The Inexperienced Ones

There was a study done by the US military years ago(it appears in Gary Klein’s book Sources of Power) on chess grand masters vs amatuers that tested how good their decision making process was when faced with increasing time pressure. The US military wanted to know how their commanders would fare under similar time pressure. The results were that the grand masters got even better and the amateurs significantly worse. This team decided to play fast paced basketball and couple it with inexperience, that ignores how the minds of your players work.

There’s a reason D’antoni didn’t like Darko and doesn’t like Randolph and there’s also a reason that the Timberwolves should stop using bad heuristics like “athleticism” to choose their players, their pace makes amateur players worse and experienced players better. I suspect if you used something like lifetime minutes of basketball played as your unit of analysis that your top three would be Ridnour, Tolliver, and Love(even though he is 22) .

I always enjoy your commentary and perspective on the Wolves. I commend you on your post and appreciate your attempts to provide us with an optimistic outlook. Unfortunately, I still have marked problems with this team that I do not feel are attributable to youth. Most importantly, the egregiously insipid turnovers this team makes are completely incredulous. As I have said countless times before it is one thing if you lose the ball because the defender made a phenomenal play by accepting a charge or jumping into a passing lane, but an entirely different thing if you can’t inbound the ball (this is the NBA after all), throw a pass to a teammate without looking at him as though you are Magic Johnson (i.e.-Darko’s pass to Beasley in OT against Charlotte, Corey’s pass to Flynn during that same game where he threw the ball behind his back at half court, but luckily nobody was there to take it away from them), etc. In addition, youth cannot account for a complete lack of effort. In fact, it is the one area I would expect our youth to be advantageous. Accordingly, although I am willing to accept a lot from the Wolves as a result of their youth, I have been incredibly frustrated with their lack of effort save a few players, and ridiculous decision making as I have seen highschool players that would not make the blunders they do. And what worries the most is that I don’t think that time will remedy some of the inherent problems many of players have. I don’t buy that time will make Flynn develop a higher IQ than that of a mentally retarded person (no offense to mentally retarded people intended), Brewer develop a more controlled offensive game or a jumpshot (it’s been nearly four years), Johnson develop the ability to create his own offense off the dribble, Love become more athletic so that he is not so great a defensive liability, Darko become more confident, aggressive, and quicker with his decision making (he seems to be regressing), Ridnour become quicker so that he isn’t a sieve for the opposing point guard, etc. I do agree with everyone that there are some good pieces in place such as Love (his defense not withstanding) and Beasley. There is some reason to be optimistic I suppose in this regard so I don’t mean to entirely rain on your parade as opposed to just lightly drizzle on it. Take care my friend and well done on the post…