The Rudy Gobert could very well go down as a more lopsided, worse trade for Minnesota than the Herschel Walker trade

The Indiana game was mostly good. The Memphis game was great. The first Indiana game was good. Aside from those three games, this ****ing team basically mails in every game with little or no effort, especially from the starting guards.

_lo looks good once in a great while when his shots are falling and when he is actually defending people with effort, but that's rare. You would think in a contract year for him, he'd be giving 100% every game. I hope we can dump his sorry ass before the trade deadline.

ANT has the talent to be an MVP someday. I don't think that will ever happen because he disappears way too much, especially defensively. When he is locked in defensively on his guy, he can defend almost any player in the league well. The problem is that rarely happens, and when his guy doesn't have the ball, he falls asleep ball watching. Also, it seems like he's very out of shape for a starting NBA SG. He gets winded very quickly after he plays hard for a short period of time, then he walks around slowly. This guy needs to commit himself into getting into better shape physically, and he needs to focus the whole time he's on the floor on both ends.

The team in general needs to focus better 100% of the time, not try to make stupid hot-dog or lazy passes, make lots of easy passes, not take stupid bad shots (especially _lo & ANT) and stomp on teams' throats when we get a big lead.

I was very high on the trade shortly after it happened. I'm still not convinced it will never work, but its looking more and more like we made a massive mistake.

Stolen from reddit:

Lol

God this team is just such a disaster right now. Selfish, careless, lazy, dumb, no chemistry. How the **** do you score 40 points in a half? How do you get out rebounded by 32? I feel like such a clown for truly believing this was going to be a special year.

Well well well…nice little four game win streak we got going here with the Pistons and the Booker-less Suns coming up next. Last time we played Phoenix, they absolutely gave us a lesson in how to play basketball, ran us off the court, Booker was literally laughing at us and the boos were flying at Target Center. Now they’re 1-9 in their last 10 and we could conceivably be sitting in 4th in the West by the time KAT comes back. Funny how much things can change over a month or so in the NBA.

yup

Funny how things change in a couple days.

The 2nd Detroit game was a total disaster. This ****ing team pisses me off to no end when they do that. They get a lead, then coast and get flattened by whoever they are playing. If not for Houston sucking so bad and giving that game back to us, we would have lost two in a row to teams that are tanking.

Last night vs (basically) Phoenix's G-league team, we did the same **** again. We looked like we were in control, then we coast and nearly blew it in the end. At least we won, but if we keep doing that, we're going to lose to almost any other team.

_lo is so ****ing frustrating. yeah, his numbers look pretty good, and he has some significant offensive ability, but he just plays so selfishly, lackadaisical and lazy most of the time, its hard to watch. The bad shot selection and bad turnovers are killing us. We usually play better when he is not playing. He sucks the life out of the team. Once Towns & McGlaughlin come back, assuming he isn't traded yet, _lo should be coming off the bench and not playing meaningful minutes at the ends of games. **** this guy.

SloMo is really important to this team. He's probably the best PG on the team right now. When he is running the offense, the team generally plays calmly and smart, and his defense is a huge boost, especially when he's playing next to Rudy.

Prince is a big help when he's healthy as well.

We basically have three adults on this team: SloMo, Prince and Rivers. We could use a couple more. Hopefully we can make some sort of deal to get some more grown ups on the roster.

The bright side is that ANT is really starting to become a star. He still makes a lot of young guy mistakes like taking bad shots and falling asleep on off the ball defense, but we'd be terrible without him. His new post up game is pretty much unstoppable. I think we need to get _lo away from this guy asap so more of his game doesn't rub off on ANT.

This team is very capable of making a run once Towns & little mac come back, but it'd be very helpful to add some smart, hard working players while getting rid of _lo. Because a lot of other teams are also struggling, a top 6 seed is definitely still in play and maybe even top 4, but 11th or 12th or even 13th place & missing the play in is also in play if we keep doing what we're doing.

We're only 3 games out of 4th right now. We're also only 1.5 games ahead of 13th. There have been about 10-12 games that we lost this season to bad teams we should have never lost to. If we had even won 5 of those, we'd currently be in 3rd place in the west.

I was a big Dlo fan when we made the trade, and it’s kind of making sense now because I was going off mostly condensed highlights where his game looks so pretty. Don’t get me wrong, when his shot is falling he’s still really great to watch and have, but most of the time now I’m just frustrated at the lack of boxing out, the lackadaisical passes, how he never battles for loose balls. He’s talented as hell, but unfortunately that also means he thinks he’s too good to do all those things. I’d much rather watch Garza/Minott/Moore hustle and try their asses off.

I LOVE Slomo. That guy is just a winning basketball player. He’s a championship team type of role player. Just awesome to watch too…so funny how opposing defenders clearly have no idea how to guard him most of the time.

I agree about the grown ups part. It can obviously only happen if he’s bought out, but apparently Bev really misses and wants to come back to Minnesota. I am almost certain that we don’t look like lazy dickheads against the Pistons, Hornets, Spurs if he’s on the bench in everyone’s ear.

1) Team has been playing better since Jan 1. Much better intensity level.

2) if/when the team is fully healthy, I’d like to see towns be our 6th man. I know wishful thinking.

3) Their schedule is pretty tough for the remainder of the season. They are going to need every win they can get.

No more having to watch DbLo. And no chance we **** up and give him an extension.

I feel actual relief lol

The Durant trade just re-emphasizes how much the Wolves over paid for Rudy Gobert.

Serious question, Would you trade Walker Kessler straight up for Gobert (obviously salary implications are a major consideration).

I do like the Conley trade for the Wolves. I think Conley and his style of play is a much better fit for the wolves if Kat and Edwards are both playing well.

I’d say it was cool having him here for a few years. He did more than he had to w/fan engagement at Target Center, and also we don’t win the play in game without him. I’ll just remember that instead of all the lazy dumb turnovers and defense that could also lose us games.

Conley seems like one of the best people in the league. I think it will help a lot to have another adult on the team besides Austin and Slomo. It’s just a reality that I’ll probably never see my NBA team win a chip, so I’ve just decided to be happy having a group of likeable, mature players, an exciting young superstar and a group of young guys who hustle their ass off.

Yes. Not to say that Kessler is better than Gobert but he's young and cheap instead of making $40M+ through age 35.

Agree with all that. I heard we gave a lot of thought to picking up Pat Bev, but since we would have to cut one of the guys with a regular contract (not two way guys like Ryan), we apparently like all our guys who are under contract better than Pat.

I think part of the reasoning for not going after Pat now is now that we have Conley, Rivers, Slomo, Prince and got rid of the cancerous elephant in the room (_lo), we don't need Pat here so much anymore.

I would still love to see him back though. I'd have cut Knight (I do like Knight, but he's limited and I like him less than the other guys under regular contracts). Rivers would be the other option and I think the team likes Rivers and whatever money it would save better than Pat minus that money. Nowell could even be an option to cut. He will likely be gone next season anyway, but he has been hot since the trade. I wonder if something about _lo being here was in his head & that's why he was so bad for the past few months.

1 - yup!
2- I am not sure about that.
3 - yes it is.

**** YES!!!!!

This is like comparing apples and oranges. The players we parted with for Gobert are all not as good as the two PHO gave up for Durant. Gobert is under contract for four years. Durant is expiring and has proven time and time again, he is never satisfied where he is now. Do you really think we would have got him to agree to an extension? Also, Durant has missed a lot of games over the past several years. Without looking, I'd guess close to half. The best ability is availability. And to top it off, he is currently injured. Yeah, when he is healthy, he's one of the best players in the NBA, but he's 34 and with his baggage and health issues, I don't even want him unless we paid almost nothing to get him. We did talk to Brooklyn about him before we pulled the trigger on the Rudy deal, and the discussions ended when they insisted on us including ANT in the deal.



Your question is irrelevant because that deal cannot possibly happen without a lot of other pieces being involved because of the salaries.

In hindsight, would I do the Rudy deal again? Probably not.

But I think Gobert is a lot better than you think he is. Yes he looks bad to the eye test with his bad hands, but he changes the way the other team plays offense (in a very good way for us) unlike anyone else. And he sets better screens than almost anyone and despite his bad hands and awkward look, he shoots very efficiently. We are a much better team with him on the floor than without him.

YES!!! Conley still has game left, and is the perfect type of player to add to our roster. And we got rid of _lo and got additional assets on top of it. Great deal for us.

When _lo was shooting well, his game passed the eye test, but we were still worse with him on the floor than when he was off the floor. The guy is a ****ing cancer. I might elaborate a lot on that if I have more time later.


I fully agree!

Again, this question is irrelevant. The current salaries make doing a 1 for 1 impossible.

This team has had lots of ups and agonizing downs this season, but despite pissing several games away that they should have won, they are in position to do serious damage IF they do make the playoffs.

The loss last night at PHO really hurts. It pretty much killed our chance at the 4 seed because now they hold the tiebreaker edge that we could have had if we had won that game. Apparently ANT and several others had the flu, which has made ANT look bad and kept Prince and maybe some others out of action the past two games, so pushing PHO and shutting down Durant the way we did was a bit encouraging, but moral victories don't count in the standings.

I think if/when this team has the top 8 players at 100%, there is no team that wants to face us in a playoff series. We can throw so much talent and so many different looks at other teams that it will make us very tough to beat.

Gradually since the Conley trade, we appear to be doing better and better at playing smart and like adults. I am seeing way fewer brain-fart breakdowns on defense and way fewer stupid TOs. Rudy has been much more effective since _lo left (shocking). We don't stop playing to bitch at refs while the game is goin on anymore - I am convinced that Conley made the difference here. I think Finch and SloMo probably talked about this in the past, but somehow, Conley did or said something that flipped a switch in ANT's and KAT's heads that they need to keep playing until the whistle blows. Conley's steady, smart play has been a big shot in the arm, and NAW is a nice rotation piece too because we don't need to rely on giving minutes to guys like Nowell when he turns into a turnstile defensively.

Seeing the 3 center lineup shut down Curry & Thompson was amazing. All the BS about Rudy being the problem on D vs small ball is obvious a bunch of hot air. Rudy moves his feet better than almost any big C in the NBA. Having Towns & Naz out there with him and Slomo and Prince was a joy to watch defensively. Size matters, and our length is going to make it hard for any team to deal with it going forward. Utah failed vs small ball because they had a bunch of other bad perimeter defenders playing. We struggled early on because _lo failed to contain ball handlers at the point of attack. Conley is good at staying in front of quick guards.

Prior to last night's game, 538 had the Wolves power ranking basically equal to DEN as the top two teams in the WC. If we get healthy and keep playing the way we are capable, I could see this team making the finals this season. Of course if we revert to the stupid **** we did to go 5-8 vs the bottom 5 teams in the league, we could still miss the playoffs. I'm cautiously optimistic right now.

6-11 vs the six worst teams in the league now. The loss vs basically Portland's G-league squad on Sunday was historically awful. We were favored by 19.5. The last time a team was favored by as much as 19.5 points and lost was 1993.

Then we go win at Brooklyn against a good Nets team.

idkwtf is going to happen next. This team might finish 9th and lose the first playin game, or they might finish 7th and win a series or more in the playoffs. This has been the most up and down team I can ever remember following.

Last I saw we are favored by 13.5 vs SA today, then we come home to play the Pelicans tomorrow which will likely decide who is 8th and who is 9th.

This team has wrapped my brain in a pretzel this season. Sometimes I feel like we’re good enough to get to the WCF. Other times, such as the loss against the Blazers, I’m just at a loss for words. I’m really hoping we can get a rematch against Memphis in the playoffs coming up because we can definitely beat them and shock some people in the mainstream sports media. We were better than them last year and definitely better this year too with Clarke out. Probably getting way ahead of myself here though.

Agreed re: Conley in your previous post. I’m kind of an old man now and just want to watch smart, good basketball. He is the great vet that we thought we were getting and also surprisingly a better 3 point shooter than I gave him credit for. I believe Finch said outright a few games ago in one of his postgame press conferences that he doesn’t have to hide anyone on defense anymore. Dlo was a good dude too but man his horrendous stretches could lose games probably even more so than his hot shooting could win them, and it’s better in the long run we’re off that train.

Speaking of not understanding this team at all, Rudy gets his feelings hurt and throws a punch at Slomo, gets sent home, and we come back and win! Was at the game and the place really came alive after that.

I haven’t ever been to an NBA game in another city, but I get the feeling that Target Center really feeds off of the players way more than anywhere else. If they’re hustling their asses off and making plays it’s loud as hell. If they’re struggling it can be dead silent. Seems a bit different than places like Sacramento, where fans are just rowdy all game no matter what.

Second best player breaks his hand punching a wall because he was upset with getting taken out of the game with 2 fouls.

The guys you trade the farm for, who is terrible, punches a teammate on the bench.

Other than Edwards, Conley and Slo Mo, this team is full of losers.

This team is a joke.

yeah, I agree with all that.


You lost me here. _lo was not a good dude. He could get hot and look really good sometimes, but he was destructive to this team overall. In addition to his frequently stupid shot selection and bad turnovers, he was a cancer to the team and was a rotten person to many teammates and to team personnel. Good riddance. I would have traded him for a lump of coal. Getting Conley, NAW and a #2 was a massive haul.

That second half must have been a blast.

When did you find out about McDaniels breaking his hand? That was such a buzzkill. We still have a shot vs Memphis if we get past the lakers, but its going to be a lot more difficult without McDaniels. What a dumbass.

At least Rudy realizes what he did was very stupid and he apologized to all his teammates and especially to Slomo, but what a knucklehead.

Despite the blowup/almost fight, I love that Slomo yells at teammates who are not pulling their weight. In Rudy's defense, he was playing in pain with back spasms, and hearing "**** you bitch" in front of your teammates might be disturbing, but you need to have thicker skin that he did. Hopefully everyone is past this. Things I have heard make me think its no big deal at all. I am guessing the team will fine his stupid ass and we will move on.

This team just can't ever put it all together. What a disappointing history.

In 2003-04, we had the best team in the NBA, then Saunders/McFail had lousy roster construction, only having two PGs on the playoff roster. Cassell was such a dumbass injuring himself while doing the big balls dance, and Hudson, who was not a good player, but at least he was a capable ball handler, was also injured and unable to play vs the lakers. Then Sprewell and his attitude along with Cassell and his attitude sunk the team the following season, then they trade the best thing ever to happen to the team, KG, for Al Jefferson and a collection of crap.

Then it looked like Love & Rubio had us pointed in the right direction when Rubio blew out his knee. Then we had a pretty good roster when Love broke his hand doing pushups on kettlebells (it was NOT knuckle pushups, trust me, I know what really happened).

Then when we traded for Butler, it looked like we had a chance to be very good, but Thibs (mostly with awful, terrible personnel decisions) and Butler destroyed that team.

Now we probably have the most talented roster in the NBA, and first KAT tears a calf, then we improve the roster by getting Conley & NAW for _lo, and just when KAT comes back, ANT turns his ankle. Then the whole team gets the flu. And Naz breaks his wrist. And we lose to a tanking Portland as a 19.5 point favorite (probably the worst among many other bad losses). And despite all the ****, here we were yesterday playing for the 8/9 position. And then McDaniels breaks his hand punching a wall because he's mad, and Rudy flips out because Slomo yelled at him. And despite all that and getting behind by as much as 14 in the 3rd quarter, somehow KAT & ANT & the gang pull out a great win vs a pretty good NO team when their best player is having the game of his life. ANT's defense yesterday was incredible.

I'd heard that DLo was a pretty good guy, any stories or examples you can tell us to the contrary? Yeah, he beefed with Gobert but Rudy now is a serial teammate beefer and it seems like he's the common denominator.

Full disclosure i hate watching both DLo and Gobert

Yes. I heard he called up a team employee at ~2am one night and said something about needing this person to come to his home immediately over something very important. When the employee got there, _lo said something along the lines of "I make more money than you.", and shut the door in this person's face.

I read about other instances of him being a complete ******* as well, but this is the only one I can remember details of at the moment. I might have posted something in this thread about this stuff a while back, but I don't have time to look it up right now.

The incident in LA several years ago that led to him getting traded says something about his character to me as well.

I was optimistic that he would be great for us this season, but his play on the court this season, along with hearing about how rotten of a person he is, changed my mind.

Here's a text I sent to a friend ~early January:
I got this info from the comment section at Canis, and it comes from someone with inside team sources.

Sigh… what a disappointing way to end the game. Other than Ant, the team plays really well for the first 42 minutes, then just a complete offensive collapse. They had 95 pts with just over 6 minutes left and still had 95 pts with .1 seconds left. Offense became incredibly stagnant.

Good thing we didn’t need someone like Vanderbilt who completely took Ant out of the game.

Fun game last night. Obviously there was the expected free throw discrepancy but I’m relieved we can blame the refs really. Absolutely dumbfounded how the entire fourth was just us dribbling the ball around half court until the shot clock ran out, even coming out of a timeout. I like a ton of things about Finch, but damn we need to have any sort of plan for when big games get tight like that.

I know we were severely short handed, Ant clearly was injured and we were gassed. Still a tough one though obviously. Hate the cringy ass Lakers.

I was going to ask for more details, where you got that, but JFC that is awful (if true). Always thought he was a decent guy because he was good with the fans at games.

Yesterday was a great reminder of how I don’t miss him now that he’s not on our team anymore. 1/9 with his trademark absolute turnstile defense.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly re: slomo and Rudy. Glad we have someone who isn’t afraid to call people out and also people who will play hurt and genuinely care. Apparently Rudy had trouble putting his shorts on pregame because of his back. I’d be mad at being called out too. Men settle that kind of crap quickly, which they did.

Still really upset abou Jaden. UGHHHHH.

Re: Love…heard a rumor awhile back that he got in some kind of drunk bar fight with a Vikes player and that’s how he hurt his hand. Can you comment?

And lastly re: Thibs…am I wrong in thinking the terrible idea was having him be GM and coach at the same time? Based on his time with the Knicks, he appears to still be a good coach, but could be wrong thinking it would ever work out. In any case he seems like a miserable ****, so good riddance.

yeah, the offense was ugly. At the same time, the defense was what we need to win. ANT played great D all game.

My take on the offense as a whole: With ANT cold as ice, we needed KAT to carry the load. KAT was by far the best player on the floor for three quarters, except he made his bed by taking some bad fouls early (and late). Once KAT started taking bad fouls, he screwed himself and the team. Yeah, maybe one or two of the calls against him were questionable, but the refs were letting him play for a while. Once he started fouling, he went on tilt and did stupid **** to create fouls when he didn't have to. He needs to be smarter. Once he got his 5th foul, he played scared both offensively and defensively.

Vando was/is a fine defense/rebounder 3-4, but he is a major liability on offense, and while he did bother ANT, he didn't take ANT out of the game. ANT took bad shots, missed most of the good shots he took and made bad turnovers. Vando is not a big difference maker. yeah, the Rudy trade is looking really bad right now, and Vando can play a role on a good team, but if he is a starter, your team has issues. Did you notice why we were able to play D so effectively on the lakers while he was in the game? We pretty much ignored him when they were on offense. The lakers will be trying to find a competent starting PF this off-season.


Refs did not help us, but we still should have won that game.

As I mention above, KAT was great for three quarters, but his foul trouble really hurt us bad in the 4th.

We should have not waited until there were 6 seconds left on the shot clock to start running the offense. That shortened the game, which we kind of needed to do because everyone was gassed, but it also killed us in the end.

**** the lakers. Memphis (who I do not like either, but **** the lakers) should win in 4 or 5 hopefully. **** the lakers.


I believe it is true. I do not know how to find links to the source, but I think it was a solid source.

It was a joy to see us make _lo's life hell in this game. What a loser. **** that guy. I hope the lakers re-sign him.

Jaden - its just sad. I read that he thought he was punching a curtain and didn't know there was a concrete wall behind the curtain.

Rudy, yeah, he was trying and Slomo just pushed him over the edge. I just wish he hadn't snapped like that. And I think Connelly really ****ed up by suspending him. That was unnecessary, and I think we probably would have blown out the Lakers if he had played.

I can tell you that rumor is 100% false. I can't say much more about my source, other than he talked to Love about what really happened and I trust my source is 100% telling me the truth. Kettlebell pushups did it. I think Love was embarrassed that he was dumb enough to think those were a good idea, which is why he told a reporter it was knuckle pushups. If you are reading this, please never do kettlebell pushups because they are unstable and doing what Love did could happen to anyone easily.

I think you are correct. Not many people can do a good job as both coach and GM. Popovich is the only one I can think of who did well. Prior to hiring Thibs, I thought that he could do both. I was giving him too much credit based on hope and seeing the past performance of our previous GMs - I figured he could not be worse than Kahn (worst ever), McFail (really bad), Saunders (below average), etc... I don't know where Thibs ranks in there, but he will probably never be an NBA GM again.