it's interesting that you say brewer makes awful mistakes on defense, because i have always assumed he's an outstanding defensive player. his length/speed/quickness/leaping ability combo is definitely elite. and he is very good at creating offense in transition off of turnovers. as you say, he's brutal at half-court offense, but i haven't noticed the mistakes that you have on defense. i don't doubt that you are right though. i will watch him closely next game i see.

When he is playing, his man is usually a good shooter. He tends to leave his man to help out others frequently, leaving his man wide open. When the ball gets passed to his man, he doesnt recognize quickly enough that he needs to get back to his man. That happens all the time. I think some of that has to do with Rambis' defensive philosophy of packing the paint, but some of it is the player's fault for being to slow to anticipate where the ball is going to go.

I've seen some advanced stats on Brewer's defense over his career that indicate he's a terrible defender. I dont remember details, but I remember being surprised at the time I saw them because I hadnt watched him play closely enough prior to that, and like you, I had assumed he was a good defender.

Also, he sometimes tries for steals in bad situations when he should be trying to just keep his man in front of him. One time he did that and it cost us a win earlier this year. I dont remember the team or the specific circumstances because we've blown so many leads this year, but that one play stuck out in my head because if he had stayed in front of his man, we would have won that game. I think it was an overtime game.

He does make some exciting plays in transition offense, but he makes a lot of bad ones as well. We had a fast break last night, 2 on 1 or 3 on 2, anyways, Brewer kept the ball and made a really bad turnover when he could have made an easy pass to a teammate for a layup.

He just plays dumb & out of control most of the time.

Second SA game at home. He went for a steal near the half line with the shot clock running down and Ginobilli(sp) took it all the way to the rack for a 3 point play.

Rambis has to have some kind of man crush on him though because everyone agrees he isn't much in the half court, but when Beasley hit the game winner vs the Cavs Brewer was on the court after a TO from half court.

before he moved over to sg last year he was one of the worst starters in the league, and then he was still below average. they didnt really have any other option though so he was the starter. i dont understand why he's getting minutes now.

I will say that he is probably awarded for his "hustle" plays, and like cha said, his defensive steals do not make up for how bad he is offensively. Martell is a much better player in just about every part of the game imo.

OO lots of action in this thread, I like it!

Yeah, I don't think the Wolves are out of 1st tier of worst teams quite yet. Although I don't think they need to "make a move" really with any urgency. Even if they lose that trade exception, there are a ton of exceptions floating around and I'm sure Kahn is always actively and passively looking to trade between now and forever. So hopefully some sort of windfall comes up like how the Wovles got Beasley, but sticking with this squad and seeing if anyone starts making a leap like Love and Beasley isn't a terrible plan.

Also, btw, I think Lebron's comments aren't necessarily b/c he's a douche but b/c he wants Love on his team, lol. That way he doesn't have to rebound as much and can continue to selectively go near the basket and hang out at the 3 point line as he likes to do.

Brewer is confusing, I thought he was a good defender until talking with Cha about it and then paying more close attention. He will play what appears to be "lock-down" defense for a bit with tremendous hustle and focus but then erase those positives by switching incorrectly or going for a steal at a weird point or essentially making a decision with poor judgment. It's even more apparent in his offensive game that he has some sort of switch that gets flipped that causes him to go out of control and do things that aren't "safe" or smart, for no reason.

That being said, hopefully some other team thinks Brewer can be a lock-down defender as then he definitely has trade value, .

guys I really want to keep:

Love
Beasley
Darko
Wes
Webster
Rubio's rights

I want to keep these guys to a lesser extent:
Tolliver
Pekovic
Ridnour

I dont care if we trade these guys or keep them:
Ellington
Gaines
Hayward
Bassy
Koufos

Guys I would like to see traded:
Flynn
Brewer


We have some additional mid - late 1st round picks we can use as trade bait in addition to that cap space.

Maybe the Wolves can trade Flynn for Stephen Curry .

i would not mind beasley being traded at all, but it can only happen if they get another guy who can create on offense at or near his level. and obviously i'd love to trade rubio while he still has value.

beasley is a good player and i like him as a person. i just don't think he's a winner. he's emotional in a bad way and not smart in a basketball way. i doubt he's ever the leading scorer on a playoff team

I think both Beasley and Rubio have a lot better potential with us than their trade value is currently.

Every time I lurk a Minnesota thread on any sport I am impressed by you guys.

9 wins! At least this team is fun at times.

lol we finally ran into a team that sucks more than we do. 2013 champs.

I yelled pretty loud at Brewer tonight after he left his man wide open for an easy jump shot. I'm pretty sure he heard me

The game tonight was somewhat dull. NJ (with the exceptions of Lopez & Harris, and Humphries played pretty well too) is really bad, and we let them stay in the game for the first half. It was good to see us pound the crap out of them to start the second half.

I dont understand why Webster is getting so few minutes and Brewer is getting so many.

I dont understand why Koufos gets any minutes at all when Darko & Pek havent fouled out yet.

Flynn didnt play tonight and I dont know why. Bassy was pretty good for a change. Ridnour continues to play mostly decent, but make stupid mistakes.

Love did not rebound up to his normal standards tonight. He got out-quicked and pushed around a bit. He still had something like 24/10.

Darko was hot tonight - 8-9

i keep switching how i feel about him. For the first 10 games of the season i didnt understand why he was starting, or why he was given 20 million dollars. then he plays very well against LA and San antonio in November(just enough to give me hope that he can turn into something), then he's just been meh.

he's been ok defensively, but offensively he just looks lost with his "post game".

imo, flynn needs to go. i still remember the rumor from this last year where allegedly Indiana was offering their 10th overall for him.

Darko's got some nagging injuries going on right now - ankle sprain, quad and hip bruises, so that's limiting his mobility a bit. We're a completely different team defensively with him in there, in a positive way. Our interior defense is bad without him and good with him. And by the way, he shot 8/9 in the last game vs a pretty good C - Brook Lopez.

Another thing about his good games earlier vs SA & LA is he pretty much dominated a couple of the best big men in the NBA - Duncan and P Gasol. He is not over-matched vs anyone. The Wolves have never had a true C in their history who you could say that about.

I'd rate Darko an above average NBA starting C right now and he has a lot of upside.

I found out why Flynn didnt play in the last game - he sprained his ankle in practice. I had (just a little) hope that he'd bring something positive to the team, but after watching him play so far this year, I just want him gone.

The rumor is Indiana offered the 10th pick for him and Kahn mocked & ridiculed the offer. If that's what happened, Kahn is clueless about Flynn. I hope reality slaps Kahn in the face before the rest of the league figures out how lousy Flynn is.

If Kahn traded Flynn for the #10 pick it would be like admitting taking him #6 the year before was a mistake (it was). So I don't think it should be surprising he passed on that. Remember he was saying something like Flynn and Rubio could be like some other backcourt that won titles. Ainge and Dennis Johnson(?)

the 10, 11 and 12 picks last year were paul george, cole aldrich, and xavier henry. there's no one there i'd rather have than flynn. i mean i guess you could make an argument for alrich with the hometown thing, but i certainly don't blame kahn for passing on it.

I'd take a lump of coal for Flynn right now. Not really, because he does have some trade value, but I think the longer he plays, the more he will be exposed for the bust that he is. So I think the sooner we trade him, the better.

yeah, you're right Halstad - he didnt want to admit the pick was a bust. My fear is he's clinging to some hope that Flynn will improve.

We had another great team on the ropes late in the game and gave the game away. Lots of bad turnovers again. Ray Allen left wide open several times - big surprise there

Beasley made some stupid fouls that basically took himself out of the game early. He only played 23 minutes, which was really a shame because Boston couldnt stop him in the 4th when he actually stayed in the game for a while. He's young, so I hope he'll figure out eventually what he's going to get called for and what not to do.

Love with 24 rebounds, yawn, lol. With KG out, Boston is bad at rebounding.

Flynn is just bad.

Questionable coaching:

- why is Kosta Dufus in the game trying to guard Shaq? He only played 3 minutes, but they were painful minutes to watch. He should get zero minutes when Darko & Pek are available.

- Brewer with too many minutes again - 22. He's supposed to be a defensive stopper, but he cant stop anyone, let alone Ray Allen. I dont care that he went 3/5 shooting tonight - that was an accident. Brewer should not shoot if it isnt a layup or dunk.

- Webster had 26 minutes. Why not 40?

This team could turn around quickly. Strong performance tonight, despite the fail. If we have enough cap room, a big time pg/sg would do this team a whole lot of good. Maybe even a C if one's available.

They really have no clue how to win a close game IMO. I think Rambis is an idiot, mainly for playing Brewer so damn many minutes late in the game. I only watched the 4the quarter, but Allen had 2 wide open 3s (which he made). The first one he was running the baseline off screens and Brewer tried to go over the top of one of the screens and ran right into the screen it looked like he was trying to get screened. You learn from day one to always follow shooters. The other one I have no idea what Brewer was doing he just left Allen wide open on the wing.

Hollinger is projecting them to go 19-28 the rest of the season which is 2nd worst in the west, but better than 5 east teams. 2nd tier here we come!

I'd take 19-28 the rest of the way. The way we're playing, you'd think at some point we're going to get some wins against some good teams.

Me too. I haven't seen any numbers, but I'm pretty sure our sos has been pretty tough thus far.

edit: I just looked and coolstandings.com projects us at 29.6 wins, roughly the same as Hollingers projections.

cool.

At the beginning of the year, I think I was expecting to win ~30. That'd be a pretty nice improvement over last year. Depsite losing all these games we should have won so far, we could still win 30.

Add Rubio and a hopefully useful player from the draft, and possibly one more piece from a trade, and I think we're competing for the playoffs within another year or two. Even standing pat with these guys + Rubio + our #1 pick might be good enough if everyone improves enough. Playoffs in 2011/2012 would be amazing in the western conference, if that could happen after going 15-66 two years prior.

Am I the only one hoping to run really bad for the rest of the season?