I'm probably's Beasley's biggest defender since being frustrating is not the same as being bad, tho Beasley is quite bad but it's in all the ways that is fixable with better coaching and maturing. Shot selection, decision-making, constant application on D, etc.

We're never getting a FA that is what the "good" Beasley might be and it's going to be hard to even replace him, so its kinda awful to trade him. Have we looked at the FA list for wings in 2012? It's beyond lol, Vince Carter and OJ Mayo are the prize wings that are "realistic" options.

Beasley at Houston played his best game of the season by far attacking the rim instead of firing up long 2's as he is prone to.Unfortunately he seems to have taken nothing from that game and has just gone back to being a jump shooter again.

If someone can ever to convince him to drive to the basket on a regular basis ,he can easily be a reasonably efficient 20 pt/game scorer, I'm just not convinced that anyone will ever get him to do it.

You don't want him driving too much, you just have to convince him to make better off-ball movements and to take the open look instead of driving into the D time and again. He's an average or even above average shooter per his position, he just takes awful shots.

He could also just conceivably get to the line more. Dude is younger than Wes. He's 23 and seems to want to improve. Like he's a legit defender with crazy length, that's a good start if he's going to be our designated chucker. He's a huge dude, like 6'9 230 which is legit big for a 3. I think his handles are below average for a SF tho, and instead of turning it over he forces up some awful shots instead.

I see him as a starter playing with Rubio, his handles are too imprecise to be non-roflcopter #1 or #2 option off the bench. The NBA is a tough place to learn fairly basic sports IQ tho, but he's showing some signs.

Wes is amazingly bad according to every metric including the eye test but his advanced stuff is truly historically bad. .424 TS% on 16.5 usg%, draws a whole 0.8/36 FTs. In terms of ******ation he's 1000x worse than Beasley, he just stands there passively while the game happens around him.

I think we have to temper our expectations with Tolliver. He is simply an average NBA player. A true role player. He can be best used imo as a body and fouls off the bench to spell our 3/4 guys. He isn't big enough to play significant post minutes and isn't good enough off the dribble to play wing. But he does hustle and can hit the three so you use him in short spurts.

Pek will be fine with the three second calls. He is still learning the NBA game. Remember that Europe is WAY more liberal with that stuff and many leagues allow bigs to pitch a tent in the lane. Speaking as a former player, habits like that are hard to break. Sikma will teach him

All we want out of Tolliver is "stand there and hit open 3s, don't make dumb plays, and play decent defense"

He looked really rusty yesterday, which makes sense given the wrist injury.

I don't understand why no Webster or Randolph yesterday. Was Webster hurt? When the other team has a guard willing to postup Ridnour you almost automatically have to get him out of there. Especially when he's playing like offensively offensively.

I felt kinda bad for Cousins when he had 4 fouls and zero of them were actually legitimate fouls.

yeah, he was the best player in the league for ~4 - 5 seasons imo.




Free Martell imo.

Batum would be a very nice long term solution at wing. Portland didnt like him enough to give him a max deal. There's a legitimate chance they dont match a good offer.

Ray Allen would be a damn good short term solution. I would imagine he would want to play for a winner, and we look like a winner if we add someone like him and maybe a SF.

lolwat, though u got free martell right

why lolwat? Please explain what you mean.

I assume he means we'd have to pry Batum from Portland's dead, cold, hands. But I don't pay a ton of attention to Portland's personnel situation, although it seems he is very important to that team - like Harden in OKC, and isn't ever gonna be on the market despite not being a superstar.

That's not what I have heard, but I dont know a lot about the situation. I do know Batum was not happy with his recent contract discussions.

Here are a couple great highlights from last night:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50tmh...ature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RO8s...ature=youtu.be

Sounds like Jim P agrees with me about Rubio's defense. Sometimes when the other team has the ball, I just keep my eyes on what Rubio is doing. He is amazingly disruptive to what the other team is trying to do.

edit - one more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKUNCgTVql4

The PEKsecutioner!

So aorn Hollinger has Utah at ~20% to make the playoffs (we're over 50!) which would mean that we do not get their pick this year. If we wait until 2013 then it becomes a top 12 protected, not top 14, and if we make it 2014 it becomes top 9 protected with a clause that, if it's outside the top 9 we can either:

a) swap picks with them that year
or
b) take their 2nd round pick

If it's IN the top 9 then it looks like we just get their second rounder.

That last scenario sucks because we end up with fewer first round picks than if we get either the 2012 or 2013. So I guess we're rooting for Utah to make the playoffs? Do I have that right?

yeah I think so

Good Pek article:
http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_19915825?source=rss

If Pekovic had stomped on Luis Scola's head in anger, Mr. Scola forevermore would have been able to warm his cranium by sliding it into a toaster.

lol

count me in the "keep beasley" camp, and i had the exact opposite opinion a couple months ago. i was just so impressed by his play over those 2 great games that i changed my mind. and i don't think he's been that bad since then either. the biggest thing that gives me hope is that i think he's buying at this point and giving his best effort to play smart. he's not there yet, but i think he's going to improve, and his upside is so, so high.

--There was a good point implied in an article posted somewhere in this thread. That Beasley began his NBA career under 2 noob head coaches and this is the first real head coach he's had and perhaps that will help him develop into the player he can be.
--Rubio is brilliant defensively, elite.
--We are 9-4 in our last 13 games.
--I'm still not a fan of JJ Barea.

As I either mentioned in this thread or just to Cha57, I think one of the 3 knuckleheads on the Wolves (Wes, Beas, Randolph) will "get it" enough this year to be a very good (not allstar) level player. Unfortunately, Beas looks like my only hope at this point, lol. At the same time, I actually like how Adelman tries to keep a relatively steady ship, is really making sure to get good look at different units, and is trying to win games while still developing guys.

It'd be great for the Wolves to make the playoffs, but just getting close will be fine mentally for the team and it'd be great for him to know exactly who should be kept. Because after the last few years it's really hard to tell if any guys might just blossom on a "real team" coached not by Rambis.

No more Brad Miller plz. Brutal to watch and killing us.

Wolves looking so terrible. Love for MVP

lol Miller getting playing time over AR

do you think Peterson read this thread? kind of weird him asking if you'd like to see Pek coming at you with an ax.

this was a game i think they'd have won with kevin love.

I remember that. We've changed sides on this - I want him gone now. He was really bad from what I saw tonight. Last night, even though he got 14 boards, he looked terrible.

While its true that he has had bad coaching, I would rather try to build a team of guys with high BBIQs. Its too bad he cant get a brain transplant.

What's great about Rubio's defense is, in addition to leading the league in steals, he rarely (if ever) gambles for steals in a way that it puts the other team in a good position offensively if he doesnt get the steal. He is so aware of what every player on the floor is doing on both offense and defense, and always seems to know where he should be defensively, that he already might be the best defensive PG in the league (I've said that before). Jim Peterson must have been listening to me

Barea looked very good tonight. He's a good, smart (albeit limited by height) player on both sides of the floor imo. He might have been a bit rusty due to not playing for so long, but he's looking better & better recently.

I stole that picture from Canis. I wouldnt be surprised if he reads Canis.

yeah. People trivialize Love's importance to this team because we only won 32 games the past two seasons. Think how bad it would have been without him. With Rambis coaching those bums without Love, some all time loss records could have been set.

Love should be #2 for MVP (behind Lebron) so far this season imo.


D Williams is looking like a lazy bum defensively a lot lately. He's been atrocious at the FT line too. He's been tweeting about being like a caged lion or something, then when he gets minutes he plays lazy. Hopefully its a rookie thing about not knowing what to do, but I'm concerned that he does not look like a hard worker, which surprises me based on what his M.O. was supposed to be.

The 2 loveless games went as expected imo. I was worried about the memphis matchup because they are good defensively and without love we just dont really have a good primary scoring option. Plus gasol can limit Pek's effectiveness on the glass.

We played without love, Rubio had his worst game of the year, Ridnour was bad offensively and got tore up(mostly due to his size) when he was on defense. Despite all of this, the game was fairly close in the last couple of minutes.

If you had told me last year that all of those things would happen(without rubio obviously), and the final score would be close, I'd have said you're lying. Last year we would have lost by 30 in this scenario.

We played good for the most part defensively and in the third quarter got a ton of open layups in the paint(16-18 iirc). It was an ugly loss to watch. Nobody could get a shot off, nobody could even make a shot when they were open(horrific from 3 this game), but we're making strides as a team imo.

I still contend that this team makes more boneheaded turnovers than anyone else in the league. It's like 10-15 times per game they just hand the ball back to the other team.

Love emptying the bench for the whole 4th quarter and giving the starters some rest. Especially since they were playing so terribly.

Interestingly, that bottom 5 lineup might beat our starters (without Love)

Rubio l Barea
Ridnour l Ellington
Johnson l Beasely
Williams l Tolliver
Pek l Randolph

I mean, I think it's a pretty good game. Deep team imo