I don't get nba tv, and I was too lazy to watch it online.

Yes - Chase is a 3/2 - more of a 3 than a 2, but he can play 2 and guard 2s pretty well. Having him to guard a big 2 like Kobe instead of Ridnour on Kobe would be kind of a big deal.

Are you talking about the Laker game or the Clipper game? I saw him miss before the Laker game, but the one I was talking about was before the Clipper game. I sit right at center court near the top of the lower bowl, so great seats, not far away, but not super close. I thought I saw it go in, and he looked very happy, but its possible he missed I guess.

38 games to go.

27 wins needed to reach our goal of 45. I guessed this number a few weeks ago and Stop & Pop did some statistical analysis the other day suggesting we will need 44 - 46 wins to get in this year. Lets say 45 again.

We might have Love & Bud for 22 of those 38 games if we're lucky. Bud only for maybe 25 - 30.

We have to stop losing games to teams like the Lakers and Portland right now if we want any chance at all of making the playoffs. Tonight's game is big. We should have been a lot better than Portland is, but they've been healthy and have had unexpectedly very good production from C and PG, plus Batum is having a career year I think.

Say we go 19-3 when Love comes back , we need to go 8-8 starting now for the next 16. Both of those seem tough (under 5% imo), but not impossible. We need a near miracle. Winning tonight wont take a miracle, but we will probably have to play well and work hard on defense.

Lol. I hope 19-3 is possible when Love comes back too.

But, you know, good job/good effort as they say.

Btw, won't it be "much easier" to go 10-6 right now and 17-5 when love is back? Also, remember the last time Love came back after not playing in real NBA level games for a while? Yeah...

The good news is Ricky is starting to become Ricky again!

Wow at that behind the back dribble pass to Pek

The season is more or less over. I would do everything to prepare for next year, building for next year around Ricky-Pek-Shved-DC and developing CJ and Jello.

1. Develop Ricky, Pek and Shved. Play all of them the max that we can per game. Preferably, play them together.
2. Give CJ and Jello as much time as possible on the court. Both can be cheap NBA rotation players.
3. Limit AK to 30 min or less to accommodate Jello's development. Also, give Jello some minutes at the 2.
4. Play DC and CJ at the 4. Also, give CJ some minutes at the 5.
5. Less of JJ, Luke, DWill, Steamer and Lou to accommodate the above.
6. Get a few new bodies in for next year either by trading some of those in (5) or by signing some D-Leaguers.

We lost by 2 last night, so it'd be 10-5 & 17-5 now. 19-3 & 8-7 is more likely imo, but whatever, neither is likely.

I still think we should try to win as many games as we can. Make this team as attractive as possible for PEK, AK47, Bud, DC and whoever else we attempt to attract. Tanking sends the wrong message to those guys and does little as far as draft position unless we somehow get lucky. Winning builds character for the players we have who are returning.

I do like seeing Ricky, PEK & Shved play together.

Limiting AK's minutes a little is fine once we're for sure out of contention, but I say play him as much as he wants to play.

I'm indifferent with bringing back both CJ & Jello. I dont think playing them a lot matters one way or the other, but I do think CJ should be getting more minutes than he has lately because I think that would give us a better chance of winning. I'd like to see him more at PF next to PEK.

#6 - I think we should get rid of 4 of the 5 you mention, keeping one of either JJ or Luke, unless we get a quality backup PG in return. JJ & Luke are fine as backups playing backup minutes, but both of their values diminish a lot when they're forced into longer minutes or playing out of position or when we depend on them to be major contributors. Hopefully we can get something of some value in trade for that collection of (mostly) bums.

Most importantly for the offseason/next year imo:
keep Adelman (its not 100% this will happen)
keep PEK
keep AK47
keep Bud
add a contributing, preferably a starting caliber SG (maybe in trade or a FA)
keep DC
lose the dead weight (Lou, probably Steamer, hopefully get value for DW & JJ or Luke)

Everything else (aside from health) is less important.

On last night's game:

Rubio looked great.

We collectively played with no effort on defense for ~35 minutes. We were getting blown out until halfway through the 4th when we went on a huge run, cut the lead to 2, then missed a chance to tie it at the end.

Adelman blasted the team for lack of effort.
http://www.nba.com/timberwolves/vide...OR2mp4-2373792

PEK basically did the same.
http://www.nba.com/timberwolves/vide...OR2mp4-2373792

This is our biggest problem right now. We dont play hard for 48 minutes, and we dont have the talent (with Bud & Love out) to win many games doing that.

Who said anything about tanking. What we're doing right now IS tanking! We're 6-18 in last 24 and 2-12 in the last 14. To continue the current course and hope for that winning streak we need is silly. My plan might actually get us more wins until Love and Bud are back. DWill is terrible right now. Play CJ instead of him. Luke cannot defend 2's and he's killing us. Play Shved and Jello at the 2. Play one of Luke or JJ at backup PG for now.

We need to look at both Jello and CJ to see if one or both can be rotation players. If so, they are the perfect type of players that we want to add around the core players.

I should have put that in context, sorry. I didnt mean to imply you said we should tank. And you're right - we are basically tanking, but not on purpose

I've been reading stuff elsewhere from people who want us to tank, so I was just putting down all the stuff I think we should do.

I agree about Luke at 2 - he cant guard anyone. Hes a backup PG that can shoot good sometimes. idk about Jelly getting lots of minutes at 2 though - who's going to play 3? We have AK47, Jelly...... crickets chirping..... Shved already plays lots of minutes. DW is not a 3. I think Jelly is going to get all the minutes he can handle soon, especially if AK misses any games with that quad. That 5 mil + a roster spot we wasted on Roy looks worse every day. Maybe once AK is healthy Jelly can get a few minutes at 2.

I agree with putting CJ in instead of DW, but I dont have very high hopes for CJ. I think he can maybe be a decent rotation player like you say, but he's shown me a few things that tell me he has a fairly low BBIQ. He does do a lot of things better than DW though - he affects & blocks shots and has good hands/springy legs and is long which is good for finishing Rubioops. Also, he's a high energy guy - kind of the opposite of DW.

great post cha. agree with literally everything

thanks deej

Duncan & Ginobli doubtful tonight. I heard D Stern will be in attendance. lol - that story line could get interesting with the game on national tv.

This could actually be a winnable game if we try hard the whole game for a change.

AK47 is questionable. I think we'll see a lot of Jelly tonight AJ.

Pretty good article on Adelman: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...n-rick-adelman



AK47, Duncan and Ginobli are all out for tonight.

Parker is really good.

Hey Wolves - Green was on fire! Why dont you have a defender stick with him instead of sagging off to help then leaving him wide ****ing open time after time!

Joey Crawford can suck a turd imo. What an *******.

Why doesn't CJ get any playing time at all?

This season has slipped away.




Jelly looked pretty good. So did Rubio & PEK.

Love was hanging around the Wolves bench during the game - good to see him.

CJ: vs NO he picked up 5 fouls in 5 min. That probably didn't win Adelman over, heh. I thought for sure he'd play some 4 tonight with DC playing some 3. Guess not. I wonder if Adelman will even allow CJ to be signed for the rest of the year if they have to eat Lou's contract to do it. If he's not going to play CJ, no sense in eating Lou's $$$.

Jello looks like he's an above avg defender. Offensively, he's got more game in his locker than he shows, imo. He's consistently making that drive and pullup 10-footer. But, he seems overly conservative on O.

Good way to end the season imo. Losing for draft postion plus Ricky getting back to doing Ricky things.

Letting go of CJ & keeping Lou would be a mistake.

I agree. Jelly does look good defensively - I was watching him stay with S Jackson and the other guys he was assigned to and he does well defending SFs. Not anywhere near AK47 level, but he is a major upgrade from Wes. Offensively he doesnt force much (he did force one shot early in the game), he seems to let it come to him, which is a good thing when he's playing with Ricky, who will get him lots of open shots. He could be a nice 8th - 12th man if we ever get everyone healthy.

Losing for draft position is bad. See the discussion above.

- Doogie

Pek, AK, Shved and Ricky in manga (and I think Kevin Love in panel 4?):

"Luke Ridnour is being shopped by the Minnesota Timberwolves, and a league source told SheridanHoops.com “there is a good chance” the 10th-year point guard will be dealt before the Feb. 21 trade deadline."

http://www.sheridanhoops.com/2013/02...ped-by-wolves/

I think that's an excellent decision, I don't see Luke having much value for us going forward and lots of teams could really use him.

does anyone understand what that means?

sounds fine if we get something of value in return

yeah, he should have a little value, although he's not having a great year, probably largely due to the back injury. Hopefully we get something decent for him.

http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_...back-right-way


http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_...stay-minnesota

Wolves waive Amundson. Re-sign Gelabale and Johnson for rest of season -- TwolvesNow (@Twolvesnow)

Good job

Also interesting considering we didn't need to do that yet. Maybe it's about letting Lou get a crack at other teams? Maybe Bud isn't too far away?