Was this a basketball game or a Heavyweight Championship match?
The referees definitely pocketed their whistles tonight. With Rudy Gay the only player getting even halfway-decent NBA foul calls (at least the non-calls were fairly consistent....) the rest were left to fend for themselves by any means necessary.
Kevin Love v Zach Randolph turned into Brock Lesnar v Cain Velasquez by the end of the night. Wes Johnson was ice cold. Darko had more turnovers than anything except missed shots. Pekovic committed 4 fouls in 13 minutes. Jonny and Telfair both turned in servicable performances, but fell far short of Ridnour's level of play. The Pups did their regular thing with turnovers and letting a relative no-name (Sam Young) go off. Etc etc etc. All in all, with Love locked up in a prison match, Michael Beasley was the only thing happening for the Wolves tonight, and that's not nearly enough.
Love kept his double-double streak alive (barely...) and that's about the only noteworthy point of the night. So with that out of the way, perhaps we'll turn this game wrap over to a couple questions regarding the Wolves and 20/20 vision. If you knew then what you know now...
- Would you have signed Rudy Gay to that max deal we almost offered him in July?
The overwhelming consensus at the time was no. I don't recall anyone except S-n-P advocating for it (forgive me if I omitted you in this). Granted, Gay is still basically the same player he's always been....high-volume shooter who doesn't get to the line or defend as much and well as he should. But he is a 20 point - 6 rebound player, rumors of him being a ballhog have turned out to be very untrue, and he's 24 years old....in other words, just one year older than rookie Wes Johnson, but with 4 years in the NBA already under his belt. That max price tag is still a lot. But only Beasley hitting average for us on the wings this year.
- Would you trade for OJ Mayo and/or Hasheem Thabeet?
Thabeet in a way seems destined to be here anyway. Second overall pick massively underachieving early in his NBA career....hell, we collect those guys.
As for Mayo, you're talking about a third-year player who's regressed across the board, got demoted to the bench, started a fistfight with a teammate (Tony Allen) and now is suspended for violating the league's anti-drug policy. The latest marks on a long long list of them. Yet in the Wolves, you're talking about a team starting Corey Brewer at shooting guard, with really only one actual shooting guard on the whole roster, and in desperate need of help in the handles department. And if you can get Mayo to straighten out, he and Rubio wouldn't be half-bad as a duo. Very complimentary skillsets.
So there's your talking points. It's better than talking about the JV game the Wolves played tonight. What say you?