They now have the 5th worst record in the West and are behind mediocre teams such as the Mavs, Lakers, Suns and the Nuggets. How can a team with Love and Rubio in their ranks be so bad? Before the haters bring up Rubio's bad shooting numbers, a great facilitator's impact transcends numbers, Kidd was a career 40% shooter and a multi-all star like Rondo isn't particularly far off from that shooting percentage either. It's not as if the kid is a volume shooter either. Love on the other hand gives you 25/14 every night. Can anyone explain why they haven't lived up to expectations?
They haven't lived up to expectations for years. (Okay, I guess going on year three with Adelman/Love/Rubio) Don't get me wrong, would love to have him, but good to see Simmons kinda call out Love on Countdown. "A top 2 PF, a top (?) player, you gotta get to the playoffs!" Also mentioned Rubio and how he hasn't progressed & instead has regressed. (Maybe expectations were too high to begin with?)
They need a defensive C. Pekovic, Love, Martin and Rubio are all below average defenders. If Brewer can guard the best SG/SF and there's a defensive player down low then they can do well. In fact Asik would be excellent for their team.
This pretty much. Rubio is a very good defender actually but he has nothing backing him up. Pek is a huge man but he is useless defensively, doesn't stop anything at all. Asik would be great for their team. But they need to realize it and now they would need to find a place to send Pek. Would Portland take Pek with that contract??? They need a 3rd big. These stupid NBA owners griping about Asik's $15 million balloon salary next year and then you look around the league and you see guys like Pek making $24 million over the next 2 years and $35+ million after that! I wouldn't trade Asik for Pek even if they had equal contracts!!
they have 4 players (love, pekovic, martin, rubio) and a bunch of trash. look at how many productive players the rockets have and they aren't even a home court playoff team right now. their roster sucks outside of those 4 guys, and you need at least 8 guys to try to make the playoffs. secondly, rubio is an exceptional passer / play maker. but he can't score. defenses know he's not looking to score, so in late game situations teams can play off of him and send extra bodies at the 3 scorers they have. kidd is a good comparison but he was a good 3 pt shooter, and he also attacked the basket and scored when needed. just because he chose to pass first doesn't mean he couldn't score. same for rondo, except for the shooting, but he can score in the paint. rubio, on the other hand can be left open, and while he's a good passer and all, they play 4 on 5 in late game situations. on defense: rubio gets a lot of steals but is out of position a lot in order to go for them. martin is also weak defensively. the rest of the team sucks, so attacking the basket is pretty easy, especially since love and pekovic aren't shot blockers or particularly good at defending the pick and roll since they are pretty slow. all in all its very difficult to play any defense. love and pek are great on offense and rebounding. they play well together too. martin also seems like a good fit with those two as well, that and adelman's system in the only thing they have going for them. how i might fix the team before love leaves is as follows: as good as rubio can be on both sides of the ball, he can be equally bad on both. i'd start the overhaul by trading him: wolves trade: rubio, brewer, mohammad bucks trade: sanders, neal, radujica why for wolves? they land an athletic shot blocker, rebounder, defender to pair with love and help the interior defense. never hurts to add another shooter in neal. the last guy is just the money needed to make the trade work. why for bucks? john henson is a more cost effective redundancy to sanders. since sanders big contract will kick in soon, they move him now and solve their PG problems with someone who will actually sell tickets. mohammad is a young guy who the bucks can try to develop, brewer is the money needed to make the trade work. next i trade pek since he's been replaced by sanders: wolves trade: pek sixers trade: turner, richardson why for wolves? turner isn't a borderline all star like pek, but he fits a need as a wing defender, who can rebound, handle the ball, and can hit an occasional 3 so defenses have to stay honest. addition by subtraction to an extent. why for sixers? turner needs to be traded or they will lose him for nothing. getting a center who can score and rebound like pek is a big deal, and he would play well with hawes with a hi-low, twin towers lineup. last trade would be: wolves trade: martin, barea bulls trade: deng why for wolves? martin's offense only somewhat makes up for his defense. whereas they could have both in deng, a legit 2 way player who rebounds, shoots, and handles the ball well enough to create his own shot and hit open guys for assists. why for bulls? deng is out one way or another. the bulls don't want to pay him what he wants. they could lose him for nothing. martin and barea fit needs for the bulls. shooting, perimeter scoring, solid PG play. even when rose gets back, martin will make it hard to double rose on the perimeter, and barea can also move rose to SG while also providing shooting/scoring off the bench. if they need a lotto protected pick or young center dieng to sweeten the deal, so be it. the roster would be incomplete, but much improved. sanders-turiaf love-moute deng-bud turner-jrich neal-shved the PG spot and bench is an issue. however, they might be the best rebounding team in the league and have pieces in place to be a great defensive team as well. while on offense, they can shoot, post, and create on the wing. they are athletic enough to cover up love's lack there, and young and talented enough with turner, deng and sanders to convince love to stay. over the summer they can sign a 3 and D point guard, and a back up center and might actually make the playoffs which would keep love for sure.
I'm getting tired of the comparison to Kidd. Rubio is tracking to be the worst shooter ever in the modern era. It really allows the defense great liberties. You can't deny Rubio's scoring is part of their problems. We can't compare all horrible shooters to Kidd. He's a HOFer for many things Rubio and other poor shooting facilitators can't do
it's true their other players outside of rubio love pek and martin are trash. Brewer is so boneheaded sometimes that it makes me wonder how he got the starting gig. Bench is absolutely mediocre. They need more depth. When Love goes out, everything goes to hell for a couple minutes.
Rubio was overhyped even before the injury. Kidd was a lot more athletic than Rubio at the same age, threatening to have a triple double every game. Also, it's just not as important to have a pass first PG in today's NBA. Under the current rules it's sufficient to run a PnR using your SG. You don't need a PG to break down the PnR and then make a complicated decision about 2 cutters and a spot-up shooter.
Well there are many reasons: 1) No defense -You know how coach Thibs lead a Rose-less Chicago squad to a pretty respectable record last year despite many people saying they're gonna suck? Well the Wolves are pretty much the opposite, they have a lot of talent but since nobody plays D they keep losing...kinda' similar to the Rox honestly, except for Dwight, Bev and Lin nobody tries to defend on our team on a consistent basis 2) Strong conference -If only the Wolves played in the East they'd be a top 3 team...too bad you can say that for almost of the teams in the WC lol. 3) Love's a complimentary superstar -IMHO there are superstars who are really good at everything, and then there are complimentary stars who are really really good at specific things. For example Tim Duncan, LBJ and CP3 are superstars who are good enough to put a team on their back and achieve success because they are just that much better than everybody else. Kobe, Dwade and Harden on the other hand are considered superstars but only because they do specific things well, for example Kobe's a really good two-player but unless he has a big guy to play-off of then he's not gonna win anything. I think Love's also that same type of guy, he's a superstar because he's the best rebounding and passing big man in the league, but he really needs a guy like Dwight who can defend and catch his passes. Unfortunately Rubio seems to be hyped too much, that dude's barely better than Lin (IMHO) and yet they're treating him as the face of the franchise. With that said, I think a Dwight/Love front court would make us into a dynasty, as a stretch 4 who can pass and rebound he'd be the perfect PF next to Dwight. A straight up superstar swap between Harden+Asik and Love+filler would make both teams really really good IMHo.
You replace Rubio with a healthy Lin, and they make the playoffs easy. Rubio is not a very good NBA player at the moment. Instead of forcing defender to shift towards him, they move away from him because he can't shoot worth a lick.
How did they end up losing by 13 last night? I quit watching with 5 mins left and the Lakers were up 4. I thought the T-Wolves would eventually close them out. Haven't seen them play a lot but my 2 cents: .1. They don't defend. They. Are. Terrible. This gives any team a chance against them every night, even the depleted Lakers with no PG. .2. Ricky Rubio hasn't progressed at all that I can see. Same guy as his rookie year. Besides being a very creative passer, there is nothing special about him. He ain't superstar material. .3. Poor bench. JJ Barea provides no spark. Dante Cunningham averages 20 mins/game? Seriously? I'm a Purdue guy. We went to see the T-Wovles games here. Imagine my shock (and happiness) when Robbie Hummel came off the bench. I wonder if Shabazz Muhammed will pull a Derrick Williams if he's traded and gets away from Adelman. Kevin Love is a monster who's being wasted in a useless situation. No way they re-sign him. T-Wolves and Bucks should combined rosters and franchises.
As a rockets fan I think know is the time to trade for k. Love how about a three team trade with philly and Minnesota Houston get k love Philly get asik Min. get t. Jones, t. Young and 2 first round picks 1from Houston and 1 from philly What you guys think about that trade?
If Philly were willing to give up a 1st round pick along with Thad Young for Asik, that trade would already have been made and Thad Young and a 1st would belong to the Rockets.
Their 3 main players are all very flawed Kevin Love doesn't is a terrible defender Ricky Rubio have can't shot from any where on the floor. Kevin Martin also is a terrible defender.
Bah stupid iPad. Too many typos. Meant to say Love is a terrible defender, sure he gets you 25/14 every night but his terrible defense negates some of those positives.
rubio is horribly overrated and kevin love's stats while they look good don't make as big of an impact as you would think.
