*sigh*. It's not even a terribly good draft year. I was at the airport and boarded the plane with the Wolves up by 10 with @ 10 mins to go or something and thought "they could actually win a game!" lol.

yeah, things were looking good at that point - I told my daughter this would be their best win of the year if they pulled it off. She said "they really beat San Antonio, but the refs cheated", lol.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/trueho...=ESPNHeadlines

Hey Lebron go suck a dick

Maybe we hope a Twins like turn around after contraction talk

lol lebron. what made the league great in the 80s was that the superstars were likable tough competitors...

Its bad enough that he does the tv show as a final **** you to his hometown team, now he has to take shots at us. The sad thing is, he doesn't even realize how big of an ******* he is. What a prick.

i consider ******* and prick to be terms that don't fully address his mental/testicular deficiencies. bill belichick is a prick. kevin garnett is an *******. both of these people have many redeeming qualities and my respect. LaBron is just a huge clown who likes to fantasize about people respecting himself and his opinions.

Sweeping the season series was vs the Cavs was big. Now if we end up with the same record and meet in the finals we get home court.

I just saw the end of the game. I kept asking myself, how are they going F this game.

Sidenotes: Cavs color guy is brutal. I feel bad for Byron Scott.

LOL, good stuff

Yes the Wolves have blown several late leads to good teams, but that's what young teams do. They aren't nearly as bad as the mainstream media believes them to be.

That said, they need one more piece of firepower. Beasley and Love are emerging as a sick combo, but if they could get one more true third scoring option they could really make some noise in a few years.

For example, the Lakers have Bryant/Gasol/Odom, Heat have Wade/Bosh/Douchebag and so on.

Webster is a nice complimentary player but will never be that guy. I'm not sold on Flynn being it either as so far his niche appears to be a game manager. Wes is too young to make a determination.

Perhaps KAAAHHNNNNNN can make a move at the deadline this year using our trade exception to bring on that one piece. Honestly, even with Darko's inconsistency at center, if we got that one additional piece, I truly believe the Wolves could be a 30-35 win team next year easy.

yeah, we have the trade exception, the draft pick and Rubio, so there's more help coming (hopefully). I think a lot of the guys we have now can get a lot better too.

pretty good game tonight vs the hornets. beasley making the haters $ad.

Up14 with 5:33 left, we can still mess this one up right?

"We could be playing Minnesota --Yeah, I said it -- and I’d still be concerned" -Kobe

**** you some more Kobe

That was fun tonight!

Kobe is a douchebag.

this is something i mentioned in the dynasty draft. For most of the year they have been playing without flynn and webster(and at times milicic or pechovic and ridnour). Don't get me wrong they are nowhere near a playoff team, but replacing their minutes with ellington/telfair/gaines is pretty awful. the fact that they had some close games with those guys playing major minutes gives me some optimism.

IF they can stay healthy, I could easily see this team become very competitive in the second half of the season. they're already competitive now, and that experience/time to get in game shape will only make them better.

agreed. love is playing well, but they only have one true shot creator(beasley) and he's not great at it. to be really competitive in the next couple of years, rubio needs to be at or above all expectations. i dont see that happening. they could really use help at center or @ the 2, whether it's massive improvement through the players here, or just through the draft/free agency.



imo, he should wait til the offseason. their draft pick is top 10 protected this year, and as it stands this team should be in the top 10. hopefully get lucky in the lotto and luckbox the BPA

i dont think it was good, considering the options available. but he has made improvements in his game this year, and he's only 22 so there is a chance of him having a higher ceiling, i just dont see it.

I agree with a lot of that. Two things though:

- Why dont you think Rubio will meet expectations?

- If we wait until the off season to make a trade, I'm pretty sure we lose that nice big cap exemption we got from Utah in exchange for Al. I'm not 100% sure about that, but I know it has a limited life span, and stuff I've read leads me to believe it needs to be used by the trade deadline.

i think Rubio can be a good point guard, but with how the team is set up, he needs to be as good as Rondo/Derrick Rose/Russel Westbrook for us to be in the playoffs imo. He's very young and he looked awesome in the olympics a couple years back, but he didn't make any noticeable improvements last year in the Euroleague(at least that's what i have read). He still can create, but he hasn't developed a jumper and his frame is still pretty thin. Kahn envisions him as the next great thing, and although he does have the tools, it's still unlikely imo.

o i didnt know that. ill have to look it up. thanks

so maybe you meant he wont meet Kahn's expectations?

I dunno man. I would be disappointed if he isnt considered among the top 10 PGs in the NBA within his 1st or 2nd year, and with the huge number of great PGs currently playing, that's a hell of a good player. The stuff I'm seeing indicates he will be that good.

fwiw, I think Westbrook might be a notch below Rose & Rondo, as well as Paul, Nash, and Deron Williams.

I saw someone post some stuff on Canis that says his euro #s translate into something like 10/10/5 and 3 steals/game once he's in the NBA. If he puts up #s like that, here's a look at who that compares with in NBA history:
link
Pretty elite company, and those are some realistic goals for Rubio imo (9.5/9.5/4.5/2.5).

Say we adjust his #s down to 9.5 ppg, 6.5 apg, 4.5 rpg and 2.5 spg, its still elite company:
link
I would think he's capable of doing this many many seasons in his career.

I'm basing my opinions on a lot of stuff I've seen at Canis Hoopus and links provided by those guys, in addition to watching him play a lot this summer at the world championships and seeing interviews with several NBA all stars who commented about his level of play.

Went to the game tonight.

%^$@#*(&**^$#%^$#@&&^

So frustrating to lose that game. Carmello and three other Denver players were out. I looked at the point spread and vegas had us favored by 3.

A few reasons for this loss:

- we make too many careless turnovers - lazy passes and sloppy ball handling type stuff. Cripes, this is just effort and paying attention.

- Darko got hurt and was less effective than usual in his limited minutes. That made it a lot easier for Denver to score inside.

- A few terrible calls went against us in the 4th. Standard for us.

- The biggest reason - awful perimeter defense. Just ****ing dreadful. This is mostly due to Rambis' defensive scheme imo. He liked to pack the paint when he coached the Lakers and thats what he wants our guys doing too. One big difference is the Lakers have guys that know how to spot where the open guy is and get someone out to stick a hand in his face more quickly than we do. Our guys are consistently late getting to the shooter, leading to way to many wide open shots.

Brewer is the worst offender imo. He reminds me of what Wally used to do - fall asleep on help defense, while your guy - the best shooter on the other team, catches a pass and is wide open for a 3.

Our perimeter guys tend to let their guys drive by them much too easily, breaking the defense down too. Then they all pack the paint and are late getting to the wide open shooter. Tonight, the most frequent open shooter was Chauncey Billups.

HEY RAMBIS, BREWER & WHOEVER ELSE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR GUARDING BILLUPS - THIS JUST IN - BILLUPS IS REALLY ****ING GOOD AT OUTSIDE SHOOTING!! YOU MIGHT WANT TO HAVE SOMEONE STICK TO HIM LIKE GLUE ALL GAME!!

If you were watching the game and heard someone yell at Brewer after Billups drained one of his six 3 pointers, that was me. Its just so frustrating to see great shooters be left standing wide open all ****ing game.

Other than that, Love went 26/14/5, but he pisses & moans about too many calls. Shut up & play after the refs make a bad call instead of bitching & sulking which leads to handing the other team easy baskets at the other end you whiner! Yes, he has some bad calls/no calls go against him, but he's going to get a reputation for being a crybaby if he keeps this up. Shut up and play hard and the refs will eventually start making calls in your favor.

Beasley was mostly really good - 33/5/4, but he needs to move his feet better on defense and quit making stupid fouls by reaching in.

Martell Webster was really good for a stretch - he is our best player at slashing to the hoop and has a very nice outside shot as well, and he plays pretty good defense for the most part, but only played 24 mins.

If we've actually moved out of the 1st tier of worst teams in the NBA you have to win this game IMO.

fwiw, we were not supposed to win vs NO the other night, but we blew them out.

But yeah, you're right, that's why I'm so frustrated tonight - they should have beaten this team that was missing 4 of their best players (Carmello, Nene, Martin & Harrington). Usually we lose the close games to good teams that we could have beat. Tonight we lost to an inferior team.

yeah im pumped for him and johnson to take over all of the 2 guard minutes. hopefully brewer can just rot on the bench.

i was hoping he would be the starter, which is what it looked like he might be in the preseason before his back acted up.

Webster would have started at the beginning of the season if not for his back injury. I'm fine with him coming off the bench, but I want him to play more minutes. He doesnt look like he's hurting at all when he plays.

I noticed an actual legitimate use for Brewer tonight - we put him in at the very end when we needed a steal. I think that's his nitch - 20 seconds left and down 2 points when the other team is inbounding the ball.

Aside from that, he doesnt really serve a useful purpose. He is capable of doing good things, but is a huge liability on offense, and does so many bad things that the good things dont make up for that. I think he has a place in this league, but I'd rather it not be on the Wolves.