earn those minutes. If he works hard enough and plays well enough, Rambis can’t ignore that and eventually, his greatness will shine through on the court and in the win column. If he can’t, then he’ll languish as a “should’ve been” guy.
That’s the reality of the NBA. Let’s not make excuses for these guys.
Offensive Creation
I’ve always taken issue with the idea that iso-scoring is necessarily a good thing… or at least with the extent to which it is lionized. However, there is no doubt that certain players have a higher capacity for it. You put Wade in Ellington’s role and his stats will suffer, but as Tim says, you don’t put Wade in Ellington’s role. Because the real problem comes in trying to reverse engineer this scenario. Try putting Ellington in Wade’s role. He would probably be awful, and more likely couldn’t even create the opportunities needed to demonstrate how awful he is at that role. The same could probably be said for putting Gordon in Durant’s role…
The thing is, being an offensive cornerstone is more than just iso-scoring. That is largely how Durant does it. Same with Kobe. But guys like Chris Paul, Lebron, Nash, and to a lesser extent Wade are corner stones, at least in part, because they create offense for other guys on their team. If Love is going to be a cornerstone for the Wolves it will be in that sense. He will create offense through increased possessions (rebounding and efficient shooting) and subtle play creation through passing and positioning. He can have a high usage (probably the best mark of a “cornerstone” player), but not a ton of shot attempts. More on the Kidd, Duncan, Garnett (DISCLAIMER:Offensively), than the Durant, Kobe end of the spectrum.
Not trying to make excuses
merely trying to point out that Wade and Durant and Kobe and Roy and the like have everything run through and for them. Your suggestion of looking at it from the perspective of putting Wayne in Wade’s role is actually informative to me in terms of helping me understand what makes a cornerstone guy a cornerstone guy – they’re guys who are consistent enough to capitalize on an entire team and system trying to get them scoring opportunities.
I still don’t think it minimizes the broader point I’m trying to make, which is that being a cornerstone guy can be as much about having everything run through and for you as it can be about talent. Eric Gordon is athletic enough and a good enough shooter that yes, the US team could make him a 30 ppg scorer if they want. Does that make him a cornerstone player, or just a really nice player? Is Andre Iguodala any less of legit NBA player because he’s not scoring like he does for Philly?
In fact I’ll let Iggy phase the point I’m trying to make best:
I know people back in Philly are looking at my offensive numbers and don’t think that I’m playing that well, but that’s not my role on this team. I am here to play defense, score out on the break, get some putbacks. That’s how I’ll score on this team. I think Chauncey Billups put it best some time ago when we were all together. He said that there are really only three guys on this team that will play the same way that they will play in the NBA. Derrick Rose is our lead point guard who can score getting to the basket, who can find the open man and who plays good defense out front on the ball. Those are all the things he does with the Chicago Bulls. Kevin Durant is here to score for us, and he can do that a lot of ways. That’s what he does for Oklahoma City. And Tyson Chandler is here to block shots and rebound, and that’s what he does in the NBA.
Based off of Chauncey’s comments, if we are to believe them, then doesn’t Love’s production look a lot better than Tyson Chandler’s, for example? Doesn’t his production above and beyond his role give you just a little thought of a DWade in Wayne Ellington’s role type scenario? Or are we still going to use Love’s PT and role on this team as evidence to his inability to be a cornerstone?
"Styx might be the mullet of bands."
by biggity2bit on Sep 10, 2010 10:08 AM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
Well, hopefully Love will get the chance this year
to show whether he is able or unable to be a cornerstone. I don’t think we currently have much evidence either way. Sure, we have evidence that his role should probably expand beyond that of Wayne Ellington (or Ryan Hollins). That’s pretty clear. He’s shown quite a bit of talent in limited minutes. But so have a lot of players. And I think it takes a big step to go from talented player to cornerstone.
And I don’t think its all about scoring opportunities. KG doesn’t have everything run through him in Boston, but he’s definitely a cornerstone. Nash runs the team but isn’t a high volume scorer, but he’s a cornerstone. Same with Iggy, Billups, G. Wallace, etc. It’s not all about scoring.
But the idea that players are somehow interchangeable like that doesn’t jive. If KG suddenly retired tomorrow and Big Baby was forced into the starting PF role for Boston…how much worse are the Celtics? Davis has shown flashes of talent. He’s played well in the playoffs when KG was out. But in the long term? I doubt he could do it consistently and I have a hard time seeing the Celtics being anywhere as good with Davis in KG’s role.
Sure, Gordon might be able to score 30 ppg if he were put in Durant’s role. But would he be as efficient? Would his defense suffer from having to put up that many points? Would he be able to rebound as well and pass as well as Durant, while having to score that many points?
Agreed on pretty much 100% of this, all with the qualifier that sometimes coaches botch rotations. Obviously, going from KG to Big Baby is a huge downgrade (and is a huge downgrade when he’s on the court in minor minutes, no need to pretend he successfully replaces KG when KG needs a breather), but what about in Golden State, where Monta Ellis is likely to get more minutes than his more effective backup, Reggie Williams? It’s not a pure meritocracy, because sometimes, people miss what some players bring to the table or put too much stock in seniority.
And just as a follow up, how do you define “cornerstone”? Are we talking about one franchise player or a couple guys a team can build around?
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
Oh and with the qualifer that Love’s minutes haven’t been all that limited (nearly 30 per game last year) and in those minutes, he’s been more productive than the vast majority of bench players. It’s not even close when you compare him to someone like Big Baby, who, on the whole, is pretty crappy.
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
I guess I define "cornerstone"
as the best player or second best player on a playoff-caliber tearm. Someone you can build around. Some teams have more than one (Boston), some teams only have one (Orlando). I know that definiteiyl kind of leaves Iggy out of that mix, but I included him mostly because biggity referenced him in his above post.
Coaches certainly botch rotations and get things wrong, that’s true. Hopefully, Michael Beasley is a case where the wrong role was a problem and a better role makes him a lot better. Same with Webster and actually, same for Darko, too. And if you played for Larry Brown or Don Nelson, sure, you may have been overlooked quite substantially.
To this day, I think Doug Collins is responsible for creating the giant mass of terrible that is Kwame Brown and that a different coach could’ve made something out of him.
Sort of confused by how Orlando could even possibly have just one cornerstone, if the criteria is “best or second best player on a playoff-caliber team.” They’re obviously a playoff caliber team, and have a second best player. I guess with the addition of “someone you can build around” it’d be easy to dismiss most of Orlando’s roster as build around caliber guys, but I think Jameer is super underrated when healthy. Magic Related Tangent Approaching: I’d love to have him on my team, as well as a few other key guys for the Magic. It’s like they decided to surround Dwight with a bunch of traditional #3 guys (Jameer, Barnes, VC, Turk, Lewis) and see how it works. An interesting strategy that has been fairly successful.
Iggy also seems like a possible guy to build around to me. Maybe not an untouchable sort, but if you paired him with an elite scorer and filled out the rest of the roster well, Philly could be really, really good with him as their second best guy. I don’t know, it’s hard to figure what constitutes building around someone, and what’s simply not going out of your way to upgrade a position.
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
I think a lot of it is semantics
but I have a feeling that if you take Dwight Howard off of that team, you find out quickly just how limited Jameer Nelson is. Swap him with Raymond Felton and put Nelson on the Knicks. Do you feel more optimistic about the Knicks this season? I’m not sure I would. To me, that means Nelson isn’t a real cornerstone.
More optimistic? Sure. Not to say that an Amare/Nelson core is good enough to do anything special, but that’s both Amare not being good enough as a #1 and Jameer not being a high end #2 (like I said, I see him as more of a third best sort of guy, but from time to time, he’s better than that). There’s not much Nelson can’t do out there. He’s got solid court vision, shoots the lights out, defends reasonably well, and rebounds the ball very well for a point guard. Last year was sort of a down shooting year for him, so I guess until he recaptures that stroke he had in the couple years prior, I’d agree that he’s not a cornerstone, but at his best, he’s really really good.
I think that if you had Jameer on your team, you could be happy about the point guard position for years to come, and could build around him and one or two other (better) players.
heart of a champion, will of the warrior.
I don't see it
Love is who he is — a double double machine. This year, Love needs to show the same improvement on defense that he showed last year on offense. It really doesn’t matter if that makes him a cornerstone of the team. It will make him a starter though.
I think
we’re on the same page, albeit perhaps on two different sides (or in different parts of the same paragraph). I don’t intend to give the impression that I think guys are interchangeable, but I personally do wonder the degree to which some guys are successful simply because they’ve been put in the position to have lots of opportunities (Joe Johnson? Rudy Gay?), versus some guys like Love who are very productive but haven’t yet really been given the chance to be the focal point of the offense. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m really ready to give Love 35 minutes a night and a featured role on the offense so we can find out just what he can and can’t do. Is he an upper level KG type talent? Or is he a secondary Boozer/Al level talent (in which case he pretty much is what he is at this point)? I guess I’m just tired of the speculation and want some evidence on the court one way or the other.
"Styx might be the mullet of bands."
by biggity2bit on Sep 10, 2010 10:52 AM CDT up reply actions
Yeah, I think we agree on those points
I’m ready to see the evidence on the court, too. And I think we all hope that he can be an upper level talent.
Dominate Keep on preaching
Don’t let others on this site mock you or put you down because you have a different take.
let's not encourage that
I think I have done a pretty good job of trying to take most people’s takes at face value and not oversimplify their take on a given situation. I try to avoid generalizations and broad sweeping statements because as I have found out in life because those statements are always wrong…even if the basis of it is almost always right. The fact is that it captures enough innocent or incorrect relationships/concepts to automatically make it wrong.
While I am sure that there are many people who mock you and other’s for your opinions, I prefer to discourage any and all from doing that. Even if I disagree, stating that I disagree 100 times is just going to bore the piss out of everyone else. Vice Versa is also true of course.
No one is getting Rubio's rights unless they pry them from our cold dead fingers.
by TheEvilProfessor on Sep 10, 2010 7:21 AM CDT up reply actions
Dominate,
it doesn’t matter what the others say about you. Just never give up!
As a side note .. one of Rubio’s two turnovers whas a situation where he passes the ball and simultaniously the guy he is passing to trips and falls over …
Shows that the stats don’t always show everything, especially in this small numbers
Good point
And I think the other one may have been a good pass to a teammate that wasn’t quite ready, but if he were any good would have been.
All in all, I’m not that impressed by Euro league players, and Spain’s “amazing” team. But I do think Rubio’s game will translate very well to the NBA.
Dominate, your my hero
Don’t forget to change the diapers and grab the cat out of the burning building filled with those mean people at CH.
By the way I kiss baby’s heads with the same mouth I say “Rubio will be good”……the horror
by majinman on Sep 10, 2010 7:17 AM CDT reply actions 1 recs
THings sure have gotten Katty around here :)
I think we can all agree that it’s not a bad Idea to build a team around Rubio. What other cornerstone options could we realistically build around?
by Timberwolf i.e. Albatross on Sep 10, 2010 8:49 AM CDT reply actions
On a sad note
Greg Stiesmsmamamama has been waived. That’s too bad. I wanted the Cousins Stopper on this team.
This Spain-Slovenia game
has gotten really chippy. Rubio only has 1 TO midway through the third with 3 assists, 2 steals, and 1 point. In other news, Rudy Fernandez dominates the ball, despite not being good enough to dominate the ball. Dump it in to Gasol against this team.
Ricky may not score
but man would his passing and defense really improve a lot of guys on our team this year.
"Styx might be the mullet of bands."
by biggity2bit on Sep 10, 2010 11:41 AM CDT up reply actions
No kidding
The thing that makes the biggest difference for me is the quality of the players around him. Think how good him and Michael Beasley could look on the fast break together. Put Kevin Love in the high post and man, we could have some serious ball movement. Now we just need Wes, Brewer, and Webster to knock the shots down.
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