The season is over. With the result that we had we can only hope our players are already working their ass of trying to improve for next season.

Now, my question is this: when a given player has clear strengths and weaknesses, do you focus more on trying to improve the weaknesses or do you focus on improving the strengths.

Put more into context:

Darko Millicic, decent but not stellar defense, shoddy post play. Do you focus on trying to become a stellar defender that really shines in that skill or do you try to improve the post play to be no long an annoying problem.

Michael Beasley is the other way around, do you work on defensive footwork to be able to guard SF better or do you focus on becoming an elite high-flying finisher around the rim.

Off course, the only good answer is both .. these guys train so much that you can't do the same thing all day long, you have to have some diversification anyway ... but hypothetically speaking, if you had to pick one..

Got some thought on it myself but would like to see some of your thoughts first..
What say you!?

I'v always been a big fan of the system of writing down depth charts by writing the number of minutes next to the player.
As going over our roster was keeping me awake I decided to get out of bed and write down how I think our rotation should look like for the coming season.This is completely ignoring injury backup though. Only position where this could be a problem is the 1 as we have plenty of interchangeable 2/3's and 4/5's.

Please feel welcome to post your own!

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It's not that we don't like Wes at all. He's probably a good fit and a nice player. While he isn't quite the "star" I had hoped we would get,  he has the potential to be a part of a good team.

So it's not the guy, it's the pick. Let me take a shot at refreshing your memory what actually went down on draft night a few years back ... the year of Brandon Roy ... and tell you why McHale was more impressive compared to Kahn.

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With Caron Butler (and the rest of the Wizards team for that matter) on the trading block ... Would you like to get him if we could? Can we?

Too old? Not a great enough shooter? Let me hear it.

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Not only the best basketball player is called MJ...

Last week I went to see "This is it" at the movies. For those of you who live on Mars: it's the movie with footage from the rehearsel of Michael Jackson's last show, which he never got to perform.

Besides that his "Thriller" was the theme song for our beloved zombies last year, I couldn't help but see parallells throughout the movie with basketball/our T-wolves.

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Wanted to put this up a little earlier but then I crashed my motorcycle so it was postponed a little (don't worry I'm OK, nothing really bad just an aching shoulder and a bruised ego as I crashed it in right in front of the school where I teach :)).

Without further ado, this post is about Intentional fouling. It's a topic that for a long time has been lingering in my head but the trigger for this post was this foul by Jarvis Hayes (Ed Note: changed to Jarvis) which donned him an injury .. (it might as well have been Hollins who was injured: dangerous, dangerous stuff...)

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As a poster at Canis Hoopus (the T-Wolves SB nation blog) I was wondering the simple following: Would you guys ...

a.) trade Gallinari straight up for Rubio's rights.
b.) trade Gallinari straight up for Rubio if it was certain he would come over a.s.a.p.
c.) trade Gallinari + a protected pick (2012 or so) for Rubio (remember, I'm not a GM, you don't have to blow smoke :))

Thanks for your reply

I've made no secret about it: I'm drinking the Kahn-Aid. With some spare time on my hands (not really but I did it anyway) I made a little flow chart for you guys to have an overview of the trades Kahn has made.

You can also watch the chart here.

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Wasn't really sure if it should have been a fanpost or a fanshot... I was reading through the draft grades thingy and here's what struck me in the evaluation of GSW:

Analysis: I think it's too early to know what grade to give Golden State. I love Curry, and if the Warriors keep him, I think he's a great addition to Monta Ellis in the backcourt. Neither guy is a pure point guard, but Curry's shooting should complement Ellis' slashing nicely.

OH; so when GSW plans on playing a back court of 2 PG's; one being a slasher and one being a shooter .. it should complement nicely .. when the T-wolves plan on playing a back court of 2 PG's; one being a scorer and one being a distributor ... that's absolutely out of whack?

Just a regular little poll on a saterday eve because I'm wondering how the perception of the strength of this draft is. Fill out the poll and maybe comment if you'd like.

Both Curry and Harden are available here.

Needed some more words...  Needed some more words...  Needed some more words...  Needed some more words...  Needed some more words...  Needed some more words...  Needed some more words...  Needed some more words...  Needed some more words...  Needed some more words...  Needed some more words...  Needed some more words... 

[psycho paranoia rant]Why is there no news yet! Why don't we know who the new GM is gonna be; Are they playing with us? Are they backing out? You trying to steal my precious gm? Precious .. precious .. It's gonna be Lindsey right .. RIGHT[/rant]

Ok, so we're all waiting for the announcement of the new GM. Until then I'd like to touch on a subject that has been labeled as Euro Stashing (by me, proudly). Those 2 2nd rounders. We have to keep busy people!

The reason the subject hasn't been touched I imagine is because we at Hoopus I've seen most try to avoid talking about what they don't know much about. Since none of us have really watched any Euro games (right?) we have to rely on what DX and others have to say.

Everyone is half expecting them to be traded but in case that doesn't happen we need to get some players that won't contribute right now but might down the road. The most obvious kind is Euro players .. but maybe there's some US players too? Let's see what we got.

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After having watched the first half of NC vs Duke and only realising after about 10 minutes of playing time that Ty Lawson wasn't the guy wearing the nr 22 (not a good sign for him) I read this article on the four letter network that got my trade juices flowing.

The most important parts of the article in case you don't wanna read it (though I would suggest you do):

The Knicks had been expecting the salary cap to grow to more than $60 million by the summer of 2010, but Stern's pessimistic forecast means it should stay somewhere south of $60 million.

So, if we add up Curry, Jeffries, Gallinari, Chandler, the 2009 pick (at a rough guestimate of $2 million) and seven phantoms to reach the 12-spot mandate, the Knicks will be at roughly $29 million.

Let's say the Knicks were to retain Lee at $11 million and Robinson at $6 million for 2010-11. Their committed payroll, including Curry, Jeffries, Chandler, Gallinari, the 2009 first-round pick and five phantoms, would be $46 to $49 million.

That doesn't leave them enough money to make a max offer to even one premiere free agent when the Summer of LeBron comes along.

The solution is to get rid of Curry and Jeffries

And that's where we come in. Because we're the ones with some tradeable assets and might be willing to take something bad for a young talented player.

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With my internet down for the weekend I had nothing much else to do than watch the recording of a Gators game. With "Similarities: Shaun Livingston" on his draft profile at ESPN I was intrigued. Does this cog fit our machine and if so, is his quality high enough or should we look for someone better that fits less?

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Just some quick notes that I wrote down on Earl Clark as I was watching the Louisville vs Ole Miss game.

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After I hugely underestimated the underestimating of one Devin Harris, lemmie give it another go. As always, comments are more than welcome, I'm hoping this one looks a little less lopsided.

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As I'm gonna be banging the Thabeet drum (as SnP put so nicely) I'll have to post anything positive about him. So for the ones who missed it, here's what Ford had to say:

I've been among Thabeet's biggest skeptics, but I'm quickly running out of allies. More and more scouts appear convinced that the big man from UConn is finally able to deliver. We always knew Thabeet could block shots and run the floor. But his improved rebounding and confidence on the offensive end have more scouts calling him a top-5 lock.

In fact, with a few more supporters, he could become the consensus No. 2 pick in the draft. I'm still skeptical of the Dikembe Mutombo comparisons, but there's no doubt he made the right move skipping the draft the past two years. Thabeet is finally learning how to play basketball, and at 7-foot-3, he has the chance to make a real impact now.

It seems like it's quickly becoming a "go after Curry and Thabeet" draft for me. Check out the rest here

No mega deal monday without a 3 way trade (yea I really got nothing to do at work, the shipment of the necessary cable got delayed).

Here's what I got. Keep in mind I used the trade machine which won't accept Smith's contract yet, checked out the numbers manually and it seems to work even better with Smith in there.

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/features/traderesult?players=136~3422~2382~1981~3224~130~3003~2777~558&teams=4~16~16~16~16~17~17~17~17&te=&cash= (+ the pick and smith)

To the Wolves

* Chris Douglas-Roberts

* Joakim Noah  

* Devin Harris

* Kirk Hinrich    

Outgoing Players: Rashad McCants, Randy Foye, Mike Miller, Brian Cardinal, Craig Smith, Picks

Why this works for the Wolves: Devin Harris was really really undervalued at Dallas, check out how they're doing without him .. and that's with Kidd in his place, not really the first the best either.. I'm totally sold on the guy, he's an excellent both ways player.

CDR needs some more time to mature and we give up a about all our SG's in the process. We lose a little at that position. Still, CDR was a sophomore if I remember correctly and we all know we were high on him last year before the draft (no?). Corey's ready for more minutes at SG and don't forget about Carney whom but cheecks are probably the only thing that's warmed up about him. We give up a lot at SG but we weren't going anywhere anyway.

If Corey moves over to SG and since we get Noah, Love can move over to SF a bit. Especially when we get Peko or a center through draft in here.

Noah + Al really looks good to me.

Hinrich is another nice guard who could be a more than excellent 6th man.

Negatives: Free Agency is out the window though we've already established why this is not a problem. We lose all our 3point shooters though I'm not sure it'll matter since Wittman doesn't know how to set them up anyway. If it is a problem you could change either Foye or Mccants with Brewer, I just like Brewer best out of the 3. If we keep Foye or Mccants instead of Brewer it might spread the floor better so you can interchange them if you want.

To the Bulls:

* Vince Carter

* Craig Smith

* One of our earlier picks or package.

Outgoing Players: Joakim Noah, Kirk Hinrich

Why it works: the Bulls are a growing them that seems to need a little star power to get over the hump back to eastern greatness. I'm not sure Carter is the answer but they might take a flier on him since they don't really lose a lot. They aren't going anywhere with Hinrich and also aren't going anywhere with Noah.

Negatives: If they had plans for free agency, Carter's contract botches that. Are they gearing up for 2010?

To the Nets

* Rashad McCants

* Randy Foye   

* Mike Miller     

* Brian Cardinal

* Our earliest pick        

Outgoing Players: Chris Douglas-Roberts, Vince Carter, Devin Harris

Why it works: Foye is from NJ if I'm right? Miller is no Vince Carter but he might be more willing to be the veteran on a rebuilding-on-the-fly team. They get their pick between Foye and Mccants instead of CDR which could also hasten their rebuilding signifanctly. Moreover, they rid themselves of Carter's 4 remaining years and have a much better shot at Lebron+someone else.

Negatives: they might not be willing to part with Devin Harris for the chance to go after Lebron. Foye and Mccants are nowhere near Harris' skill. Might take untill next year for Jersey to submit to the lure of signing Lebron. The early pick might set this straight a bit, not sure if it would be enough. I frist tried for Hinrich to the Nets but his contract is too long. Not sure if some further tinkering might improve the situation for the nets. At this point they might get more for Carter elsewhere.

SOOO, what say you!

I've been walking around with the feeling for a while now. Are our rookies getting enough burn in their first year into the league? We've heard McHale say he didn't expect our nr3 pick to take over... Why not McHale? We've seen it happen before. No, not just Lebron, there was this kid way back, he was the first in over 20 years to get drafted straight out of high school...

So when I read the post on Corey I started wondering again if he had gotten enough burn. Decided to check out the numbers and here's what I found out.

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