Well, Lance has a history of good play so i'd say he's more likely than a career end-of-bench guy to become a positive rotation player.

You are wrong about Stephenson being more of a ball stopper than Wiggins. Stephenson's career assist rate is 20.1%. Wiggins' is 10.3%.

You said the Wolves have never had a good player on a 10 day deal. I said its rare, but it does happen once in a while and I gave some examples of it happening. yeah, the success rate is low. I said it was rare. Read what I said over again. Why are you trying to argue a fact that I already stated?

Assist rate is not a good way to measure ball stopping. Just watch his possessions, he catches and holds for a second constantly.

You gave some examples of Wolves that were good players on 10 day deals? Where? I must have missed them.

smh. You know I didnt give examples of Wolves players on 10 day deals. I gave examples of NBA players. In case you havent noticed, the Wolves are not the only team in the NBA. Just because it hasnt happened for them before doesnt mean it cant. I know its unlikely. I wasnt arguing with you, but you seem to want to argue about this for some reason.

I'll watch for Stephenson stopping the ball tonight to see if I see what you are talking about. To me, the guys who really stick out as ball stoppers on this team are Wiggins, Shabazz, Lavine and Gorgui - the black holes - throw the ball to them and its probably not coming out. I typically dont equate ball stoppers as guys with high assist rates though.

This argument is very silly. Also from what I can remember, Stephenson is a pretty rare situation. Dude was legit very good on a legit very good team. And he's not hurt or old. This isn't some guy who just teases with potential, he really can be good. Obv at this point it's less likely than more likely but definitely not a normal ten day

yeah, you're right yugo.

Last night's game vs NO, ew. We have reverted back to where we were defensively for the first two months of the season. These ****ing guys think they can walk around or jog around on defense. This is the NBA. Other teams will cut you up if you keep giving them wide open looks. Towns is especially so frustrating to me because he gives so much effort offensively and talks like he wants to win, but he stands around so much on defense, its like his words are pretty hollow. I wish KG was still warming the bench. These lazy ass defenders would be getting an earful from him if he was still here.

fwiw, I think I understand what you were talking about with Stephenson being a ball stopper. He does hold the ball and survey the floor; however, he sees other players when they're open, so when he drives to break down the defense, he's a little like a PG. idk if he'll be any good for us or not, but he's not a ball stopper in the same way Wiggins or Shabazz are. Those guys get tunnel vision.

Last 2 games Wiggins has 81 points and 1 turnover

Wiggins per game over last 5 games: 33.6 pts (on 57.3% FG, 45.5% 3PT), 4.4 reb, 3.2 ast, 2 steals

Wiggins is awesome when he attacks the basket like he did last night. That dunk over Jokic was the best I've seen from him imo.

Jokic is a cheap bastard. He was hacking and grabbing and elbowing Towns all night and getting away with most of it. That seemed to fire up Towns though. He outplayed Jokic and had his best rebounding night of the season so far.

The whole team put forth a reasonably good defensive effort for the whole game last night vs DEN. We need to win all these games vs the 5 teams ahead of us to have any chance at the playoffs. We need to keep playing with this kind of defensive effort.

Thoughts? I think based on a later, longer, facebook post he made he actually means "median expectation," not "upside."

I dont think PMac knows what he's talking about if he's serious about that tweet. That being said, idk if Wiggins will ever be as good as DeRozan or not, but his potential is a lot higher than that.

There are not many people who are capable of doing the things Wiggins can do. His ceiling could be league MVP. The problem is that he should be doing a lot more than he does. He loafs sometimes on defense, looks lost sometimes on defense, takes a lot of bad shots, and gets tunnel vision when he has the ball a lot of times. He needs to get a lot better at team defense and defensive effort, shot selection, and passing/decision making.

He made some nice passes last night, and has shown very good individual defensive ability at times, and shot selection can probably be learned, so all that stuff is possible. He's only 21, so on one hand, we can be pretty optimistic about his future. On the other hand, he's been in the league almost 3 years and he has shown little improvement in those areas I'm talking about.

The hot outside shooting will come and go for him (remember early in the season he was leading the NBA in 3 point shooting, then he went into a huge slump and sucked bad for a long time), but its his slashing/driving ability that sets him apart from everyone else.

https://twitter.com/thedailywolf/sta...rc=twsrc%5Etfw

the dunk^

The improvement to his outside shot looks real and is very important. He's a drastically different player when he shoots >35% from 3 instead of ~30%.

I thought his shot looked improved at the beginning of the season too, but that didnt last for long. This last hot streak is a small sample size too. We'll see. I hope you're right about it being real and not temporary.

What hot streak are you talking about? That's his season long number.

I was referring to his early season hot streak and his recent hot streak. I see what you mean now about 35%. yeah, that's an ok %, but the NBA avg is about 36%. I guess I was thinking him shooting closer to his hot streak #s would be good. When he's shooting under 30% from 3 for a long stretch, that isnt helping the team at all.

But that's also just a streak.. you can't dismiss the hot streaks and dwell on the cold ones. Just look at the overall body of work.

Wiggins being an average NBA 3pt shooter at this point is decidedly a good thing, if it's true.

yeah, I dont disagree. I thought you were talking about something else when I first replied.

Cousins to the Pelicans for a pile of ****:
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/1...leans-pelicans





Check this out:
https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/s...198592/video/1
LOL

The national media and fans from other teams seem to think we are going to give away Rubio for piles of crap. It was reassuring to read this:

The biggest rumor I keep hearing, Rubio for Rose, would be beyond horrible. Rose has been a bad player since his first knee surgery, is overpaid this season, and is a UFA after this season. He shoots worse than Rubio, is a douche, and has little else going for him.

Dallas' blog says over and over again how the Wolves are giving away Rubio for nothing. I have no idea why they think that.

Hopefully all the rumors we are hearing are completely false. If we do trade Rubio, I hope we get a good player or a high lottery pick in return.

If we trade for Rose, I'm not gonna watch anymore this year.

Don't worry, Chauncey Billups just said if we get Rose he'll be the best player on our roster.

No trades for us. I heard NYK was ready to pull the trigger on Rose straight up for Rubio (this was after hearing that they actually said they wanted more in return from us, lol), but the Wolves balked. I'm pretty sure the Knicks initiated the talks and the Wolves asked for a lot more than Rose.

Rose & NYK 2017 unprotected #1 for Rubio and Payne would have been good imo.

I heard the Pelicans released Terrance Jones. We should give him a look.