This is a trade proposal being moderately debated over at CanisHoopus (the Timberwolves blog), and we were wondering what King's fans take on it is. Essentially (as initially proposed by Chad Ford), the Wolves would trade O. Pecherov, M. Blount, and one of our young PGs to the Kings for Kevin Martin. What do y'all think?

What I'm most interested in finding out is what the relative value of our young PGs + an expiring (Blount) are to others who aren't Twolves fans. I'm hopeful this will be an opportunity to have some good dialogue with other teams' fans.

The three PGs offered, and a quick assessment on each so far:
1. Rubio - in Europe for another two years. Will still be young on arrival here. Solid steals, great facilitation ability, questionable offensive ceiling (although could become a solid 10 ppg guy).

2. Flynn - athletic, tough, doesn't back down from any challenge and relishes the chance to face guys who've schooled him before to return the favor. Evolving offensive game. Better assist guy than our offensive system/supporting cast would indicate. Still learning NBA man to man defense.

3. Sessions - also young, tough, but appears to be a very solid floor general. Good trooper thus far (meaning a high character guy). No 3 pt game, but good at drawing fouls. Appears to grasp Rambis' system better than Flynn at this point, although not as high an offensive ceiling as Flynn.

Was just looking up some stats, and it looks like our boy KLove won't be able to win a rebounding title this year because I don't think he'll qualify (assuming that you either can finish with 70 games played or 800 total rebounds).

It's really too bad, too, because Love is dominating the league qualifiers right now. Dwight Howard is #1 overall in rebounds per 48 at 17.9, followed by one Dajuan Blair, J. Noah, J. Pryz, and M. Camby (at 16.5). If Love qualified he'd be the clear #1 at 18.8 rebounds per 48. Dude's got skills.

The only other thing I'd like to throw out there is further recognition of Love's game and ability to contribute in multiple different ways. Yes, it's clear that he is a tenacious rebounder who believes that he can get any loose ball out there. But when I see another young, under-heighted player in Dajaun Blair with similar rebounding rates only get 14.4 mpg on a team that could really use more production out of him, it just makes me appreciate that Love does have enough shooting and facilitation ability to warrant significant minutes. He ain't perfect, but he's also pretty difficult to replace.

Saw a thing about Rubio in the paper recently and got to wondering how our Golden Boy is doing. Using Hollinger's euro-transfer formula (all per minute: scoring -25%, reb +18%, ast +31%, fg% -12%), Rubio numbers suggest that he is shaping up to be something of a Jason Kidd clone.

Continue reading this post »

I thought this was an interesting exercise in revealing the limitations-and strengths-of using stats to inform our picture of a player, as well as scouting out potential help for us.

Which of these 6'-8" players would you rather have?

Continue reading this post »