The fact is, is that DWill is a young, developing, legitimate NBA rotation player who has played better as the season has gone on. The last 2 have been real solid games.

That he's a #2 pick, has a certain contract and doesn't fit with the team when Love is being Love is not a factor in how well he is playing.

He is contributing. He's not the same as Wes or Flynn.

That stuff you mention matters as far as how he fits on this team. I don't think he's worth the $5m or whatever it is they pay him per year. I'd be happy if we could trade him for a more established, more productive player. Maybe because he's so young, that might be possible.

On a completely different subject, I can confirm what Yugo said about how love broke his hand - it was while doing kettlebell pushups. I 100% believe this is true.

Also, his hand and wrist have been very tight in a bad way while he was playing. Its hard to do much about that because of the possibility of re-injuring the broken bones.

Also, I dont know this for sure, but I dont think he's going to need surgery, so he will probably be back this season. Lets hope he gets back to playing at the level he played at last season.

I don't mean to trivialize your post, but like.. he was 20 years old. All of that stuff is certainly a piece of the puzzle, but it's a super small piece. A draft day breakdown that's nearly two years old? C'mon man, I'm citing his play in the 2012-2013 NBA season. You watch all the games, you can work with what we have to.

He is imperfect, yes. Other than pointing this out, this sentence doesn't say anything of substance.

I noticed the same play. I even referenced it in my initial post. But no, they aren't "way too common"; in fact, that's a singular play from 21 minutes where you could knock his effort. That's pretty damn good actually. And iirc it didn't even have an impact on the game. Seems like a pretty minuscule consideration when compared to, let's say, shooting.

I've watched a lot too--you know this. I haven't watched every minute, but I was there for game 1 of his career vs OKC when we got jobbed on a bs KLove travel call down the stretch and I've been here since. Please, when you notice it cite it in here. I will too, we can try to get a grip on this. Our eye tests are not lining up, so let's come together and collect some data.

For a 4? Maybe a bit below average, but really not terrible imo. Is he a worse ball handler than LMA? Is he worse than Love even?

This just doesn't mean anything. I cited his AGGREGATE stats. On the whole, he has been a good defensive rebounder and a blow average offensive rebounder for us. I guess he "disappeared" on the boards last night--he only had 1 rebound iirc--but that's in large part because he didn't need him on the boards (and I can't remember who exactly he guarded, but it's quite possible with Josh Smith stretching the floor he wasn't in close).

EVERYBODY not named Kevin Love "disappears" on the boards sometimes. PEK has had seven (seven!) games this year with 5 or fewer rebounds. You're talking about a 21 slightly undersized 4 ffs.

Actually, that doesn't put the stat in perspective at all, it does the exact opposite: you're confounding the data by adding in assists. Me, you, everyone and their mother agree that DW2 is a terrible passer. His A:TO sucks because he has a 4.2% assist rate. I could make an assistopcorn eating ratio and it would suck too, because his assist rating is AWFUL. He turns the ball over less than AK47 and the same amount as PEK. Repeat.

Yeah, maybe he doesn't fit well with us. But you have a series distaste for him and it brutally colors your analysis imo. You come up with criticisms that you do not levy against other players doing similar things. I don't see much intellectual honesty in your appraisal of him and that's weird because relentlessly honest about pretty much everything else.

Don't take this as a personal attack, I love having you post.. I just strongly disagree with you here.

I'm probably not as down on him as I'm coming across here. There are times now that Love is out that I want him to be in the game playing, and I can see he is doing some good things. There's no doubt he's been our best 3 point shooter so far this season. I'm not as high on him as you guys are though. We can agree to disagree. I do hope he improves a lot if he stays on this team, but I also don't see as bright a future for him here as he might have with some other teams.

Here's a comment from someone that I agree with:

It's not just high expectations or poor performances.

DWill doesn’t play well to his strengths, and that’s what’s been the most frustrating thing about him for a long time – especially since they would seem to be easily correctable.

Ham is a great example: not only is he a hustle-type player (vs DWill’s “loping”), but he does very few things to hurt the team. Ham sticks to his money shots within the offense, plays defense and facilitates.

Pek is another example. Once he figured out how to defend without fouling and how to count to three in the lane, he plays to his strengths too. How awkward and surprising is it to see him toss up a medium range jumper?

How many times does DWill need to drive into the lane on a mudrun/turnover/blocked shot/charge to realize that if you’re going to jump and shoot on your way down, bad things happen? It hurts the team.

I am happy that he’s playing better, and I think we are all hoping he’s turned a corner, but we’re Wolves fans. Expect the worst.

by Boss10 on Jan 9, 2013 12:13 AM CST

Here's a quote with some significant numbers:

Forwards in the 3-point era...

with eFG under 50%, per 36 minute assists < or = to 1 and TOs > or = 2 in the three-point era.

link

1 Stromile Swift
2 Lonny Baxter
3 Derrick Williams
4 Tony Massenburg
5 Rickey Brown
6 Jack Haley
7 Kevin Seraphin

by vjl110 on Jan 9, 2013 1:14 PM CST

Not very impressive company imo.

DC is 4 years older. PEK is 5.5 years older. I mean, that's really all there is to it.

He's been historically bad at passing. Got it. But again, that's one aspect of his game.

Btw those are not "significant numbers," they're suuuuuper cherry picked basically focusing on his major weakness. His eFG this year is 4th on the team, including Budinger. Such a misleading search.

Unrelated to DW:

Forward Chase Budinger will see a doctor on Wednesday and will likely be accompanied by president of basketball operations David Kahn.

It’s at that point, per the source, that a definitive timetable will be set for his return.

The source said that Budinger is pushing to return sooner than expected. Originally, the idea was he would be out until early March with a knee injury.

Yes!!!!

btw i want him out of minny just to put that out there.... as has been said there is no place for him on the team n hes too good to be benched imo

same thing with barrea/ridnour..

barea or ridnour + dwill needs to go come trade deadline for someone like jjredick

I doubt that's all there is to it, but its possible he could figure stuff out someday.

yeah they do look cherry picked, but they're also really bad and really real.

DW is shooting 3s well right now, which has improved his %. Hopefully that continues. We dont have a massive sample to say what will happen over his career though. His college % was off the charts but it was a small sample.

This is kind of interesting (not an argument about anything, just an observation):
This season:

Shot Att. eFG% Ast’d Blk’d Pts
Jump 63% .509 81% 4% 4.4
Close 29% .385 65% 19% 1.5
Dunk 4% .625 80% 13% .4
Tips 3% .400 0% 0% .2
Inside 37% .415 63% 17% 2.1

Last season:
Shot Att. eFG% Ast’d Blk’d Pts
Jump 63% .353 76% 9% 3.3
Close 30% .574 58% 11% 2.6
Dunk 6% .931 74% 0% .8
Tips 2% .125 0% 0% .0
Inside 37% .611 61% 9% 3.4

His jump shot % has gone way up and his close shot % has gone way down.

OH **** - this is regarding Adelman:

Steve Schiffman ‏@schifty
any chance he doesn’t come back at all?

Darren Wolfson ‏@DarrenWolfson
I was told to not rule that possibility out. Still a fluid situation.

Bumper Allen ‏@CourtlandOlson
@DarrenWolfson any idea what is going on? (Per Adelman)

Darren Wolfson ‏@DarrenWolfson
@CourtlandOlson I have a decent idea, but not worth tweeting without hashing out a lot more details… or until Adelman comments.

I hope it's not a health/family issue

DW2 also had a strike-shortened insanely scheduled rookie year with no real training camp at age 20. Sure, that didn't bother Kyrie, but he's not Kyrie. This year he's shown huge improvements in offense and defense. Maybe it's a fluke, but maybe a full year with Adelman and Sikma and Bayno have helped mold him into a better player.

Lots of news today - Love out 8 - 10 weeks after surgery (surprising to me - conflicts with something I heard earlier today):

http://www.canishoopus.com/2013/1/9/...out-8-10-weeks

If he's out for 10 weeks, that means he'd only play the last 9 games, and who knows if he'll be shooting well by then or not.

so who put the giant curse on this team?

what you guys think are the chances twolves make the playoffs anyway??

even with this team being healthy & how well so many of the teams in the west are performing it looks very hard

No JJ tonight?!?!? What the...

back spasms are apparently contagious

Man, talk about playing for next season....I hope this team keeps on fighting and then is healthy next season with a huge chip on their shoulder.

can't remember a season of injuries like this happening to any team recently.

This is ridiculous.

I'm as concerned about Adelman as any player right now.

Anybody know what's wrong with Adelman?