Whewww…
Posted on November 17th, 2008 – 5:09 PMBy Jerry Zgoda
Well, the Wolves just caught a break, at least from a marketing/interest standpoint. The NBA just suspended K.G. for a game for hitting Milwaukee’s Andrew Bogut in the face on Saturday. He’ll sit tomorrow’s game against the Knicks and will be back for games Thursday against Detroit and, most importantly, for Friday’s return to Target Center against the Wolves.
You might remember he didn’t play here last year, showing up on the court for a minute in that peacoat instead to wave at the fans.
BTW, the Spurs did sign Blake Ahearn, whom the Wolves cut right before the season, today to help a team that is without Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.
30 Responses to "Whewww…"
Hi Jerry,
Any news on the status of Witt (or even McHale)? With a few days off until the next game, I thought we might hear about some changes today.
The team had a day off today. No news yet, although at 1-8 and with the schedule they have coming up, you’d think something’s coming sometime…
The league’s suspensions confuse me this year. Barnes and Alston yes. Nash….yes? If Nash was suspended for what he did, why wasn’t TMac?
Same here…if KG is suspended for his hit on Bogut, why isn’t Shaq suspended for his hit on Stuckey?
I feel like the NBA is doing things arbitrarily at this point.
How are ticket sales (actual sales) going? I think the severe drop off in ticket sales and general interest is the only thing that can save this team long-term. Shock ownership into making changes or sell. How bad are sales? I know very few people are showing up and I am guessing a lot of those who do have free tickets. How bad are TV ratings? Does ownership understand how unpopular this team is? I hope Jerry will look into these questions.
Jerry,
What do you know about the relationship between Randy Foye and Al Jefferson? Jefferson seems to yell at Foye at least once a game, including the G.S game where he just went off on him. I noticed in the Denver game that at one point Al took the ball the length of the floor, dumped it to Randy who made the hoop and was fouled. You’d think Jefferson would be pumped up or at least give him a high five at that point, but instead he just stared at Foye, and when Randy got up they didn’t even acknowledge one another. I ask, because, it seems like it could be hurting team chemistry. It certainly seemed to in the G.S. game- they were up by 7 or so with 3 minutes to go when Jefferson went off and they ended up losing. What do you think?
This team has not gotten any better from last year, they might be even worse. Their Defense is absolutely horrible and guys like Foye, Brewer, and McCants are not improving at all. Also why not set up more plays for Miller? hes one of the best shooters in the league!
Witt has got to go, and hopefully its soon. A defensive minded coach would be a great pick up. Van Gundy would be a good coach here, but i doubt he would want to come to the wolves
So since I’ve been so critical of the way our roster is built, here’s my dream 2009-2010 lineup
SF Corey Brewer
PF Al Jefferson
C Channing Frye (trade or sign as a FA)
SG Mike Miller
PG Ricky Rubio (draft from Spain)
B Sebastian Telfair
B Ryan Gomes
B Rodney Carney
B Kevin Ollie
B Jason Collins (resign)
B Nick Calathes (draft from Florida)
B Hasheem Thabeet (draft from UConn)
I Robert Dozier (draft from Memphis)
I Mark Madsen
And here’s the thing. With a few good lottery breaks, this roster is very possible.
That team is fast, athletic, balanced, and has the potential to be very good defensively. None of the issues of being undersized in the post, slow on the wings, or lacking premier point guard (or at least one with the potential to be). Again, I feel the way to build a modern NBA team is to go fast, athletic, versatile, and defense-oriented, and I DO feel that a lot of our problems now are that we basically lack all four of those qualities.
So now you guys know. If I were in charge, this is the team I’d try and build.
Bryan,
I agree with your philosophy of building a fast, athletic, versatile and defense-oriented team. However, I don’t see how you could describe a team with Mike Miller on it in that way.
What are the odds Ahearn goes and tears it up (ok maybe not tear it up, but end up averaging about 10 ppg and 5 assists)for San Antonio just like Beno Udrih did for Sacramento last year.
Bryan
Do you think Channing Frye is a Center? I know he’s about 6′11 but he is really thin. He can’t weigh more than about 230-235 pounds. I think the Wolves would be in a similar situation as they are now, which is without a true Center. Also there is no reason to bring back guys like Ollie, Carney, and Collins. You can fill those roster positions with cheaper talent. Plus there is no way the Wolves are going to keep 4 draft picks. That would give them much too young of a team. It’s great to have young guys with upside but that would give them over half a roster(9 guys by my count) that are 25 or younger. You need some veteran leadership. If they are going to spend money in FA I’d rather they go after a proven vet like Joe Johnson.
The Wolves may somehow win enough games to end up with the 6th or 7th pick to torture us. Otherwise they will get the 4th pick and with our luck it will be considered a 3 player draft. Also with our luck the best player available will probably be Blake Griffin. Maybe he is a stud but not a need for the Wolves.
It looks like the other 3 picks will probably be way outside of the lottery and be total crapshoots.
Love is unathletic and short but should get smarter and better. He is only 9 games into his career and 1 and a half years removed from high school. So is Mayo but each person has their own development curve.
Bryan - you don’t want KLove on the team next year?
I get the house-cleaning of Foye, McCants and Rhino, but maybe keep Love for a little longer??
If I were the Wolves, I would go after Tyson Chandler in 2010. He’s the kind of guy the Wolves could attract with a bucketful of cash — down the list from LeBron and Yao and some of the others who could be available. He’s still going to be pretty young (even though it seems he’s been around forever, he’ll only be 28 in 2010) and is the sort of defensive-oriented guy who would go perfect with Love and Jefferson at the 4/5.
Sean
I agree completely that a player like Chandler is exactly what the Wolves need. The problem I see is that the Wolves are going to blow all their cap space this off season making a knee jerk move.
Jama & Sean - The money it would take to get Chandler away from Chris Paul and the Hornets would be ridiculous.
The whole point of clearing cap room is not to add a bunch of role players — it’s to add a guy who can make an immediate impact — the guy who can take (what is hopefully at that time) a young, improving team to the next level.
i wonder if ill be included in the game plan a little more.
i was brought here to shoot the 3 and make shots.
does wittman know that?
I think the Wolves should see what kind of value Mike Miller has. Right now he really isn’t adding much to the team and if you could package him with a draft pick for an upgrade at PG or C I would do it. Otherwise I would look to trade him and a bad contract for an expiring contract.
Mike Miller is our second best facilitator right now.
I don’t know if I would trade Miller yet, but if things continue to go like they are, I’d be very willing to listen as the deadline approaches.
Doesn’t Miller’s salary come off the books after the next season ? Unless the offer is sweet this year I’d rather wait til next year or just let him play the contract out.
Congrats to Wittman on his 200th career loss.
By this time next year he may have his 100th Win!!!
Glen Taylor vs Ford (Lions), and Al Davis (Raiders) for stupidest, most pathetic owner in professional sports!
McHale the worst GM/VP in professional sports
Randy Wittman may seriously be the worst headcoach in the history of the NBA. Is there anyone else with over 250 games coached that has a less than .333 winning percentage?
This team doesn’t need to trade Miller unless they can get something very good for him. This team doesn’t need to save money, it doesn’t need more draft picks. It needs a head coach that is NBA qualified. They need a GM, VP, and assistant GM that can do more than wipe themselves half the time, and they need an owner that doesn’t rival Al Davis and the guy from the Detroit Lions for being the worst owner in professional sports.
Among coaches who have coached as many or more games than Randy Wittman (297), only Sidney Lowe, Tim Floyd, and Ron Rothstein have lower winning percentages than Witt’s 32.7%.
If you lower the bar to 250 games, you can add Eddie Donovan and Bill Musselman.
I am not familiar with Rothstein. I would have guessed Floyd did a little better than this, but his teams were pretty terrible.
Funny Lowe, and Musselman cut most of those losses here. I love it.
The Timberwolves are a freaking DISEASED FRANCHISE
BC - Taylor isn’t as bad as Clay Bennett ! Aka the complete scumbag who robbed Seattle.
BC - Don’t forget we have had Carl Pohlad (cheapskate) and Red McCombs (cheapskate who didn’t spend cash on the defense) as owners recently. Both of whom make Taylor look awesome.
FREE TELFAIR!!!
Matty:
I agree very much that Mike isn’t athletic or a good defender. However, I feel he’s too good of a player to let go of. If we do get Rubio (and that’s obviously a very big if), then we’re going to need Mike’s shooting touch. Running point guards like Rubio need two types of players to be really effective…running athletes to sprint the floor with them, and shooters to give them all sorts of options and open up driving lanes. It’s like Peja and Tyson Chandler, and Mike would be our Peja.
jama:
I think Frye is more in the 240-250 range, but no, he’s not a center. His appeal is he can run the floor, has good hands, is solid defensively, and can hit the midrange jumper. Starting him at center is basically just a way of bringing Thabeet along slowly…he’s the kind of big man that will have a steep learning curve coming into the league, like Chandler…but ultimately the heavy lifting in the middle gets done by Hasheem and Jason Collins.
Icz:
I’d like to keep Love if we can. It’d be easy from our end to just keep him and not resign Collins or draft Dozier. But I think, for my scenario to happen, we’d have to trade Love, because I’m not sure how much trade value Foye, McCants or Smith hold right now. Love is our biggest trade asset right now, so if we make sweeping changes, I’m not sure we can pull it all off and still have him on the team in the end. But no, it’s nothing against Love. He’s going to be a great player.
And to comment on Swan Dizzle’s point, yes, my biggest fear about calling for Taylor to sell the team is that the new owner would move them to a different city.
Oh, I forgot to add a few things about Miller.
First, although he’s not a good defender, he’s better than people thing. He’s a great team defender, but well, we have no team defense, so it doesn’t show.
Also, I think he’s being utilized wrong, and that IS a Wittman thing. It’s kind of like how the Celtics use Ray Allen…Ray gets his shots, but its not in the flow of the offense and most of them are pretty contested. Miller needs to be used the same way Wally was. Play him off the ball, keep him moving, and let him take jumpers as the ball rotates to him.
