As I am sure you are all aware, we have differing opinions on what draft prospects to select, in what order or in which slot.  I do believe however that both Kahn’s and Rambis’s draft desires will agree on two primary requirements for any prospect.

Requirement #1:  Any viable draft prospect must be able to play both offense and defense at one position.  In other words, each prospect must have a pure position and not be a tweener.

Requirement #2:  Prototypical size is the next prerequisite.  My best guess is that the size requirements are 6’2’’ for PGs, 6’5’’ for SGs, 6’7’’ for SFs, 6’9’’ for PFs and 6’11’’ for Cs.

Join me after the jump for my rationale.

Continue reading this post »

After the stupor wore off from my disappointment last night (understatement of the year on my part) a particular thought occurred to me.  There is almost no way that MN and PHI can do a direct trade that would result in MN being able to select "The Villain."  The only real trade assets we have that we are likely to give up are in the 1 and 4 spots, which is exactly where they don't want anything we can offer.

This leads me to the natural progression; Why not find a team that has lots of wing talent that can shoot (since Philly can't shoot on the wing)?  The first team to pop into my head was Portland.  The Blazers need some more Frontcourt depth and talent to hang in the West with the Lakers, Philly needs some shooting, and the wolves need Evan Turner.

Proposed trade:

Minnesota gives #4 pick and #23 pick, gets #2 pick

Portland gives Batum, Rudy, gets #4 pick

Philly gives #2 pick, gets Batum, Rudy and #23 pick.

Long story short, Minnesota gets Evan Turner without mass extortion.

Philly gets some additional wing talent that can shoot which will make them a more versatile team and can nab a player like Seraphin or Sanders with the 23rd pick to add some athleticism in their frontcourt.

Portland gets Cousins who can learn under Camby and acts as an insurance policy against Oden never fully recovering from Knee injuries and provides some lineup flexibility during their period of hopeful contention to match up better with the Lakers.

This trade might need some tweaking, but I think the basic premise is fairly sound.  Thoughts? 

So, now that the season has progressed and we have a significant sample size of data to compare a certain cadre of point guards, I thought I would look at Assist to turnover ratios and how they have improved...or not over the course of the season.  This is not meant to be an all-encompassing comparison between these three (to remain nameless) point guards.

I will start off by saying that I would think it to be a fair assumption that a rookie point guard should have a mostly improving assist to turnover ratio as they learn more about their teammates and can make better decisions on where to and where not to pass the ball in given situations.

First, October and February data only covers 2-4 games or so and therefore need to be taken with a grain of salt.

I think it is fair to say that Player C is by far the best facilitator of the bunch as he has drastically improved his decision making over the course of the season.  I think Player A started out as a better facilitator, but hasn't really improved in that regard.  Considering that these are rookies, I would go so far as to say that is a poor indicator about a player’s natural instinct for the point.  Player B has improved very nicely as the year has progressed and while just catching up to where player A is, has actually shown an ability to improve.

FYI, the total and last two full months are weighted so they do not overly rely upon October and February data.

So, who do you think is who?  Mind you that one is our very own Jonny and the others were available with our pick(s).

As noted in Keven Love Jefferson's Center post of prospects, I made a comment about preferring to have a center that would average at least 1.5 blocks, 8+ rebounds and 10+ points per 36 minutes of playing time.

Here it is.

Only four other qualified players project to 1.5+ blocks.  Joel Anthony, Louis Amundson, Jarred Jeffries and Paul Millsap.

The color code is as follows. 

Red - below expectations

Yellow - Acceptable

Green - Good

Just wanted to throw this list out there.  Later I will update the post below for additional players who have more potential or are unqualified for whatever reason.

Well, with numerous rumors and posts out there talking about the possibility of Big Al getting traded.  I had an idea.  There was the idea of trading Al for Granger (don't really believe Indiana goes for this), as well as rumors of a Bynum for Bosh trade.

Why not a Bosh to LA, Bynum to MIN and Al to TOR based trade?  If LA wants Bosh and TOR just wants something out of the deal, they would be hard pressed to do better than Al.  Bynum's defensive talents would be wasted in TOR.  Hedu is already a stretch 4 anyway, which would give Al lots of space to operate.  MIN gets the defensive center that so many people want.  Yes Bynum makes slightly more right now, but has one less year on the contract.

Unfortunately Bynum is a BYC player.  His trade salary is 6.25M.  I am not very familiar with how the actual salary and BYC salary are used in the trades.  Could someone enlighten me?

A trade I got to work mathematically was:

LA gets Bosh (15.7M, 1 yr) and Gomes (3.8M, 4 yrs, with cancel option)

MIN gets Bynum (12.5M, 3 yrs) and Morrison (4.8M, 1 yr)

TOR gets Al (12M, 4 yrs) and Vujacic (5M, 2 yrs)


LA gets Bosh to play PF with Gasol playing C, Artest playing SF, Kobe at SG...filler at PG plus Gomes and Odom at backup SF/PF.  LA can cancel Gomes option over the summer to save money.  Gomes gets shot at title.  :)

MIN gets its defensive center to pair with Love, and an expiring in place of Gomes for more cap space to offset the increase in Bynum's salary.

TOR gets something for Bosh before he bolts (I have a hard time believing he won't flee as fast as he can).  LA may have to throw in some cash to cover the added salary of Vujacic's second year.

This works on the ESPN Trade Machine.  Would you do it?  Would LA and TOR?  What else would they need?

Well, Mplax’s post got me thinking about specific backcourt prospects that our wolves will likely be taking a look at come draft time and I thought that I would put together a summary of the current season information for your perusal.  Thanks to Rascal Flatts for the Draft Express link that made this all possible.

The information is broken down into four sections.  Shooting accuracy, Stat Stuffers, Efficiency and Defensive Impact.

 Shooting Accuracy:

On Average, it appears that Henry is the most consistently accurate shooter from the floor in that he hits 50% or greater of his shots from the field and a respectable 84% from the line.  Wes and Wall are next in line, but I would give the nod to Wall simply because how Wes is performing is just so far above all of his historical averages.  It should be noted that Wes has had a year off and may have really worked on improving his game.  Turner, prior to this year has averaged about 35% from 3, which considering his overall game may be good enough.  Ebanks on the other hand isn’t really a shooter.  He can drive and get contact, but that is really his only strong suit.

Shooting wise I would rank them Henry, Wall, Wes, Turner and Ebanks.

Given the lack of shooting talent on the wolves, I would say the one that really sticks out here is Ebanks as a poor fit.

Stat Stuffers:

To a certain extent I would ignore the turnovers from Turner and Wall.  Turner will be a 2/3 and not have to initiate the offense half as much, whereas right now he is playing the point.  Wall is a freshman who is playing a lot.  Enough said.  Outside of that, Johnson is a good rebounder…which makes Turner unbelievable.  The man is a triple double threat in any given game.  He has decent steal and blocks for a perimeter player and is a good facilitator as well.  Wes comes in second here with being a solid rebounder, pretty good assist rate considering his position, which tells me that he is selective on when he takes his shot and will gladly pass.  He has the second best Steal rate and the best block rate amongst the perimeter players.  Ebanks is by far chasing Turner and Johnsons coattails.

As far as Wall and Henry go, they are freshmen and are putting up very good numbers all things considered.  Wall is better, but Henry isn’t exactly worlds behind. 

Stats wise, I would rank them Turner, Wall, Wes, Henry and Ebanks.

Player Efficiency:

The thing that really pops out here is the Pts/Play where Wes and Henry are significantly better than the field.  Turner and Wall are right on par, which doesn’t surprise me because they carry a huge responsibility with their teams and are their team’s best players and need to perform in order to do well.  Both Johnson and Henry work within the flow of the offense and have the luxury of picking and choosing their spots, which to their credit they seem to do a nice job of.  Outside of this, Wes has the best Block and A/TO rate, the best Ast/FGA for the wing players and the second best steal rate behind Wall (who is unbelievable in this regard).

Based upon efficiency, I would rank them Wes, Wall, Henry, Turner and Ebanks.

Defensive Impact:

Three players stick out here.  Turner, Ebanks and Wes are each about twice as significant to their teams in terms of rebounding, Blocked shots and steals as a % of team totals.  Off the top of my head, I would attribute this to their added experience.

Long story short, I would rank them Turner, Ebanks, Wes, Henry and Wall.

Overall that would leave a composite ranking of Turner, Wes, Wall, Henry and Ebanks.  All things considered, we can all agree that Wall moves to the head of the class considering he is much younger and barring some monumental slide or tragedy will go #1.  Turner gets the nod over Wes because he came out on top in two categories, whereas Wes only won one.  I am not sure how to account for Henry because he has performed very well considering he is a freshman.  He may be worth putting into the same group as Turner and Wes because he was really close and likely has a higher upside considering his age.  Anyways, hope the stats are helpful.

I was at the Gopher Basketball game last night and came up with the following observations.

Defense:

As per usual, Tubby has his team playing lights out D.  I did notice that by being able to platoon Sampson and Iverson at the C and not have them out there at the same time, the interior shot blocking ability has improved and allowed our perimeter D to really gamble on steals.  On numerous occasions our guards and small forwards would gamble for a steal, miss and the SFA player still wouldn’t drive into the lane (because they would get blocked).  I would expect us to see one big half of blocks and the other half will be full of steals.  This will depend on whether or not the opponent is a shooting team or a driving team.

Out rotational D was also looking pretty good.  There were only a couple of instances where the D didn’t rotate properly and SFA got an open look from the perimeter.  But they were few and far between.

Offense:

The Gophers started off a lot like they played all of last year…cold.  Sampson missed some short open looks and they had to rely on the D to keep it close while SFA was hitting nice contested shots to pull ahead.  The Gophers were then able to figure out the D and find the seams to get guys open. 

I can’t stress how much better their lineups mesh this year.  The ability to have Williams and Westbrook paired with Nolen to offset the lack of his offensive game and take advantage of his passes will make them much better.  In addition, not having to play Joseph at point is a huge boost for the offense.  By pairing him with Cobbs, Joseph has much more freedom to go all “Westbrook” on opposing team’s second units.  Plus, his experience handling the ball helps if Cobbs gets overwhelmed in his freshman year.

Instant judgment on the best lineup rotations:

It even appeared that Tubby was doing a lot of complete lineup rotations during the game (Lucia Style…so to speak).  These two seemed to work out pretty well and were fairly well rounded.  This lineup is weak against teams with strong power forwards, which would be easily corrected with the inclusion of Mbakwe and White (fingers crossed).

Player Observations:

Rodney Williams is a stud.  Not because he can take over a game, but that he is playing to his strengths and taking what is there.  His opponents tend to sag off of him a little to prevent him from getting into the lane and he has done a nice job of drifting out to the three point line and knocking down the long ball.  We should expect to see a lot of layups, dunks and threes with very few jumpers from Rodney this year.  If he can add about 10-15 pounds of muscle without loosing any explosiveness he should be able to replicate what he has done so far against any big ten opponent.

Damian Johnson has to be the best utility defender in the Big Ten.  Period.  If the shooters can continue to hit threes, he will get a lot more room to score points off of drives into the lane and scoring from the post.  If a player can get 5 steals, 5 assists and 5 blocks…that’s just all kinds of versatile.

Ralph Sampson no longer looks like Gumby.  That man has really filled out and it shows in his rebounding numbers.  Plus the summer he spent with his dad working on his post game shows.  I was pumped when he hit that sky hook in the first half.  If he can get that to fall regularly…look out.

Devoe Joseph…needs to be allowed to play primarily shooting guard.  His stroke is so much nicer and quicker than anyone else on this team.  I am crossing my fingers that Cobbs can be a good backcourt mate with him for the entire season.

I plan on making a number of Gopher’s basketball posts this year, so if anyone has any suggestions for great sources for info and stats…just let me know.

As mentioned on a couple of posts, there seems to be some Sam Bradford love going around now that he may very well be available in the middle of the first round.  This got me to thinking that it might be helpful to put together a list of QB characteristics to help us avoid wasting time talking about QBs that don’t fit and likely busts.

First proposal is that we exclude any QB that couldn’t complete 60% of his passes or better while in College.  Basically, you can’t teach accuracy after college.  It is hard enough to teach a QB how to read schemes.  If they can’t simply rely on their basic mechanics and ability to make throws they are doomed.

After that, I haven’t really formulated much of a criteria list.  Anyone have any suggestions?

It looks like Tubby gets his second 2010 committment.

Austin Hollins, a 6-foot-4 shooting guard from Germantown who visited Minnesota this past weekend, has committed to the Gophers, according to sources close to the program. Hollins, who is one of the country's top shooters, picked Minnesota over Arkansas and Memphis. He is the second commit for Minnesota, joining Elliott Eliason and they have one scholarship left for the Class of 2010.

http://scouthoops.scout.com/a.z?s=176&p=4&cfg=bbrec

He apparently is a very good student (4.0 last I heard), very high BBIQ (his dad is the coach of the Memphis Grizzlies afterall) and is a solid defender.  I have to say I love the Gophers getting some more long distance shooters who play defense.  He may have to add about 15 pounds to last through the Big Ten season though.

As I sit hear reading an article on Big Al's rehab progress, something occurred to me.  What if Kahn threw out the Jefferson as only the second best player on a championship team comment for more than just commentary?  Think about it.  The knock against Jefferson was that he only focused on offense and didn't do the other things like passing and playing defense that would make him that number one type player. 

The more I think about it, I can't think of a better way to motivate someone like Big Al than to call him no better than second fiddle.  I can't say whether this was on purpose, but I wouldn't find it out of the realm of conventional possibilities.  First you try to break someone's ego and challenge them.  Then you hire a whole bunch of very veteran coaches including Rambis and Laimbeer to provide him with all of the means to fix what was broken.  Sounds like a fair game plan.

I have to admit that it is kind of nice to have a GM who won't blow smoke to make people feel better about them then they should.  If I had to use one phrase to describe Kahn, it would be "a deceptive straight talker,' in that he is very blunt about his assessments, but there always seems to be some double meaning or implied future action/goal involved.  Here's to hoping that Al makes huge strides this season.

I will keep this one short.  With the recent signing of Pavlovic, I thought it might be beneficial to compare his PER numbers to the players expected to be on next year's roster (for a while at least).

My takeaways from the charts above was that Pavlovic was better at guarding SFs because of his additional 35 lbs.  Pavs versus Brewer for Defensive Win Shares was 0.9 vs 1.2 in 07-08 and 1.4 vs 0.2 in 08-09.  The DRtg was 109 vs 110 and 105 vs 110 for the 07-08 and 08-09 seasons, respectively.  Without a lot of quality data to back me up, my hypothesis is that Brewer's a better man defender, but needs to add strength to not get taken advantage of.  But as of now, Pavs is better guarding the 3.  I think Brewer is a much better defender of 2's than Pavs will ever be...but again, no data.  With this in mind I prepared the following chart for position PT.

Post away. 

By Charlie Rosen

 

What do you think of Ricky Rubio's decision to forgo his NBA career for at least two years? Is this player really worth the wait? — Anonymous

From what I've seen and heard of him, Rubio does indeed have incredible court vision and is an outstanding passer as well. However, he lacks strength, a consistent jump shot and the ability to play acceptable defense. And, yes, since he backed out after the T-Wolves had reached a buyout agreement with his Spanish team, it was strictly Rubio's decision to avoid playing in the NBA for the time being.

One key consideration in this whole business is that Rubio didn't exactly distinguish himself when playing against Team USA last summer in Beijing. As a result, I think the kid is just plain afraid to go up against NBA players for 82 games.

The fact that his competitive fire doesn't burn hot enough for him to want to play against the world's best hoopers says something significant about Rubio's makeup. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he never played in the NBA.

Indeed, he's hardly worth the trouble and the wait. Ramon Sessions is a much more accomplished NBA point guard than Rubio will ever be.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/10061042/Mailbag:-T-Wolves-shouldn't-wait-around-for-Rubio

Now I can fully respect an analyst or writer’s opinion when it is actually logical…even if I don’t agree with them.  But a couple of things ring particularly petty and illogical to me with this article.

1. The lack of strength and a consistent jump shot seems to be a given for anyone of High School age.  Isn’t that why the NBA didn’t want High Schoolers joining their ranks?  It was either that they weren’t ready or to protect GMs from making stupid decisions.  The point is that Rosen tries to make it seem like this will always be the case.
3. Apparently the money issue had nothing to do with it.  I mean what is about half or more of your annual salary…small potatoes I say.
5. I love how Rosen drops words to spin things like “one key consideration”…”just plain afraid” and then ends it with “Indeed, he’s hardly worth the trouble and the wait.”

Man I wish that I could just make crap up and then hang my conclusions on them…dripping with cynicism of course.  I just love the double standard.  Any American High School graduate isn’t ready to play in the NBA…but Ricky should be.  I wish he had come over, simply from the standpoint that the question of whether he would come over would be behind us.  Of course it would become a whole new kind of circus.  But I digress.  Do you think this is just Rosen’s way of justifying why the NBA isn’t going to miss Rubio next year (or apparently ever)?  It kind of has that petulant child tone to it.

And before we start…yes that does make me sound like a weather man (no one else says forecast).  Given the Sessions signing and an insatiable need to analyze who will be traded in the next month and who we will simply let expire or trade at the deadline next year, I updated our positional depth charts to help clarify our current organization wide depth at each position.  I am sure everyone is familiar with the charts below.  I have removed any player no longer with the team and those that I think will be traded.  But for reference, I have added the legit prospects the wolves have the rights to.

Current Depth Charts:

Color summary:

Green – Player is likely to be at the minimum associated with the wolves for all of next year and most of the following season as well.

Yellow – Player’s future is uncertain and depending on performance may be a long term part of the organization, but may be gone after this year.

Red – Player will likely be either traded at the deadline or off the roster at the end of the season.  This includes being bought out or team options not picked up. 

Please note that the P stands for Prospects.  When considering positions of need, especially related to draft, we need to consider who is in the pipeline.

Current Roster:

1.  Although we have all said it at some point, we are very deep at PG and C. 

We can debate whether Love and Al are PF or C all we want, but their production at the positions mean they are more than capable as a starting frontcourt.  My view is that Al can go head to head with almost any C in the league (especially this year with Yao out).  I think love is a decent backup C.  His technical proficiencies and his higher talent level more than make up for the physical limitations he will overcome at the backup level.  In addition, I think that Hollins, with enough PT and tutoring will develop into a backup player that allows us to bring more agility to the C position.  For the LT, we have Pekovic who IMO will at least be a solid backup in the future. 

For the PG position, we have Sessions and Flynn for the ST, with Rubio for the LT.  No one knows WTF Kahn is going to do.  But let’s be honest, there is no way we need to sign another starting caliber PG FA.  I will leave the draft out of this for now (see below for draft logic).

2.  We kind or already knew that we are thin on 2/3 talent anyways. 

There have been numerous threads on what FA or draft pick to get to fill the 2/3 slots.  I will say that I don’t want either Sessions or Ellington to be our long term starters at the 2.  I will be watching Ellington very closely this year though.  What strikes me as more important is that we will likely have no one returning at the 3 position after this season.

3.  We could use some PF backup level talent depth.  After Love starting this year and Al playing a couple spot minutes at PF, after this year there will be pretty much no one.

Note that I think Gomes will be gone.  See below for reasoning.

Depth Chart Assumptions:

First, I excluded the following players for a couple of reasons.  I included a short comment for each player on why they will be gone.  I also included each player’s potential positions…pretty much for reference only.

Secondly, I assumed that since Kahn didn’t have the long term potential starter’s taken care of at the 2/3; he wasn’t going to go out of his way to avoid any trades that will add value to the organization.  I think all of the green highlighted players are safe for this year as no team will give up enough talent to make it worth Kahn’s while.  However, Gomes contract after this year is not guaranteed.  And as we have seen with the current year’s deals, this has quite a bit of value.  Dare I say more than Gomes will provide the wolves during 2010/2011 season?  This non-guaranteed portion of his contract coupled with his solid backup play will make him our most valuable trading chip at the deadline.  Contending teams with long term cap space (and luxury tax) concerns will be offering up pretty decent offers for him.  I am thinking along of the lines of a modest prospect and a 2nd rounder or so.  Don’t even get me started on Brewer.  That question is probably the most up in the air immediate question on our roster.

Remaining 2009 offseason:

As I mentioned above, I think that Atkins, Wilkins and Blount will be gone.  For Atkins and Wilkins, there is a rumored deal between the Wolves, the Celtics and the Rockets, but I find the players involved to be unlikely candidates.  I do think that between Blount, Atkins and Wilkins into at least 2 expiring players at the 2/3 and 3/4 while picking up at least a 2nd round pick and maybe a lower level wing prospect.  Other than this, I think Kahn is done for this offseason.

Trade Deadline:

I think Kahn will try to use the red highlighted players to acquire some wing prospects from a team that needs to implode.  Feel free to mention any likely candidates.  I don’t think that any green highlighted players will be off-limits.  It will just depend on the age and talent level of the player being offered.  I think this will likely be limited to the 2/3 for the most part…but with Kahn…no bets are off.

2010 Draft:

Here is really the whole point of this posting.  Upon reviewing our depth, unless a draft prospect is clearly the BPA, we don’t draft a PG or C.  I know a lot of people have been high on someone like Aldrich and I wouldn’t mind picking him with our second or third 1st round pick, but unless a C prospect complements Love and Al I don’t know why we would waste our time.  If there aren’t BPA type players at starting level 2/3 and backup 3/4 types, we really should be trying to roll our draft picks forward into the next year.  At that point I am fine using our 2nd round picks to stash players in Europe (like Pekovic).

2010 Free Agency:

I think we REALLY need to be certain of any player that we offer big money to be both the right position and right fit for our team.  I don’t want to sign someone to a big contract and hamstring ourselves just to make a splash.  If we can’t get the right kind of player, then we are better off using our cap space for sign and trade deals like Memphis did this last year to acquire more draft assets.

Let me know your thoughts.