The more I reflect on the Wolves season, I actually become a bit more optimistic. This is an incredibly young team with their third HC in as many years. Thibs system is by many accounts not easy to learn either. Even Sam last year was basically an extension of Flip's system.

However the most telling stat I saw was that Wolves have taken a double digit lead in 20 games this year out of 36. They are 9-11 in those games. By comparison GS, SA and CLE are 72-3 in games with same circumstances. Experience in games like that pays off and I choose to go glass half full and think the wins will come. NBA games are L-O-N-G and young teams often don't realize just how much of a marathon they are.

Disappointing? For sure. But I do feel some hope that with another year of Thibs and Layden combined with what will likely be a high pick and another offseason, Wolves can take that step in the next year or two.

I'm not necessarily against a move like this, but I dont think it really moves the needle at all. I'd be surprised if an acquisition like that leads to even one more win this season. Is he going to take minutes from Rush? What difference does that make? It might even end up being a downgrade.

We need that kind of optimism around here. What you say makes sense to me, and I hope you're right.

Well, we're talking about 14th men here. Unless something unexpected happens they spend the time wearing a suit.

yeah, exactly.

Kind of a huge anti-game coming up on Monday vs Dallas. Currently tied for the 4th worst record.

Here's something positive:

4 weeks of above NBA average defense. Hopefully that is something we can build on.

If you look at SRS and expected wins the team looks better than last year as well.They are improving (not a massive amount but a little bit) and it just isn't turning into wins yet .

This is the best Ricky has played all year by miles. Downright dominant in the 3rd quarter.

Yup

Fun game last night.

Rubio usually plays well when he spends most of the time he's playing running the offense, and he has more good scorers to play with now than he ever has before. He's been fun to watch lately. I love Thibs, but this running the offense through Wiggins and Lavine most of the time does not seem very productive compared to having Rubio run it.

I heard we have the 5th best defensive rating in the NBA over the last 10 (I think it was 10?) games. Maybe the stuff Thibs is yelling is starting to sink in.

If we continue doing what we've been doing, this could be a very good team. Towns and Wiggins efforts both bug me defensively still though, and Wiggins shot selection needs a lot of improvement as well. They're very young still. I would not shed tears over trading Wiggins if we get something good back (like Butler), but damn, that guy has some skills. Towns is putting up "prime KG-like" numbers on a regular basis, but is not on the same planet that KG was defensively. Hopefully that improves a lot as he matures. His offense is pretty awesome for a 21 year old.

Rush looked really good last night. He played good defense and finally started shooting like he used to. I'd like to see him take some minutes from Shabazz going forward. Even though Shabazz has been shooting better recently, and had a great game last night, I dont think he's all that helpful because he is so bad defensively.

Dunn is fun to watch defensively.

Wolves r awesome now

yeah, this is fun. The team is capable of great things. Lets hope they can put together a long run of consistent defense now. Despite the horrible start to the season, we're only 3 games behind for the 8th playoff spot.

http://www.canishoopus.com/2017/1/14...bio-towns-rush

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/sources...212933973.html

ugh. The team plays well after handing the offense over to Rubio. Rubio plays the best he's played all season and we start to look like a decent team. Now we look to trade him? I dont get it.

Yeah, doesn't really make sense. We're gonna get good assets for Rubio + Bazz?? Why would you trade Rubio for another point guard that can start now and backup Dunn later? Can't Rubio do that?

Also, Dunn is terrible and old so planning around him as a future starter is lol.

Rubio 21/14 vs SA tonight. I heard someone on the radio say that AP sports guy thought that trade Rubio article was copied and pasted from before the season started, and there is really nothing of substance in it. I hope so.

I wouldn't mind trading Rubio if Dunn were decent but I've seen nothing from Dunn that suggests he's a long term solution at pg.

Rubio at least shows glimpses. I don't know if you can have a legit title contender nowadays with a pg who can't shoot though.

What pg could be had for Wiggins?

Comments from game wrap up on Canis^

Rubio has been balling lately. But he was godawful for the first 6 weeks of the season. He was sofa king bad that almost any backup point guard in the league would have stolen his job. But Dunn sucks so that didn't happen. Heck, Tyus Jones got to play down the stretch for like 3 straight games because our point guards were so terrible.

The thing about Ricky is he has to be used in exactly the right way or he instantly becomes one of the worst players in the league. Not sure if Ricky's good enough to bend everything around him like he's Lebron. But Ricky-centric is definitely our best hope of playing well now and it's super fun to watch.

I mean this is a terrible point as the defense puts it's best perimeter defender on one of those guys and tries as hard as they can to completely not guard the other.

Agreed. Wiggins takes much tougher shots than Rubio.

But Wiggins takes a lot of bad shots that he does not have to take (long twos early in the shot clock especially) that contribute to this ****ty percentage. He has the talent to be a much better player than he is. I question whether he will ever realize his full potential.

Sure but it identifies why Wiggins is a net negative to the Wolves, when you do nothing outside of scoring you better do it a hell of a lot better than he does