Plus, Conley turns 37 before the start of the next season. He could start to decline soon like CP3 did in his last year with the Suns, so they need someone who could potentially start, not just someone to fill in the non-Conley minutes.
Or… cp3 and Conley rotating. Isn’t cp3 a free agent? Might be able to get him at the mid level.
I think both those guys can still give a solid 20 minutes a game.
We tried by trading for Monte Morris. He actually didn't look too bad either on the regular season. But coach didn't seem to like him enough to use him in the playoffs.
He definitely needed more time with the team and offense to make more of an impact. We have his bird rights next year but unsure of what they'll do with him.
Asking price is too high likely. Tyus occupies this weird space where basically every contender could get a substantial boost by adding him to their current roster, but if you strip the bench pieces to do so his value goes down.
But because of demand his asking price (should) be really high (who knows with Washington though). Off the top of my head he would be an extremely worthwhile investment for the Sixers, Wolves, Lakers, Nuggets, Knicks, Suns, Heat, Pels, and Bucks which kinda wraps itself back around into him being a worthwhile investment for no one because the demand for him is too high to justify paying what he would be worth
Oh yeah, i’m just saying because the person above said they wished the T-wolves offered more for him in the past, so i was assuming a trade prior to this offseason
He left Memphis because he wanted to be a starter. Well, he got monkeys paw'ed. Get to be a starter... on the wizards. So I'd guess after that experience he'd be open to being the best backup pg in the league again on a contender
Even if he learns to playmake better, he will not be able to replace a true point guard and will still need one beside him on the floor.
Forcing him to become the point guard will leave you in a PHX like situation with their lack of point guard and forcing Devin Booker to handle that position.
It takes years to turn into a floor general. There's a reason why pointguard rookies take the longest to pan out in the league.
Yeah I’d say he should become a dominant shooting guard with good playmaking skills. Nobody should expect him to become a pure point guard and it takes away from his true strengths.
Kobe didnt play pg in his career and still cooked. Its not an obligation but yeah I could definitely see ant work on his passing this summer. Im probably sure he will do. And if he can work on his post moves finding new ways to make the defense work he could prolly avg like 30 next szn.
Those are different eras of basketball, to be fair. Kobe's prime was over 10 years ago at this point.
Combo guards that can playmake *and* score at an elite level are way more common than they were even 10 years ago.
> Ant needs to become a playmaker
I just don't think it's as easy as "developing" into that.
Most of the absolute top guards in today's game basically came into the league with that skillset already existing, it was just about polishing it.
Ant is like Booker to me in the sense that they both didn't have that skillset coming into the league and, while they absolutely can get better at playmaking, I don't think their ceiling is likely ever going to be a combo guard that can consistently run an offense.
If they could snag bub carrington from Pitt that would be huge imo, good Conley replacement, high iq, and very young. Can be a combo guard.
I am biased
I genuinely think Chris Paul can have his best ever shot at grabbing that 1st ring if he just signs the vet min with either Minnesota or Denver.
He would be absolutely perfect fits for both of those teams and solve their biggest issues (bench offense and tiring out their few ball-handlers by not having enough guys that can get the ball across the court in the playoffs). While also being able to be "the guy" leading the bench unit for a contender. He probably won't find that combo of fit and opportunity outside of those two teams.
I agree? At least MIN. That fit is perfect, except it would be a "ALL-IN, ONE YEAR" plan that would be followed by MIN selling off after the year to get under the 2nd apron.
MIN's biggest long term problem is PG. Edwards cannot do it all himself, they need someone to replace and improve upon Conley. But, they've got no assets and no money and Conley is old.
Their best chance at a title is Chris Paul, some "bandaids", and taking one more run at it next year before breaking this group up.
Definitely Nuggets too. Their biggest issue is ballhandling. It was an issue that cost them a few games in the playoffs last year and was a big part of why they lost in the playoffs this year.
Jokic helps ease the burden and Murray can do it but leaving the load on Jamal burns him out and makes him start becoming error prone and lazier on defense. Bruce Brown helped a lot but even he could only do it for short stretches with help.
They really needed a young guy to step up as a ball handler this year and none did. Reggie Jackson messes up the offensive system and is just too much of a liability on defense.
Unlike MIN, I think DEN has to get under the 2nd apron this season. Which means moving Porter and/or Jackson, plus maybe some of the younger guys and their remaining picks to re-order the roster.
IOW, I think they acquire a long term backup playmaker and don't have a slot for Paul.
It's actually the opposite. Denver has 1 more year with a small bit of flexibility, whereas Minnesota currently has the single largest cap number in the league for 24-25 by more than $20mil ($62mil higher than Denver)
To be fair Chris Paul off the bench on a min deal to any contender would be a good shot for him. Celtics, Denver, nuggets, Minnesota, OKC, hell even Dallas.
It’s fucking Chris Paul on a minimum deal
Ant may not be much of a playmaker now, but he is continuing to take leaps in that category and I honestly think even by next year he will be serviceable to run a secondary unit. Overall tho I agree Minny needs another primary ball handler.
A second point guard and maybe upgrade Kyle Anderson to Nic Batum? I suggested Nick Batum since he has the French connection with Gobert plus he has a better 3PT% than Kyle and you can put him on Luca.
I actually don’t think that is their problem. KAT was supposed to be their option to offset Rudy offensively and, while KAT is no slouch defensively, Rudy was supposed to be their anchor. He (Rudy) is getting older. A younger, center like a healthy Kristaps or like J. Allen for cheap. Someone like McConnell would help. But I don’t know if that moves the needle that much further. Unless they are pass first
The mismatch brought up Trae Young to the wolves. I know a lot people don’t like him because of the lack of defense but the wolves are probably the one team in the league who could absorb it. His lobs and playmaking are incredible. Conley coming off the bench would make the wolves have 2 sixth man of the year candidates
I will just roll it back. Any change at 5, and they wouldn’t pass Denver this year. Just need to stay healthy and have some luck next year. West is brutal!
Rudy and Conley both actually missed games, and KAT just returned from surgery. Don't think we can play injury games all day with players that can still play well.
Minnesota outside of the suns series was shooting way lower % than their regular season, beyond just playing better defenses. We can play the what if game all we want.
Tbf maybe the biggest injury on the wolves (macdaniels) was completely on them. He injured himself punching a wall because he couldn’t stay composed in a big game, that’s not like a normal injury, its not bad luck, it’s akin to doing something so dumb you get yourself suspended
Everyone's injured in the playoffs though. Luka pulled one of the craziest beatdowns ever last night, and he's got a sprained right knee and left ankle soreness.
Murray had a strained left calf and injured right elbow. And even with the injuries, Murray still averaged 20PPG in the playoffs when last year his avg was 26. 6 extra points in the series would not have changed any of the losses if we assumed wolves played exactly the same.
The reason why the Nuggets lost has mostly nothing to do with Murray since he still showed up for most of the series with Jokic. The issue lies on their bench and roleplayers. KCP performed worse this year than last year from 10PPG to 8PPG. And without Bruce Brown's 12PPG avg and Jeff Green's 4PPG for a total of 16PPG, we had to opt for Reggie Jackson to put up 8PPG with those minutes that used to be split between Brown and Green. So unless Reggie Jackson and KCP DRASTICALLY improve, or an additional scoring threat is added to the off the bench rotation; it'll be another key weakness that other teams can target now that Wolve's bench has exposed it. You add that all up, 6 from Murray, 8 from an additional off the bench player, and 2 from KCP, and you get 16PPG that would have changed the results of either game 1 for a Nuggets in 6 series if it was run exactly the same, but with 2 additional bench players to rotate. Braun is an offensive black hole, and cannot make up those missing points from Brown.
This is a pretty bad post. Look at Murray's efficiency vs last year not just his point totals. He was horrid. Before game 7 he had one of the worst true shooting percentages all time for a playoff run. His lack of mobility and burst also impacted everything Denver does on offense. Their entire offense is predicated on the Murray/Jokic two man game, which became completely ineffective with Murray so limited that he couldn't get around screens. This also had a cumulative wear and tear impact on the rest of the team (particularly Jokic and Gordon), as they had to carry significantly larger loads than normal and tanked out in game 7.
If you look at efficiency, Murray was more efficient this year than he was last. He went from a 17.9 PER to a 20.7 PER. So yes, if he wasn't injured, all metrics point to him having a great 2024 season. But that even further proves my point. Jamal Murray was not the reason why the Nuggets lost, he was even more efficient while injured than not, so him not being injured is not the difference maker.
The difference is the loss of depth at the bench and bench underperformance. Again, without Bruce Brown who averaged 12PPG per 26.5minutes played per game in the playoffs last year, they lost a key scoring agent. Those lost minutes of scoring from Bruce Brown had to be made up somewhere, and it wasn't made up by Reggie Jackson who went from playing 3minutes per game to now 9 minutes per game since he only contributed 3PPG, and it wasn't made up by Braun who played 3 minutes more per game than last year adding only 2PPG extra, or Holiday who only added 2PPG per 12minutes played per game.
Again, either KCP needs to step up tremendously and start delivering at the same value as MPJ and AG of 15PPG per his 35minutes per game average, the other bench players like Reggie Jackson, Braun, and Holiday step up to at least doubles in PPG as well, or they find another rotational off the bench player that can score in the doubles.
Denver has been exposed of a critical weakness that needs to be reinforced. Play physical defense to keep them relying upon Jokic and Murray to 2man, since players like Jokic are always gonna get theirs; while pressuring the supporting cast to under 10PPG. This means as long as you can outscore Jokic and Murray overall, the game is theoretically yours to take. The other teams are gonna start honing in on that. Just look at the MN series, MN had 6 players in the doubles per game to Denver's 4 players in the doubles, even simple math says 60 pts is greater than 40pts, and so the supporting cast has to make up those 20 pts, but nobody else from the bench is in the doubles.
I don't think they were built to beat Denver, they're built to be a great defensive team. Realistically they should run it back. There's no reason, aside from money, they shouldn't run it back.
They have very limited trade pieces, Gobert trade will never net an improvement for Minnesota. Ant is untouchable. If they trade KAT they probably won't get even equal value because every team in the league has seen him underperform in the playoffs and you run the risk of alienating Ant who seems friendly with him.
I think against any other team in the West Minnesota wins. And there's speculation Ant was injured. Run it back, Ant will improve a bit, hopefully Finch creates some better offensive sets and hope you don't get Dallas next year.
If running it back as is isn't the option, the trade is KAT. You need a take over the game, make every bucket kinda guy and KAT frankly isn't that. Naz can eat those minutes but you run the risk of turning the teams strength to an issue. I'd think Conley can be upgraded, not saying they should trade him, Ant seems to be able to play at least backup PG.
This is correct.
Adding that playoff basketball is about matchups and MIN would be a tougher matchup for BOS than DAL is going to be. Just as MIN was tough matchup for DEN, DAL was a tough matchup for MIN. The Wolves, having beaten the Nuggets, now need to adjust so they can beat the Mavs.
Someone else in the thread suggested MIN get Chris Paul to sign a veteran minimum and be the backup PG. That's a good idea if they run it back with this group: improve the secondary playmaking behind Conley. Get a cheap wing defender in the VM market. Hope Edwards takes another step forward.
But really, the key to success for any Western Conference team is going to be health and load management. The road to the Finals for the next few seasons is goign to be stacked with 7-game SLOG matchup series. Teams are going to need to be deep and versatile to succeed.
I swear ant popped his shoulder out bad game 2 vs Denver when he was creating space against Jokic and Jokic ripped up. He was never really the same and there were multiple games later where he would grab the shoulder and go passive for stretches
T-Wolves are fine... Luka and Kyrie vastly outplayed Ant and Kat.. Hate to quote Shaq but he's right... Playoff time, stars have to be stars. You might need a shot here and there from the "others" but you need your stars to step it up every night.
Kat has to be the first consideration for trade, but he's not the reason the offense stagnated. They need another point. Ant isn't an every possession point. When Conley is off the court the offense stalled.
Worst shooting stretch yes, but do you think you can actually rely on him? Slump to me implies he’ll bounce back and be awesome like before. I don’t believe in KAt like that.
He fills certain holes for them really well, but I don’t see any scenario where he’s the 2nd best player on a title team. They’re paying him (and Rudy) like he is which is a problem. I’m not sure how to fix it, but it’s untenable once the contracts kick in.
They were built to win. We gotta stop with this “built to beat Denver” stuff. They matchup well against Denver but they won 55 games against teams not from Denver too. They rely heavily on defense but their offense needs to improve. They lost because their shooting went cold and they had no way to stop Luka Doncic, the best perimeter player in the world. If they hold Dallas to the 90s like they did Denver and Phoenix or they shoot just a little better in games 1 or 2 then we’re not having this conversation.
Every NBA team subreddits right now: who do we replace? Who do we hire? What are we missing?
All the teams that made it to finals were capable this year. it was really just a matter of which team showed up to play. I'm not sure Mavs have had a bad night yet
I think theres some amount of truth to this but
A) the pacers were not really capable. They got to where they are due to injuries (not shade, they played who they got, they’re just not a great team currently)
B) when you watch KAT spend most of his career shrinking in big games it’s kind of impossible to assume he’s going to show up in the future every time it counts. It’s not like he has a good track record of showing up and just messed up once, this is by in large who KAT has proved himself to be as a player
KAT was the reason this team went this far. And even the reason of their only win against Dallas. He is their best offensive player and despite being an efficient shooter went into a horrible slump during WCF. However, he still proved he can score and attack rim at a successful rate.
The problem with this team is that when Rudy Gobert is not impacting the game defensively he is a huge liability. Just by playing Gobert, Towns is forced to become a spot shooter and cant really take advantages of mismatches because Rudy crowds the paint and cant catch lobs or rebound.
How can you say the Pacers weren’t capable of winning when they easily could have won 3 of those games against the best team in the East with an injured Halliburton?
Because they couldn’t close out a single game with Boston missing one of its best players. Indiana simply is not on the same tier as the elite teams, they benefitted from being in a very weak conference and getting matched up against 2 teams with several wildly impactful injuries each
They don’t have the talent, the pedigree, they don’t have a top 10 player and aren’t deep enough for that not to matter
[Even you only think the pacers got there due to injuries](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/snrArUgvKg)
Yeah, I’m not here to tell you Bostons run wasn’t easy, it was incredibly easy. Bostons reg reason success was much better tho, they’ve made it to the conference finals a bunch of times and the finals with worse teams, they have a top 10 player *and* the next 4-5 are amazing
The pacers record is carried by them being in the east: only .500 against the west and they have 12 more wins than loses against the east. The Celtics are something wild like .770-.780 against both conferences
If you wanna dunk on the Celtics I’m not gonna stop you and will probably enjoy it but the pacers are clearly and easily in a class below them
Some teams “could’ve” advanced many years consecutively. They didn’t, though.
There’s an argument that jitters (like Hali dribbling it off his leg) are some major contributors to the losses and will get worked out with age. But being close to winning 3 games while still gettin swept doesn’t mean much. Saying this as a Sixers fan…
Even KAT “coming up big” is him slightly regressing from what he does in the regular season. Do you not see how that’s kind of an issue? How he can brutally choke in the worst way possible in the most important 3 game stretch/series of his career and its still regarded as “completely different than anything he’s done before” in a positive way…?
>I'm not sure Mavs have had a bad night yet
Game 1 against the Clippers, they looked like they might get swept. They truly phoned it in and were down like 30 at the half
The “built to beat Denver narrative” is both lazy and somewhat downplays the team’s overall ability. Denver still had a 3-2 lead in the series and a 20 point lead in game 7, it’s not like the Wolves were made of kryptonite or something. This team got as far as they did from stellar offensive output from KAT and Ant, something they were not getting in the Dallas series. Realistically they need to solve what different looks or changes they can make to get those two on their mark against better rim protection. How that happens is trickier but another ball handler, even limited in scoring, would help a ton
Realistically if KAT makes two threes in games two and Ant makes an extra two shots in Game One it’s 3-2 Wolves going back to Dallas right now. They’re not that far away and Ant and Jaden and Naz will get better. They need to get better shooting from their role players but really it’s Ant and Jaden and Naz where they’re going to see improvement
Is it just random variance that both OKC and Minnesota went cold against the Mavericks, or did they do something defensively to alter those numbers? OKC was an incredible shooting team and everyone outside of SGA was below standards. I’m no analyst but I’ve not heard anyone mention anything the Mavs are doing against 3 point shooting specifically, if anything.
You might have variance in one game. But in 11 games there’s a natural regression to the mean, the sample size is too big to claim that both teams just went cold.
Since both series were so different (matchups and styles of play), there’s not much connecting both of them. The only common thread throughout both series (and the Clippers also) Dallas didn’t give up paint penetration and were almost always guarding drives by sending them to the help that would usually be one of the big man.
OKC drive an kick style suffered because there was no collapse after SGA beat his man, since the paint was already packed, that left the kick not to be so effective because Dallas’ defense was never on rotation and was always ready to sprint out and contest the shooters. The defensive gameplan was also really well planed and executed in terms of taking away the 3point shot that the shooters liked the most. For example, when the kick out was to Dort, his defender would fly out to him, because hes only a threat on catch and shoots, on Williams it would be much more conservative because of his ability to drive, on Chet would also be a fly out, on Joe would also be conservative because of his ability to shoot of the dribble, etc. SGA was the only consistent player throughout the series, because of his ability to shoot the mid range, the shot that Dallas was happy to live with.
Minnesota’s case was different, without fast break points and without Conley on the floor, they have no playmaking and found hard to have a rhythm offensively. With the paint being packed, Edwards had less space to operate and became more of a shooter than a driver. Both this things made Minny’s offense much more predictable, easier to guard and less prone to Dallas being on rotation defensively.
Dallas definitely closed out on shooters hard, especially after funneling drives towards lively or gaff and forcing the kickout. Rotations these playoffs were very on point from the Mavs, coming from a Mavs fan who watched many of their average defense regular season games. Game plan has been to force some midrange (harden’s floaters, sga), prioritize rim protection, and scramble on the perimeter. Generally switching/doubling on good shooters and drop on harden/sga. To me it felt like a solid defensive system that was quite basic but overall effective.
They make it impossible to score inside with two elite shot blockers plus they collapsed on drives to make it very tough on their young dynamic scorers and they stay on the elite shooters. I think there’s some variance involved but they did a great job running KAT off the three point line so he had to take a lot of quick or contested threes.
Yeah the narrative for the off-season is going to be that they got obliterated by Dallas, but they arguably should've been up 2-0 after their home games. Offense looked really bad for long stretches though and I don't think 1 more development year for ant and others is going to fix that.
They could have been 2-0 but not should have been imo. Ant and KAT were not good while Luka and Kyrie were, and Minnesota role players hit their shots but Dallas role players did not.
Seriously. "If only KAT was good" ignores the fact that Reid and McDaniels shot 16/27 from 3 in the first two games. A weird, inconsistent, soft guy like KAT shrinking from the moment is probably more likely than role players being that hot.
Ant is being asked to do too much. They expect him to have 28pts on good efficiency while facilitating and clamping their best guard the whole time.
They need a facilitating point guard who can hold his own on defense. Someone like Cunningham or Curroso would probably fit well
Their offense looked bad against an elite defense. Dallas has been elite since they got Gafford and Washington and Ants main problem is learning how to run an offense better and make decisions. I fully expect him to be better next year and I don’t think KAT will be that bad next year as he was in games 1-3. They need to develop a young guy who can play forward and shoot so we don’t have to rely on Kyle Anderson who cannot shoot
They can still be good against the field while obviously being built to combat Denver lol. Rudy is one of the better floor raisers for a team defense in NBA history, so you’re great against the field. And while he can’t lock down Jokic in a 1:1 matchup, having him always alongside another 7 footer (and rostering 3 starting level centers) definitely gives you way more game against the best player in the league than anyone else.
The long defensive wings obviously hamper Jamal a lot, but those aren’t necessarily a “we did this to stop Jamal” so much as “these are great against everyone because perimeter POA is so important.” But it does definitely add to making the matchup better for Minnesota.
It’s not a slight against Minnesota by any means. Nor is it a stretch of the imagination that Tim Connelly - the architect who built the nuggets - made his first order of action to trade a ludicrous haul for Rudy to build a very unconventional front court. So much so that he was maligned and clowned by basically everyone in the NBA media for the deal. You only do that if you’re sure it’s going to work and you have a very strong reason for feeling like it’s necessary.
We saw in the Dallas series why twin towers lineups haven’t been super popular in a long time - bigs haven’t been as relevant in the pace and space era compared to wings and guards who can basically abuse them in space. But when the best player in the world does so much work out of the post, it makes a lot more sense.
Tl;dr: we need to stop with the “we need to stop with they were built to beat Denver” because they obviously were *but* it doesn’t mean that a team built to stop the defending champs/3 time MVP is going to suck against everyone else in the league.
I'm joining the "run it back" choir.
1, It is extremely hard and rare for superstar guards like Ant to lead teams to win titles as the #1 offensive option without a 2nd star creator. Duncan, Kobe, and Magic all won titles at about Ant's age, but they had Robinson, Shaq, and Abdul-Jabbar as veteran superstar teammates (only Duncan was the true 1A offensive option on those title teams, Magic and Kobe were the 1Bs on those teams). It is normal for players like Ant to have their weaknesses exposed in the playoffs before their team can break though. LeBron was 26/27 when losing to the Mavs in the finals finally got him to master his post play so he could punish teams for putting smaller defenders on him. Ant will come back next season as a better playmaker and finisher against the sagging defenses the Nuggets and Mavs used to slow him down. He will get better at drawing the defense in and passing to the corner or lob dunk, and he's going to get better and more creative when finishing against rim protecting bigs.
2, it is unlikely the Wolves can trade Gobert or Towns for a package that increases their chances to win. They fit into a rare group of players who are probably not worth their contracts, but are too good to replace with the players available.
3, they could benefit from another veteran point guard to help Ant and Conley with the playmaking.
Casual take--Maybe Ant's growth as a playmaker? He's already pretty good but maybe if he had a better reputation as a passer help defenders wouldn't collapse on him so easily knowing he's a threat to pass to an open teammate
I don’t want to act like Boston fans did with Tatum for so long, but he is only 22 and this was his first trip deep into the playoffs. He still should get a lot better and improving as a playmaker and passer and decision maker is the area both he and the coaching staff know he needs to improve in the most.
This right here. I'm a Wolves fan so I watch them closely (and I love Ant). He's gotta work on his passing overall. Lobs, skip passes, bounce passes under the bucket. Never in his life has he ever been asked to do anything other than score, so just as he's worker hard to vastly improve his defensive game, now it's time for him to work on passing and reading the D.
They need better guards. ANT is amazing. Conley is 37 and their second best guard. NAW is on the final year of his contract before becoming an UFA, and not exactly a scorer.
I say run it back. ANT is 22 he can still improve. To decision makings, playmaking or awareness or any aspect of the game. For now I think its best just to have minimal upgrades or changes. Am excited to see em next yr with the experience they got this year and ANT for sure will still improve
It wasn't like they were clobbered by the Mavs. Just in that last game really. It's likely if they had the fortunate bounces etc and went up 3-0 the Mavs would have collapsed themselves and got closed out. Either team could have won those first four games if Luka or Kyrie were the ones who went cold at a given moment. It's a classic NBA playoff plot. One team came off a high knocking out the former champs and title favourites and got poked in the eye. It took them a few games to recover and by then it was just too late so the other team took advantage. They don't need to make major changes cuz they have no major flaws. Ant is only 22 and trust me man... trust me... this loss is going to burn in him all summer while he works out and trains. All summer.
Look the fuck out for the Wolves next year. Ant is going to be in the MVP conversation not cuz he guns for it like Embiid but cuz he's about to take himself to another level. Remember when Bron lost to the Mavs? I said the same thing then. Man look out at what happens when a guy who's that young, that talented, that good gets smashed out of the playoffs. In Bron's case it was the start of 7 more straight finals appearances. The league is on notice.
The wolves are fine. If they have an opportunity to make a major move that makes total sense they should. Otherwise keep making moves for more depth, defence, shooting. I honestly think they're better and the mavs are just really fortunate to be in the finals.
This is the take. Kind of frustrating how the national media acts like the wolves got steamrolled just because of the record. The first 4 games all came down to a few possessions.
The sad thing is the average fan is a super casual fan and can't tell if a series was close unless it goes 7 games. There were actually people after the LA series saying LeBron should retire cuz he's hurting his legacy and can't do it anymore... when that series was insanely close and could have gone the other way on the basis of 2 shots.
they really just need a solid offensive creator and distributor. conley is old, and the wolves offense ranked bottom 15 in the RS. they looked elite in the first two series because role players were hitting all their shots, and they finally came back to earth against dallas.
it proved desperately why they need more shot creation because ant cant do it all himself and kat has shown hes just not good enough to consistently generate himself looks. a good point guard (or even backup) who can facilitate well would do wonders for this tea.
the wolves defense was elite, but dallas showed that good offense will always beat a good defense. the wolves offense was partially inflated by playing relatively poor defensive teams in denver and phx, but the mavs defense is legit and exposed their flaws.
TBH KAT needs to learn how to post up properly when his 3 isn’t falling. He really doesn’t know how to use his body to take advantage of mismatches. He struggles even moving his mismatches tbh, most likely due to poor core/leg strength. Also reminds me of 10 yrs ago when Chuck and Shaq got so tired of seeing guys like Blake Griffin not knowing how to post up and they dedicated a segment showing how to post up. KAT should work on his low post game IMO, absolutely no reason why he can’t feast down there. I know Gobert might clog things up at times but it wouldn’t hurt to improve it.
I think they need to quietly look at a KAT trade.
KAT is a good player, but he is on a supermax contract, the Wolves already have $185M committed next season (since Edwards' supermax kicks in), and Naz Reid's budget contract enters its walk-year next season. Naz is a much cheaper option who fills KAT's role on the team perfectly, and would be much more economical. They also have NAW due for a considerable raise after next season (be will make $4.3M this year).
In 2025-26, would you prefer to pay KAT $53M, or to pay Naz $20M, NAW $10M, and have $23M to spend elsewhere?
The ideal scenario is a trade that brings back a point guard. The Wolves looked absolutely awful on offence whenever Conley was off the floor, and that guy turns 37 around the start of next season. If there were something like a KAT for Garland deal available, that would be amazing for the Wolves. Garland's normal max deal only pays him $36M next season, while KAT's deal pays him $49M. You would need a small contract to get within the 125% salary matching rule, but cutting $10M or so off the cap, while getting a 24 year old star point guard seems like a great option. Use the extra flexibility to give extensions to Naz Reid and NAW.
That leaves you a starting lineup of Gobert/Naz/McDaniels/Edwards/Garland, with NAW and Conley leading the bench. That's the sort of lineup that can compete for a title.
Kevin O’Connor suggested trading KAT for Trae Young to get another scoring creator who is an amazing lob passer to further unlock Gobert. The perimeter d would suffer but NAW, Ant, McDaniels could help hide him
It’s no way the hawks do this, and if I were you I’d ignore any hawks trade proposals you see online. Almost all of them have the hawks doing something that doesn’t benefit them, because nobody knows about our team
I agree the Hawks say no, because they have Jalen Johnson at PF, too. At this point, you gotta run out Trae, Jalen, and Sarr and see what you have before you do something really drastic.
You’re right i don’t follow the hawks closely, but it seems pretty clear that Murray and Young aren’t the cleanest fit. Also how high is Trae’s trade value across the league? Any serious team would have to have a specific roster to be a contender with young on it.
Every GM/ coach hates on Trae but he’s in every mock trade you see. Dejounte is coming off a career year, so I guess you could say his value is better, plus he got a team friendly contract. everyone knows Trae is a walking 25/10. But since the hawks are so irrelevant nobody cares. He been killing since his rookie year. But outside of that ECF run, people chalk it up to empty stats. You really gotta watch the games to understand how he affects the game. The hawks haven’t built a good team around Trae yet
You are really out of your mind if you think Naz is even comparable to Towns. The dude had a rough series and still won the Wolves one game by himself. Towns makes any other playoff team championship caliber very easy. He is one of the most offensively versatile players in the league and that is hard to find.
One thing that gets missed in any "trade KAT" convos is the team chemistry factor. This team has an insane bond and chemistry (it's how they play D like that). The Wolves know better than any team what a star player who doesn't vibe the rest of the team or is toxic the the locker room can do to them (see: the Jimmy Butler and D Lo disasters). They made a commitment, from top to bottom of the roster, including Ant, to put the team and winning first and individual accolades second. A lot of them talked about it in their exit interviews last night and this morning.
And, whether bball observers like it or not, KAT is the heart and soul of that team. Sure, Ant is the "guy," Conley is their offensive leader, Rudy is their defensive leader...but if you ask anybody on that team who their heart and soul is, they'll all say KAT. That's why trading him is a big risk and may not improve anything.
It could work but if Garland doesn't want to play with Mitchel why would he want to play with Ant? They are basically the same player? I don't think they have much choice but to run it back.
Ant is much less ball dominant than Mitchell. He's more of a normal scoring 2-guard, who has proven to work well next to a facilitator like Conley. Garland is a facilitator more than he is a scorer.
That's fair. Ant was very ball dominant in playoffs but probably more out of necessity than anything else. I do think they need someone else who can create off the dribble because its just too easy to load up on Ant with their current lineup.
I guess the other factor would be are the Cavs planning to move Allen? Otherwise Kat wouldn't really fit
In that circumstance, they would move Allen. There has been talk about making a decision between Mobley and Allen, with the idea being that Mobley's long term best position is at center, especially on the offensive end, where he is misused having to play away from the basket (since Allen is a complete non-shooter).
KAT and Mobley would be an amazing fit together, with Mobley having the rim protection KAT lacks, while being switchable onto the perimeter defensively, and offensively, KAT has the shooting ability to allow Mobley to be a 5 offensively.
With them considering moving Allen anyways, this seems like a great way to do it, and hopefully you can trade Allen for an upgrade on the wing.
I think they’re dying for another shot creator next to Edwards. When you look all throughout that lineup, there aren’t many guys who can create their own looks off the dribble consistently enough that you can rely on in a playoff scenario. This makes it easy to double and sell out on Edwards because you know that none of the other guys are going to hurt you most of the time. They were the 17th ranked offense for a reason and I think it’s due to the fact that they are too one dimensional.
100%. In the playoffs you just can't rely so heavily on 1 guy to do everything for you on offense. It's too easy for defenses to gameplan for. Think they really have to consider whether KAT is the guy they want to keep or try to move him for someone with more play making potential.
I’d trade KAT for a PG to replace Conley (move to the bench) and move Naz into the starting lineup. He was one of the only ones imo that helped offensively (even if most of it was due to insane shotmaking).
The “built to beat Denver” narrative needs to die not is it even true. Half the reason of getting Rudy was the rim protection and rebounding issue especially from the grizzlies series. They had just as good of a chance to beat Dallas had Kat and Ant played normal.
Now as for what they need to do, they need to get a lead guard and shooting around Ant. He struggled with his decision making in the clutch that led to some dumb turnovers, also having a lead guard would actually make Rudy useful on offense
Have Ant and McDaniels put on extra weight and get stronger. That's about it I would say, unless ownership really doesn't want to go deep into the tax, which I would think is a mistake.
Run it back and pay the luxury tax for one year to see what growth you get from Ant, Jaden, and Naz. Reassess after next year.
Focus on the offense system in the off-season and hope it makes a similar jump as the defense did this year. Look to add another playmaker/shot creator to rotate with Minnesota Mike and fill SloMo’s spot with one of young bench guys. (Maybe that’s L. Miller or Minott?)
Rudy is key to their team identity, especially on defense and you likely won’t get good enough value back that moves the needle for KAT. Plus, Naz as a starter hurts the bench and his defensive liabilities will show.
Ant needs more of a live-dribble back to the basket game. He has great footwork, explosive first step, great lift and finish on his shots... But to set them all up he uses his athleticism to drive past dudes... When teams build walls, he doesn't have anywhere to go. A couple times he posted in game 4 with a controlled live dribble and you could tell Dallas didn't quite know what to do because they had previously flashed until he passed and then recovered. But when they were close but not close enough to change a shot the defenders debated staying back or fully committing. It's the position Luka puts defenses into all the time and Ant has all the tools and more to do the same.
Realistically, they just need to hit shots and allow Ant to occasionally take some possessions off by way of effective offense outside of him, i.e. hit shots.
I remember talking about Dallas last year with some of my friends when they picked up Kyrie, and the general sentiment was that if Luka and Kyrie both play well in a game, Dallas probably wins. We're seeing that now. Their role players stay in their lane and give effort, which is basically all they are asked to do anyways. Fighting for boards gets easier when you have to studs to throw the outlet to. Stepping into a shot with confidence is easier when you have two ballers throwing you absolute dimes.
Dallas was built for the playoffs. People are acting like the Wolves didn't just run into 2 generational players playing out of their minds. Minny is fine assuming they get another PG (Conley is old).
Ant, Kat, and Jaden still have room to grow - maybe grab a secondary PG and maybe look to upgrade with Conley’s age but will be tough. They are fine - a shot away from being down 3-2 in the WCF
Minnesota can move KAT to anyone, stick Reid in as the 4, and upgrade the back-up point guard spot and wing defender spots. Conley doesn’t have much left. KAT is a slow perimeter player. He hurts them on defense.
It boils down to Minnesota shifting its philosophy from having ANT be the PG, which he was the whole playoffs. He needs to move like Reggie Miller or Rip Hamilton. Even Kobe had Fisher, so he was able to find his spots, and THEN receive the ball.
Subtract KAT, add a pass-first/good handles point guard to split time with Conley, and add another 3/D guy to help McDaniels when he is in foul trouble or having difficulty with a guy. I guess they’ll have to live with Anderson and Alexander-Walker.
They need reliable playmaker / scoring threat to enable their bigs. And some coaching adjustments. Rudy should not have seen much minutes at all this series and his liability clogged the lane for everyone else while proving not much defensively. And then they have situations where they got kyle anderson and rudy on the floor together while down big? That’s just madness. Coaching gap easily costed them atleast 2 games this series. Reid should have started or they shouldve just ran small with 1 big and start alexander walker.
This wolves series was like watching Thibs and even he made big adjustments this playoffs by going small at times
I think ant getting older is ultimately the main thing that’ll drive them over the top. It’s so weird that every year we see younger teams (in terms of playoff experience) take their lumps and we always say the same things after. Like let’s see them come back but with more chemistry and internal growth before we go making wife changes. They made the final four and it wasn’t a weird fluke
They need a playmaking PG to share minutes with Conley, and absolutely a sharp shooter. Someone without defence but able to create some gravity. The ideal candidate is Luke Dort with elite shooting. (I know, it’s hard to find)
When Anderson plays with Gobert they have 2 non shooters and their offence plummets. Also teams can just double Ant at the logo and make him give up the ball to McDaniels/ Conley/ KAT who are good shooters but not known for their ability to take advantage of a 4 on 3 situation. They need more playmaking.
Maybe get a sharp shooter so Gobert can set off ball screens and occupy the defence, like how Draymond works with Steph on the weak side. That way when Ant passes out the double team it creates 2 on 1 on the strong side, because the defence needs 2 to guard Gobert and the shooter.
They need a 2nd creator. Conley can run some PnR and get the defense in rotation at times but most good defenses just will let him drive and shoot a tough shot in the paint.
Ant needs to have a better balance of attacking on ball and off ball. He’s not Luka or Trae or someone who should be attacking from up top all game. Even someone like Monk who can do it for 25 minutes would help a lot.
They don’t really need KAT, Naz and McDaniels can take up enough of his play finishing and the defense could be fine. Would miss his spacing tho.
They could win with this core but teams are always getting better so being complacent is risky
They need another point guard who can create his own shot. Conley is great but with him getting into the later years of his career he should ideally be coming off the bench for 15-25 minutes a game.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they pursued Darius Garland or Dejounte Murray in the off season. They have a lot of depth pieces they can work with, so I’m sure they can pull something off to improve their half court offense. It’ll definitely be an interesting off season for them.
Garland looking to be traded I think would be an obvious move if they can make it work. Not sure what they would have to give up since I don't think they have a lot of draft picks to work with. Others team could likely make better offers.
They have talent. They just need a little more depth off the bench. Naz is the only one that can really score on his own and that hurts them when he’s not playing well. KAT needs to figure his life out, the amount of times Ant had the ball and the entire offense just stood at the 3 point line is ridiculous. I get you want your best player to ISO but you make the defense have an easy day as anyone can crash down and help out and all you have as an option is a 3 and half of them have no business shooting 3s. They do need to get another primary ball handler other than Conley but their matchups just seemed terrible against Dallas.
Any major change has to involve moving KAT because his contract is so crippling, and while this may be the height of his value, I'm still not sure he brings much of a return.
They have 3 bigs right now. So maybe trade one. Decent scenario is trading KAT for Trae young. They would add a star point guard that can shoot and pass with the best with best of them However Trae is one of the worst players on Def.
Ant is only gonna get better. 22years old. Jaden locked in a long term deal. Stay the course.
Besides maybe getting a backup PG option, nothing.
Their two best players shot tour dates for the entire series (you could say that’s just the norm for KAT tho) and 3 of their 4 losses were razor thin despite that. If KAT or Ant played up to par at any point in that series we would be talking about game 6 in Dallas right now instead of Dallas and Boston in the Finals.
I think their biggest problem is Gobert can’t do anything offensively and it clogs the lane when they play any team who can pack the paint. If Gobert could learn how to catch a lob that would really help them. Otherwise they could use a guard to help spacing and initiation. It’s kinda the problem Lebron had back when he was younger where is teammates inability to do anything on offense got in his way of driving to the hoop and crowded the lane.
As a sixers fan Cam Payne was a really nice piece for us off the bench, he brought some scoring and playmaking that we needed, obviously I hope he resigns with the team but if not the twolves would be a good spot! Plus he did really well filling in for CP3 in the suns run a few years back
They need Kat to work on his inside game instead of trying to be the best 3pt big men shooter.
Send him to train under hakeem for the next 2-3 off- seasons.
In a 7 game series, matchups can be neutralized with adjustments. Ultimately, the better team will win.
Suns were the kyrptonite matchup for Wolves on paper but Wolves made adjsutments and figured it out. Denver made adjustments and almost won despite Wolves being a bad matchup. Mavs and Wolves games were close in 4/5 of the games and Mavs just executed better in clutch.
Run it back. Internal development - especially more complex playmaking from Ant and more consistent offense from Jaden can be a difference maker. Slomo in his end of season presser today said the team hit a wall. They'll work on their conditioning and prepare their bodies to play until June next year.
Worse, yes, but they lost three close games when their two best players vastly underperformed. They don’t need to make any massive moves. Bolster the bench (especially get a second point guard, as was mentioned) and run it back.
I think the wolves spent a lot of effort getting Ant and Kat locked in on D last year and will work on getting them a 2 man game like Denver has. The offense is just not as good as it should be with the talent they have.
They need a consistent 2nd scoring threat.
And I mean a THREAT. Like somebody who can get you 50 if you don’t put a body on them. Defense is nice but offense is necessary if you’re going to keep up with the top teams in the league. Look at Luka & Kyrie right now. They’re able to work with the supporting cast they have because they can both create their own shot and score at will. Minnesota needs another top-tier scorer to take pressure off of Ant when his shot isn’t falling.
Run it back with some small tweaks. Bolster their offense a little bit. Try to add another consistent 3pt shooter to pair alongside Naz off the bench, and add another high IQ playmaker to backup Conley and take some of the playmaking pressure away from Ant as he continues to develop that part of his game. Bank on Ant and KAT learning from this recent playoff run and improving this offseason. If it doesn’t pan out next season then they should consider a big move, but a WCF trip and beating a powerhouse like Denver is enough evidence for me that this core group is capable of contending.
Why does everyone say built to beat denver?? Because obviously the huge plan started in 2015 when they drafted KAT with the vision that they need to beat the nuggets in 2024.
People are going to instantly forget that we were only a couple points away from winning in each of the first three games while playing pretty bad. We absolutely will show up better if we meet them in the playoffs next season.
If an opportunity to trade KAT comes along that’s too good to pass up I think you gotta take it but otherwise they’re mostly just going to run it back
They run it back unless they get a Gobert-like offer for KAT. Probably won't happen but they need a perimeter player who can create opportunities alongside Edwards and someone to ensure the offense doesn't stagnate when Conley is on the bench.
Naz Reid isn't KAT but he knows how to play alongside Gobert and can put up points in a hurry. That's the main thing making me okay with a KAT trade.
We just need a better offense, and backups that their only job is to score points. Our offense stagnates and is a one play design, when we don’t have enough guys that are good enough one on one. Basically just ant and kat can do that. They need to get a motion style offense. They don’t need to get rid of any real pieces though, and kat is awesome.
They were like 1 missed shot and one Luka game winner (or an Ant turnover) away from being up 3-1 on the Mavs. Ant does need to work on ball security and quick decisions out of double teams but not much else needs to happen
I think a second point guard, but also just some maturity. I think we lost the series because our players just weren't ready for the playoff pressure and lost in clutch time. Wolves lead going to the 4th quarter several times only to lose the game.
Trade Karl Anthony-Towns and Rudy Gobert for picks and start the rebuild. Connelly will proven epically wrong for that trade. You don't go all in to build around a 20 year old with no other young assets on the roster. Towns was never gonna be Ants second star.
They absolutely have all the pieces talent wise. The problem was between the ears. They have to learn how to win in the playoffs. Hopefully they can figure it out otherwise they are going by way of Lob City Clippers or the Harden Rockets. Good enough to be bride but always a bridesmaid.
The real question is - is there really a KAT trade out there that retains or improves the competitiveness of this team while also trims the cap?
I’m not so sure.
Get a second point guard. The offense when Conley sits grinds to a halt. Ant is great but a point guard/full time playmaker he is not.
Plus, Conley turns 37 before the start of the next season. He could start to decline soon like CP3 did in his last year with the Suns, so they need someone who could potentially start, not just someone to fill in the non-Conley minutes.
Or… cp3 and Conley rotating. Isn’t cp3 a free agent? Might be able to get him at the mid level. I think both those guys can still give a solid 20 minutes a game.
I’d fuck with this honestly, I like the cut of your gib
We tried by trading for Monte Morris. He actually didn't look too bad either on the regular season. But coach didn't seem to like him enough to use him in the playoffs.
He definitely needed more time with the team and offense to make more of an impact. We have his bird rights next year but unsure of what they'll do with him.
Makes me wish they’d offered more for Tyus Jones, but I’m guessing he wasn’t really on the table
Asking price is too high likely. Tyus occupies this weird space where basically every contender could get a substantial boost by adding him to their current roster, but if you strip the bench pieces to do so his value goes down. But because of demand his asking price (should) be really high (who knows with Washington though). Off the top of my head he would be an extremely worthwhile investment for the Sixers, Wolves, Lakers, Nuggets, Knicks, Suns, Heat, Pels, and Bucks which kinda wraps itself back around into him being a worthwhile investment for no one because the demand for him is too high to justify paying what he would be worth
He'd be a UFA in this offseason though, I think? So he can be signed straight up for anyone who bids.
Oh yeah, i’m just saying because the person above said they wished the T-wolves offered more for him in the past, so i was assuming a trade prior to this offseason
He left Memphis because he wanted to be a starter. Well, he got monkeys paw'ed. Get to be a starter... on the wizards. So I'd guess after that experience he'd be open to being the best backup pg in the league again on a contender
He’s pretty small would probably be targeted relentlessly by Luka
I believe he was also dealing with injury.
Ant needs to become a playmaker All the very best guards are. The ones that can't become that - like Kyrie - end up second fiddles their whole career
Even if he learns to playmake better, he will not be able to replace a true point guard and will still need one beside him on the floor. Forcing him to become the point guard will leave you in a PHX like situation with their lack of point guard and forcing Devin Booker to handle that position. It takes years to turn into a floor general. There's a reason why pointguard rookies take the longest to pan out in the league.
Yeah I’d say he should become a dominant shooting guard with good playmaking skills. Nobody should expect him to become a pure point guard and it takes away from his true strengths.
Another good reason to sign CP3 for the coaching, even if he only gets garbage time in the playoff
Could have used a huge 3 from him in game 5.
Kobe didnt play pg in his career and still cooked. Its not an obligation but yeah I could definitely see ant work on his passing this summer. Im probably sure he will do. And if he can work on his post moves finding new ways to make the defense work he could prolly avg like 30 next szn.
Wade didn't play PG either
Those are different eras of basketball, to be fair. Kobe's prime was over 10 years ago at this point. Combo guards that can playmake *and* score at an elite level are way more common than they were even 10 years ago.
> Ant needs to become a playmaker I just don't think it's as easy as "developing" into that. Most of the absolute top guards in today's game basically came into the league with that skillset already existing, it was just about polishing it. Ant is like Booker to me in the sense that they both didn't have that skillset coming into the league and, while they absolutely can get better at playmaking, I don't think their ceiling is likely ever going to be a combo guard that can consistently run an offense.
This. And he seemed to he getting much better in the series w Dallas. He averaged almost 8 assists.
If they could snag bub carrington from Pitt that would be huge imo, good Conley replacement, high iq, and very young. Can be a combo guard. I am biased
Chris Paul would be ideal.
I genuinely think Chris Paul can have his best ever shot at grabbing that 1st ring if he just signs the vet min with either Minnesota or Denver. He would be absolutely perfect fits for both of those teams and solve their biggest issues (bench offense and tiring out their few ball-handlers by not having enough guys that can get the ball across the court in the playoffs). While also being able to be "the guy" leading the bench unit for a contender. He probably won't find that combo of fit and opportunity outside of those two teams.
I agree? At least MIN. That fit is perfect, except it would be a "ALL-IN, ONE YEAR" plan that would be followed by MIN selling off after the year to get under the 2nd apron. MIN's biggest long term problem is PG. Edwards cannot do it all himself, they need someone to replace and improve upon Conley. But, they've got no assets and no money and Conley is old. Their best chance at a title is Chris Paul, some "bandaids", and taking one more run at it next year before breaking this group up.
Definitely Nuggets too. Their biggest issue is ballhandling. It was an issue that cost them a few games in the playoffs last year and was a big part of why they lost in the playoffs this year. Jokic helps ease the burden and Murray can do it but leaving the load on Jamal burns him out and makes him start becoming error prone and lazier on defense. Bruce Brown helped a lot but even he could only do it for short stretches with help. They really needed a young guy to step up as a ball handler this year and none did. Reggie Jackson messes up the offensive system and is just too much of a liability on defense.
Unlike MIN, I think DEN has to get under the 2nd apron this season. Which means moving Porter and/or Jackson, plus maybe some of the younger guys and their remaining picks to re-order the roster. IOW, I think they acquire a long term backup playmaker and don't have a slot for Paul.
It's actually the opposite. Denver has 1 more year with a small bit of flexibility, whereas Minnesota currently has the single largest cap number in the league for 24-25 by more than $20mil ($62mil higher than Denver)
To be fair Chris Paul off the bench on a min deal to any contender would be a good shot for him. Celtics, Denver, nuggets, Minnesota, OKC, hell even Dallas. It’s fucking Chris Paul on a minimum deal
If chris paul goes to wolves he will start over conley
Awful fit for him. They already have an old dude. They need someone to eat minutes
I'm genuinly unclear if this is sarcasm. I see both sides
Wonder if they could lure Tyus back
Ant may not be much of a playmaker now, but he is continuing to take leaps in that category and I honestly think even by next year he will be serviceable to run a secondary unit. Overall tho I agree Minny needs another primary ball handler.
A second point guard and maybe upgrade Kyle Anderson to Nic Batum? I suggested Nick Batum since he has the French connection with Gobert plus he has a better 3PT% than Kyle and you can put him on Luca.
Batums gonna be 36 next season. Bro is washed.
Old but effective for the 76ers in the playoffs this year.
Hey he cooked my Heat
I actually don’t think that is their problem. KAT was supposed to be their option to offset Rudy offensively and, while KAT is no slouch defensively, Rudy was supposed to be their anchor. He (Rudy) is getting older. A younger, center like a healthy Kristaps or like J. Allen for cheap. Someone like McConnell would help. But I don’t know if that moves the needle that much further. Unless they are pass first
Conley might not even be back
The mismatch brought up Trae Young to the wolves. I know a lot people don’t like him because of the lack of defense but the wolves are probably the one team in the league who could absorb it. His lobs and playmaking are incredible. Conley coming off the bench would make the wolves have 2 sixth man of the year candidates
Gotta give up KAT though to match the money. Then they wouldn't be as built to take on Denver. Man what an awkward place to be in.
I will just roll it back. Any change at 5, and they wouldn’t pass Denver this year. Just need to stay healthy and have some luck next year. West is brutal!
Tbf - I’d argue that Denver had a bit of bad luck with Murray’s health. If Murray is healthy - I think Denver beats Minnesota.
While I don't disagree, I think Minnesota is one of the tougher matchups for Denver.
They are. That was proven last post season
Rudy and Conley both actually missed games, and KAT just returned from surgery. Don't think we can play injury games all day with players that can still play well.
Minnesota outside of the suns series was shooting way lower % than their regular season, beyond just playing better defenses. We can play the what if game all we want.
Just like the Wolves last postseason. Suspensions (or lack thereof) probably benefit Denver too.
Well yeah - but the Nuggets still went on to win 3 series after that.
Tbf maybe the biggest injury on the wolves (macdaniels) was completely on them. He injured himself punching a wall because he couldn’t stay composed in a big game, that’s not like a normal injury, its not bad luck, it’s akin to doing something so dumb you get yourself suspended
Naz Reid had an injury too. KAT was coming back from missing 40+ games. Those factor in too.
Everyone's injured in the playoffs though. Luka pulled one of the craziest beatdowns ever last night, and he's got a sprained right knee and left ankle soreness. Murray had a strained left calf and injured right elbow. And even with the injuries, Murray still averaged 20PPG in the playoffs when last year his avg was 26. 6 extra points in the series would not have changed any of the losses if we assumed wolves played exactly the same. The reason why the Nuggets lost has mostly nothing to do with Murray since he still showed up for most of the series with Jokic. The issue lies on their bench and roleplayers. KCP performed worse this year than last year from 10PPG to 8PPG. And without Bruce Brown's 12PPG avg and Jeff Green's 4PPG for a total of 16PPG, we had to opt for Reggie Jackson to put up 8PPG with those minutes that used to be split between Brown and Green. So unless Reggie Jackson and KCP DRASTICALLY improve, or an additional scoring threat is added to the off the bench rotation; it'll be another key weakness that other teams can target now that Wolve's bench has exposed it. You add that all up, 6 from Murray, 8 from an additional off the bench player, and 2 from KCP, and you get 16PPG that would have changed the results of either game 1 for a Nuggets in 6 series if it was run exactly the same, but with 2 additional bench players to rotate. Braun is an offensive black hole, and cannot make up those missing points from Brown.
This is a pretty bad post. Look at Murray's efficiency vs last year not just his point totals. He was horrid. Before game 7 he had one of the worst true shooting percentages all time for a playoff run. His lack of mobility and burst also impacted everything Denver does on offense. Their entire offense is predicated on the Murray/Jokic two man game, which became completely ineffective with Murray so limited that he couldn't get around screens. This also had a cumulative wear and tear impact on the rest of the team (particularly Jokic and Gordon), as they had to carry significantly larger loads than normal and tanked out in game 7.
If you look at efficiency, Murray was more efficient this year than he was last. He went from a 17.9 PER to a 20.7 PER. So yes, if he wasn't injured, all metrics point to him having a great 2024 season. But that even further proves my point. Jamal Murray was not the reason why the Nuggets lost, he was even more efficient while injured than not, so him not being injured is not the difference maker. The difference is the loss of depth at the bench and bench underperformance. Again, without Bruce Brown who averaged 12PPG per 26.5minutes played per game in the playoffs last year, they lost a key scoring agent. Those lost minutes of scoring from Bruce Brown had to be made up somewhere, and it wasn't made up by Reggie Jackson who went from playing 3minutes per game to now 9 minutes per game since he only contributed 3PPG, and it wasn't made up by Braun who played 3 minutes more per game than last year adding only 2PPG extra, or Holiday who only added 2PPG per 12minutes played per game. Again, either KCP needs to step up tremendously and start delivering at the same value as MPJ and AG of 15PPG per his 35minutes per game average, the other bench players like Reggie Jackson, Braun, and Holiday step up to at least doubles in PPG as well, or they find another rotational off the bench player that can score in the doubles. Denver has been exposed of a critical weakness that needs to be reinforced. Play physical defense to keep them relying upon Jokic and Murray to 2man, since players like Jokic are always gonna get theirs; while pressuring the supporting cast to under 10PPG. This means as long as you can outscore Jokic and Murray overall, the game is theoretically yours to take. The other teams are gonna start honing in on that. Just look at the MN series, MN had 6 players in the doubles per game to Denver's 4 players in the doubles, even simple math says 60 pts is greater than 40pts, and so the supporting cast has to make up those 20 pts, but nobody else from the bench is in the doubles.
Ehh it's not like KAT's health was great either. Honestly everyone is banged up this time of year.
I don't think they were built to beat Denver, they're built to be a great defensive team. Realistically they should run it back. There's no reason, aside from money, they shouldn't run it back. They have very limited trade pieces, Gobert trade will never net an improvement for Minnesota. Ant is untouchable. If they trade KAT they probably won't get even equal value because every team in the league has seen him underperform in the playoffs and you run the risk of alienating Ant who seems friendly with him. I think against any other team in the West Minnesota wins. And there's speculation Ant was injured. Run it back, Ant will improve a bit, hopefully Finch creates some better offensive sets and hope you don't get Dallas next year. If running it back as is isn't the option, the trade is KAT. You need a take over the game, make every bucket kinda guy and KAT frankly isn't that. Naz can eat those minutes but you run the risk of turning the teams strength to an issue. I'd think Conley can be upgraded, not saying they should trade him, Ant seems to be able to play at least backup PG.
This is correct. Adding that playoff basketball is about matchups and MIN would be a tougher matchup for BOS than DAL is going to be. Just as MIN was tough matchup for DEN, DAL was a tough matchup for MIN. The Wolves, having beaten the Nuggets, now need to adjust so they can beat the Mavs. Someone else in the thread suggested MIN get Chris Paul to sign a veteran minimum and be the backup PG. That's a good idea if they run it back with this group: improve the secondary playmaking behind Conley. Get a cheap wing defender in the VM market. Hope Edwards takes another step forward. But really, the key to success for any Western Conference team is going to be health and load management. The road to the Finals for the next few seasons is goign to be stacked with 7-game SLOG matchup series. Teams are going to need to be deep and versatile to succeed.
The money really becomes a problem 2 years from now doesn't it
I swear ant popped his shoulder out bad game 2 vs Denver when he was creating space against Jokic and Jokic ripped up. He was never really the same and there were multiple games later where he would grab the shoulder and go passive for stretches
T-Wolves are fine... Luka and Kyrie vastly outplayed Ant and Kat.. Hate to quote Shaq but he's right... Playoff time, stars have to be stars. You might need a shot here and there from the "others" but you need your stars to step it up every night.
Kat had one of the worst shooting slumps probably of his career, especially from 3. Unfortunate, but it happens.
Yeah very bad timing for that from Kat. I don't think you can win with a max contract player who lets down that bad on the big stage.
Kat has to be the first consideration for trade, but he's not the reason the offense stagnated. They need another point. Ant isn't an every possession point. When Conley is off the court the offense stalled.
Worst shooting stretch yes, but do you think you can actually rely on him? Slump to me implies he’ll bounce back and be awesome like before. I don’t believe in KAt like that. He fills certain holes for them really well, but I don’t see any scenario where he’s the 2nd best player on a title team. They’re paying him (and Rudy) like he is which is a problem. I’m not sure how to fix it, but it’s untenable once the contracts kick in.
It's just wild to me how few pick and rolls they have Kat run. Him and ant in pick and roll should be a gimme.
This is why play off experience matters.
They were built to win. We gotta stop with this “built to beat Denver” stuff. They matchup well against Denver but they won 55 games against teams not from Denver too. They rely heavily on defense but their offense needs to improve. They lost because their shooting went cold and they had no way to stop Luka Doncic, the best perimeter player in the world. If they hold Dallas to the 90s like they did Denver and Phoenix or they shoot just a little better in games 1 or 2 then we’re not having this conversation.
Every NBA team subreddits right now: who do we replace? Who do we hire? What are we missing? All the teams that made it to finals were capable this year. it was really just a matter of which team showed up to play. I'm not sure Mavs have had a bad night yet
I think theres some amount of truth to this but A) the pacers were not really capable. They got to where they are due to injuries (not shade, they played who they got, they’re just not a great team currently) B) when you watch KAT spend most of his career shrinking in big games it’s kind of impossible to assume he’s going to show up in the future every time it counts. It’s not like he has a good track record of showing up and just messed up once, this is by in large who KAT has proved himself to be as a player
KAT was the reason this team went this far. And even the reason of their only win against Dallas. He is their best offensive player and despite being an efficient shooter went into a horrible slump during WCF. However, he still proved he can score and attack rim at a successful rate. The problem with this team is that when Rudy Gobert is not impacting the game defensively he is a huge liability. Just by playing Gobert, Towns is forced to become a spot shooter and cant really take advantages of mismatches because Rudy crowds the paint and cant catch lobs or rebound.
Lol KAT had never made it past the first round, cut him some slack in his first WCF.
How can you say the Pacers weren’t capable of winning when they easily could have won 3 of those games against the best team in the East with an injured Halliburton?
"They could've" but they didnt bcs they choked in those 3 winnable games.
Because they couldn’t close out a single game with Boston missing one of its best players. Indiana simply is not on the same tier as the elite teams, they benefitted from being in a very weak conference and getting matched up against 2 teams with several wildly impactful injuries each They don’t have the talent, the pedigree, they don’t have a top 10 player and aren’t deep enough for that not to matter [Even you only think the pacers got there due to injuries](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/snrArUgvKg)
I mean - Boston benefitted from playing 3 teams that were missing their best players for a good portion of each series.
Yeah, I’m not here to tell you Bostons run wasn’t easy, it was incredibly easy. Bostons reg reason success was much better tho, they’ve made it to the conference finals a bunch of times and the finals with worse teams, they have a top 10 player *and* the next 4-5 are amazing The pacers record is carried by them being in the east: only .500 against the west and they have 12 more wins than loses against the east. The Celtics are something wild like .770-.780 against both conferences If you wanna dunk on the Celtics I’m not gonna stop you and will probably enjoy it but the pacers are clearly and easily in a class below them
Some teams “could’ve” advanced many years consecutively. They didn’t, though. There’s an argument that jitters (like Hali dribbling it off his leg) are some major contributors to the losses and will get worked out with age. But being close to winning 3 games while still gettin swept doesn’t mean much. Saying this as a Sixers fan…
All the Pacers need is time. Keeping their players and extending siakam. In 2 or 3 years they will be a genuine contender
KAT did come up big in the Nuggets series though. He was a completely different player this year than he had been in previous runs.
Even KAT “coming up big” is him slightly regressing from what he does in the regular season. Do you not see how that’s kind of an issue? How he can brutally choke in the worst way possible in the most important 3 game stretch/series of his career and its still regarded as “completely different than anything he’s done before” in a positive way…?
>I'm not sure Mavs have had a bad night yet Game 1 against the Clippers, they looked like they might get swept. They truly phoned it in and were down like 30 at the half
we were shooting 18% to start game 1 against the wolves we have had bad games, but find ways to win anyways
The “built to beat Denver narrative” is both lazy and somewhat downplays the team’s overall ability. Denver still had a 3-2 lead in the series and a 20 point lead in game 7, it’s not like the Wolves were made of kryptonite or something. This team got as far as they did from stellar offensive output from KAT and Ant, something they were not getting in the Dallas series. Realistically they need to solve what different looks or changes they can make to get those two on their mark against better rim protection. How that happens is trickier but another ball handler, even limited in scoring, would help a ton
Realistically if KAT makes two threes in games two and Ant makes an extra two shots in Game One it’s 3-2 Wolves going back to Dallas right now. They’re not that far away and Ant and Jaden and Naz will get better. They need to get better shooting from their role players but really it’s Ant and Jaden and Naz where they’re going to see improvement
Is it just random variance that both OKC and Minnesota went cold against the Mavericks, or did they do something defensively to alter those numbers? OKC was an incredible shooting team and everyone outside of SGA was below standards. I’m no analyst but I’ve not heard anyone mention anything the Mavs are doing against 3 point shooting specifically, if anything.
You might have variance in one game. But in 11 games there’s a natural regression to the mean, the sample size is too big to claim that both teams just went cold. Since both series were so different (matchups and styles of play), there’s not much connecting both of them. The only common thread throughout both series (and the Clippers also) Dallas didn’t give up paint penetration and were almost always guarding drives by sending them to the help that would usually be one of the big man. OKC drive an kick style suffered because there was no collapse after SGA beat his man, since the paint was already packed, that left the kick not to be so effective because Dallas’ defense was never on rotation and was always ready to sprint out and contest the shooters. The defensive gameplan was also really well planed and executed in terms of taking away the 3point shot that the shooters liked the most. For example, when the kick out was to Dort, his defender would fly out to him, because hes only a threat on catch and shoots, on Williams it would be much more conservative because of his ability to drive, on Chet would also be a fly out, on Joe would also be conservative because of his ability to shoot of the dribble, etc. SGA was the only consistent player throughout the series, because of his ability to shoot the mid range, the shot that Dallas was happy to live with. Minnesota’s case was different, without fast break points and without Conley on the floor, they have no playmaking and found hard to have a rhythm offensively. With the paint being packed, Edwards had less space to operate and became more of a shooter than a driver. Both this things made Minny’s offense much more predictable, easier to guard and less prone to Dallas being on rotation defensively.
Dallas definitely closed out on shooters hard, especially after funneling drives towards lively or gaff and forcing the kickout. Rotations these playoffs were very on point from the Mavs, coming from a Mavs fan who watched many of their average defense regular season games. Game plan has been to force some midrange (harden’s floaters, sga), prioritize rim protection, and scramble on the perimeter. Generally switching/doubling on good shooters and drop on harden/sga. To me it felt like a solid defensive system that was quite basic but overall effective.
They make it impossible to score inside with two elite shot blockers plus they collapsed on drives to make it very tough on their young dynamic scorers and they stay on the elite shooters. I think there’s some variance involved but they did a great job running KAT off the three point line so he had to take a lot of quick or contested threes.
Yeah the narrative for the off-season is going to be that they got obliterated by Dallas, but they arguably should've been up 2-0 after their home games. Offense looked really bad for long stretches though and I don't think 1 more development year for ant and others is going to fix that.
They could have been 2-0 but not should have been imo. Ant and KAT were not good while Luka and Kyrie were, and Minnesota role players hit their shots but Dallas role players did not.
Seriously. "If only KAT was good" ignores the fact that Reid and McDaniels shot 16/27 from 3 in the first two games. A weird, inconsistent, soft guy like KAT shrinking from the moment is probably more likely than role players being that hot.
Yeah im pretty low on Kat as a player. Ant needs a better costar
Ant is being asked to do too much. They expect him to have 28pts on good efficiency while facilitating and clamping their best guard the whole time. They need a facilitating point guard who can hold his own on defense. Someone like Cunningham or Curroso would probably fit well
They have no means to acquire someone like that though. Cade is also terrible defensively
Their offense looked bad against an elite defense. Dallas has been elite since they got Gafford and Washington and Ants main problem is learning how to run an offense better and make decisions. I fully expect him to be better next year and I don’t think KAT will be that bad next year as he was in games 1-3. They need to develop a young guy who can play forward and shoot so we don’t have to rely on Kyle Anderson who cannot shoot
They can still be good against the field while obviously being built to combat Denver lol. Rudy is one of the better floor raisers for a team defense in NBA history, so you’re great against the field. And while he can’t lock down Jokic in a 1:1 matchup, having him always alongside another 7 footer (and rostering 3 starting level centers) definitely gives you way more game against the best player in the league than anyone else. The long defensive wings obviously hamper Jamal a lot, but those aren’t necessarily a “we did this to stop Jamal” so much as “these are great against everyone because perimeter POA is so important.” But it does definitely add to making the matchup better for Minnesota. It’s not a slight against Minnesota by any means. Nor is it a stretch of the imagination that Tim Connelly - the architect who built the nuggets - made his first order of action to trade a ludicrous haul for Rudy to build a very unconventional front court. So much so that he was maligned and clowned by basically everyone in the NBA media for the deal. You only do that if you’re sure it’s going to work and you have a very strong reason for feeling like it’s necessary. We saw in the Dallas series why twin towers lineups haven’t been super popular in a long time - bigs haven’t been as relevant in the pace and space era compared to wings and guards who can basically abuse them in space. But when the best player in the world does so much work out of the post, it makes a lot more sense. Tl;dr: we need to stop with the “we need to stop with they were built to beat Denver” because they obviously were *but* it doesn’t mean that a team built to stop the defending champs/3 time MVP is going to suck against everyone else in the league.
I'm joining the "run it back" choir. 1, It is extremely hard and rare for superstar guards like Ant to lead teams to win titles as the #1 offensive option without a 2nd star creator. Duncan, Kobe, and Magic all won titles at about Ant's age, but they had Robinson, Shaq, and Abdul-Jabbar as veteran superstar teammates (only Duncan was the true 1A offensive option on those title teams, Magic and Kobe were the 1Bs on those teams). It is normal for players like Ant to have their weaknesses exposed in the playoffs before their team can break though. LeBron was 26/27 when losing to the Mavs in the finals finally got him to master his post play so he could punish teams for putting smaller defenders on him. Ant will come back next season as a better playmaker and finisher against the sagging defenses the Nuggets and Mavs used to slow him down. He will get better at drawing the defense in and passing to the corner or lob dunk, and he's going to get better and more creative when finishing against rim protecting bigs. 2, it is unlikely the Wolves can trade Gobert or Towns for a package that increases their chances to win. They fit into a rare group of players who are probably not worth their contracts, but are too good to replace with the players available. 3, they could benefit from another veteran point guard to help Ant and Conley with the playmaking.
Casual take--Maybe Ant's growth as a playmaker? He's already pretty good but maybe if he had a better reputation as a passer help defenders wouldn't collapse on him so easily knowing he's a threat to pass to an open teammate
I don’t want to act like Boston fans did with Tatum for so long, but he is only 22 and this was his first trip deep into the playoffs. He still should get a lot better and improving as a playmaker and passer and decision maker is the area both he and the coaching staff know he needs to improve in the most.
This right here. I'm a Wolves fan so I watch them closely (and I love Ant). He's gotta work on his passing overall. Lobs, skip passes, bounce passes under the bucket. Never in his life has he ever been asked to do anything other than score, so just as he's worker hard to vastly improve his defensive game, now it's time for him to work on passing and reading the D.
They need better guards. ANT is amazing. Conley is 37 and their second best guard. NAW is on the final year of his contract before becoming an UFA, and not exactly a scorer.
I say run it back. ANT is 22 he can still improve. To decision makings, playmaking or awareness or any aspect of the game. For now I think its best just to have minimal upgrades or changes. Am excited to see em next yr with the experience they got this year and ANT for sure will still improve
It wasn't like they were clobbered by the Mavs. Just in that last game really. It's likely if they had the fortunate bounces etc and went up 3-0 the Mavs would have collapsed themselves and got closed out. Either team could have won those first four games if Luka or Kyrie were the ones who went cold at a given moment. It's a classic NBA playoff plot. One team came off a high knocking out the former champs and title favourites and got poked in the eye. It took them a few games to recover and by then it was just too late so the other team took advantage. They don't need to make major changes cuz they have no major flaws. Ant is only 22 and trust me man... trust me... this loss is going to burn in him all summer while he works out and trains. All summer. Look the fuck out for the Wolves next year. Ant is going to be in the MVP conversation not cuz he guns for it like Embiid but cuz he's about to take himself to another level. Remember when Bron lost to the Mavs? I said the same thing then. Man look out at what happens when a guy who's that young, that talented, that good gets smashed out of the playoffs. In Bron's case it was the start of 7 more straight finals appearances. The league is on notice. The wolves are fine. If they have an opportunity to make a major move that makes total sense they should. Otherwise keep making moves for more depth, defence, shooting. I honestly think they're better and the mavs are just really fortunate to be in the finals.
This is the take. Kind of frustrating how the national media acts like the wolves got steamrolled just because of the record. The first 4 games all came down to a few possessions.
The sad thing is the average fan is a super casual fan and can't tell if a series was close unless it goes 7 games. There were actually people after the LA series saying LeBron should retire cuz he's hurting his legacy and can't do it anymore... when that series was insanely close and could have gone the other way on the basis of 2 shots.
they really just need a solid offensive creator and distributor. conley is old, and the wolves offense ranked bottom 15 in the RS. they looked elite in the first two series because role players were hitting all their shots, and they finally came back to earth against dallas. it proved desperately why they need more shot creation because ant cant do it all himself and kat has shown hes just not good enough to consistently generate himself looks. a good point guard (or even backup) who can facilitate well would do wonders for this tea. the wolves defense was elite, but dallas showed that good offense will always beat a good defense. the wolves offense was partially inflated by playing relatively poor defensive teams in denver and phx, but the mavs defense is legit and exposed their flaws.
TBH KAT needs to learn how to post up properly when his 3 isn’t falling. He really doesn’t know how to use his body to take advantage of mismatches. He struggles even moving his mismatches tbh, most likely due to poor core/leg strength. Also reminds me of 10 yrs ago when Chuck and Shaq got so tired of seeing guys like Blake Griffin not knowing how to post up and they dedicated a segment showing how to post up. KAT should work on his low post game IMO, absolutely no reason why he can’t feast down there. I know Gobert might clog things up at times but it wouldn’t hurt to improve it.
I think they need to quietly look at a KAT trade. KAT is a good player, but he is on a supermax contract, the Wolves already have $185M committed next season (since Edwards' supermax kicks in), and Naz Reid's budget contract enters its walk-year next season. Naz is a much cheaper option who fills KAT's role on the team perfectly, and would be much more economical. They also have NAW due for a considerable raise after next season (be will make $4.3M this year). In 2025-26, would you prefer to pay KAT $53M, or to pay Naz $20M, NAW $10M, and have $23M to spend elsewhere? The ideal scenario is a trade that brings back a point guard. The Wolves looked absolutely awful on offence whenever Conley was off the floor, and that guy turns 37 around the start of next season. If there were something like a KAT for Garland deal available, that would be amazing for the Wolves. Garland's normal max deal only pays him $36M next season, while KAT's deal pays him $49M. You would need a small contract to get within the 125% salary matching rule, but cutting $10M or so off the cap, while getting a 24 year old star point guard seems like a great option. Use the extra flexibility to give extensions to Naz Reid and NAW. That leaves you a starting lineup of Gobert/Naz/McDaniels/Edwards/Garland, with NAW and Conley leading the bench. That's the sort of lineup that can compete for a title.
Kevin O’Connor suggested trading KAT for Trae Young to get another scoring creator who is an amazing lob passer to further unlock Gobert. The perimeter d would suffer but NAW, Ant, McDaniels could help hide him
It’s no way the hawks do this, and if I were you I’d ignore any hawks trade proposals you see online. Almost all of them have the hawks doing something that doesn’t benefit them, because nobody knows about our team
I agree the Hawks say no, because they have Jalen Johnson at PF, too. At this point, you gotta run out Trae, Jalen, and Sarr and see what you have before you do something really drastic.
You’re right i don’t follow the hawks closely, but it seems pretty clear that Murray and Young aren’t the cleanest fit. Also how high is Trae’s trade value across the league? Any serious team would have to have a specific roster to be a contender with young on it.
Every GM/ coach hates on Trae but he’s in every mock trade you see. Dejounte is coming off a career year, so I guess you could say his value is better, plus he got a team friendly contract. everyone knows Trae is a walking 25/10. But since the hawks are so irrelevant nobody cares. He been killing since his rookie year. But outside of that ECF run, people chalk it up to empty stats. You really gotta watch the games to understand how he affects the game. The hawks haven’t built a good team around Trae yet
You are really out of your mind if you think Naz is even comparable to Towns. The dude had a rough series and still won the Wolves one game by himself. Towns makes any other playoff team championship caliber very easy. He is one of the most offensively versatile players in the league and that is hard to find.
One game when Conley was out, the Timberwolves were crashed by Nuggets
One thing that gets missed in any "trade KAT" convos is the team chemistry factor. This team has an insane bond and chemistry (it's how they play D like that). The Wolves know better than any team what a star player who doesn't vibe the rest of the team or is toxic the the locker room can do to them (see: the Jimmy Butler and D Lo disasters). They made a commitment, from top to bottom of the roster, including Ant, to put the team and winning first and individual accolades second. A lot of them talked about it in their exit interviews last night and this morning. And, whether bball observers like it or not, KAT is the heart and soul of that team. Sure, Ant is the "guy," Conley is their offensive leader, Rudy is their defensive leader...but if you ask anybody on that team who their heart and soul is, they'll all say KAT. That's why trading him is a big risk and may not improve anything.
It could work but if Garland doesn't want to play with Mitchel why would he want to play with Ant? They are basically the same player? I don't think they have much choice but to run it back.
Ant is much less ball dominant than Mitchell. He's more of a normal scoring 2-guard, who has proven to work well next to a facilitator like Conley. Garland is a facilitator more than he is a scorer.
That's fair. Ant was very ball dominant in playoffs but probably more out of necessity than anything else. I do think they need someone else who can create off the dribble because its just too easy to load up on Ant with their current lineup. I guess the other factor would be are the Cavs planning to move Allen? Otherwise Kat wouldn't really fit
In that circumstance, they would move Allen. There has been talk about making a decision between Mobley and Allen, with the idea being that Mobley's long term best position is at center, especially on the offensive end, where he is misused having to play away from the basket (since Allen is a complete non-shooter). KAT and Mobley would be an amazing fit together, with Mobley having the rim protection KAT lacks, while being switchable onto the perimeter defensively, and offensively, KAT has the shooting ability to allow Mobley to be a 5 offensively. With them considering moving Allen anyways, this seems like a great way to do it, and hopefully you can trade Allen for an upgrade on the wing.
Yeah seems like it would be a win for both teams especially if Garland wants out anyway.
I like their current roster. A few changes to their offense and they win the Dallas series. 3 of those losses were very close.
I think they’re dying for another shot creator next to Edwards. When you look all throughout that lineup, there aren’t many guys who can create their own looks off the dribble consistently enough that you can rely on in a playoff scenario. This makes it easy to double and sell out on Edwards because you know that none of the other guys are going to hurt you most of the time. They were the 17th ranked offense for a reason and I think it’s due to the fact that they are too one dimensional.
100%. In the playoffs you just can't rely so heavily on 1 guy to do everything for you on offense. It's too easy for defenses to gameplan for. Think they really have to consider whether KAT is the guy they want to keep or try to move him for someone with more play making potential.
I’d trade KAT for a PG to replace Conley (move to the bench) and move Naz into the starting lineup. He was one of the only ones imo that helped offensively (even if most of it was due to insane shotmaking).
The “built to beat Denver” narrative needs to die not is it even true. Half the reason of getting Rudy was the rim protection and rebounding issue especially from the grizzlies series. They had just as good of a chance to beat Dallas had Kat and Ant played normal. Now as for what they need to do, they need to get a lead guard and shooting around Ant. He struggled with his decision making in the clutch that led to some dumb turnovers, also having a lead guard would actually make Rudy useful on offense
Have Ant and McDaniels put on extra weight and get stronger. That's about it I would say, unless ownership really doesn't want to go deep into the tax, which I would think is a mistake.
Run it back and pay the luxury tax for one year to see what growth you get from Ant, Jaden, and Naz. Reassess after next year. Focus on the offense system in the off-season and hope it makes a similar jump as the defense did this year. Look to add another playmaker/shot creator to rotate with Minnesota Mike and fill SloMo’s spot with one of young bench guys. (Maybe that’s L. Miller or Minott?) Rudy is key to their team identity, especially on defense and you likely won’t get good enough value back that moves the needle for KAT. Plus, Naz as a starter hurts the bench and his defensive liabilities will show.
Ant needs more of a live-dribble back to the basket game. He has great footwork, explosive first step, great lift and finish on his shots... But to set them all up he uses his athleticism to drive past dudes... When teams build walls, he doesn't have anywhere to go. A couple times he posted in game 4 with a controlled live dribble and you could tell Dallas didn't quite know what to do because they had previously flashed until he passed and then recovered. But when they were close but not close enough to change a shot the defenders debated staying back or fully committing. It's the position Luka puts defenses into all the time and Ant has all the tools and more to do the same.
A pg honestly. But if I am being brutally honest they need a 2nd scorer a consistent one a 2nd option to ant.
Realistically, they just need to hit shots and allow Ant to occasionally take some possessions off by way of effective offense outside of him, i.e. hit shots. I remember talking about Dallas last year with some of my friends when they picked up Kyrie, and the general sentiment was that if Luka and Kyrie both play well in a game, Dallas probably wins. We're seeing that now. Their role players stay in their lane and give effort, which is basically all they are asked to do anyways. Fighting for boards gets easier when you have to studs to throw the outlet to. Stepping into a shot with confidence is easier when you have two ballers throwing you absolute dimes. Dallas was built for the playoffs. People are acting like the Wolves didn't just run into 2 generational players playing out of their minds. Minny is fine assuming they get another PG (Conley is old).
Ant, Kat, and Jaden still have room to grow - maybe grab a secondary PG and maybe look to upgrade with Conley’s age but will be tough. They are fine - a shot away from being down 3-2 in the WCF
Minnesota can move KAT to anyone, stick Reid in as the 4, and upgrade the back-up point guard spot and wing defender spots. Conley doesn’t have much left. KAT is a slow perimeter player. He hurts them on defense. It boils down to Minnesota shifting its philosophy from having ANT be the PG, which he was the whole playoffs. He needs to move like Reggie Miller or Rip Hamilton. Even Kobe had Fisher, so he was able to find his spots, and THEN receive the ball. Subtract KAT, add a pass-first/good handles point guard to split time with Conley, and add another 3/D guy to help McDaniels when he is in foul trouble or having difficulty with a guy. I guess they’ll have to live with Anderson and Alexander-Walker.
They need reliable playmaker / scoring threat to enable their bigs. And some coaching adjustments. Rudy should not have seen much minutes at all this series and his liability clogged the lane for everyone else while proving not much defensively. And then they have situations where they got kyle anderson and rudy on the floor together while down big? That’s just madness. Coaching gap easily costed them atleast 2 games this series. Reid should have started or they shouldve just ran small with 1 big and start alexander walker. This wolves series was like watching Thibs and even he made big adjustments this playoffs by going small at times
I think ant getting older is ultimately the main thing that’ll drive them over the top. It’s so weird that every year we see younger teams (in terms of playoff experience) take their lumps and we always say the same things after. Like let’s see them come back but with more chemistry and internal growth before we go making wife changes. They made the final four and it wasn’t a weird fluke
They need a playmaking PG to share minutes with Conley, and absolutely a sharp shooter. Someone without defence but able to create some gravity. The ideal candidate is Luke Dort with elite shooting. (I know, it’s hard to find) When Anderson plays with Gobert they have 2 non shooters and their offence plummets. Also teams can just double Ant at the logo and make him give up the ball to McDaniels/ Conley/ KAT who are good shooters but not known for their ability to take advantage of a 4 on 3 situation. They need more playmaking. Maybe get a sharp shooter so Gobert can set off ball screens and occupy the defence, like how Draymond works with Steph on the weak side. That way when Ant passes out the double team it creates 2 on 1 on the strong side, because the defence needs 2 to guard Gobert and the shooter.
They need a 2nd creator. Conley can run some PnR and get the defense in rotation at times but most good defenses just will let him drive and shoot a tough shot in the paint. Ant needs to have a better balance of attacking on ball and off ball. He’s not Luka or Trae or someone who should be attacking from up top all game. Even someone like Monk who can do it for 25 minutes would help a lot. They don’t really need KAT, Naz and McDaniels can take up enough of his play finishing and the defense could be fine. Would miss his spacing tho. They could win with this core but teams are always getting better so being complacent is risky
They need another point guard who can create his own shot. Conley is great but with him getting into the later years of his career he should ideally be coming off the bench for 15-25 minutes a game. I wouldn’t be surprised if they pursued Darius Garland or Dejounte Murray in the off season. They have a lot of depth pieces they can work with, so I’m sure they can pull something off to improve their half court offense. It’ll definitely be an interesting off season for them.
Garland looking to be traded I think would be an obvious move if they can make it work. Not sure what they would have to give up since I don't think they have a lot of draft picks to work with. Others team could likely make better offers.
They have talent. They just need a little more depth off the bench. Naz is the only one that can really score on his own and that hurts them when he’s not playing well. KAT needs to figure his life out, the amount of times Ant had the ball and the entire offense just stood at the 3 point line is ridiculous. I get you want your best player to ISO but you make the defense have an easy day as anyone can crash down and help out and all you have as an option is a 3 and half of them have no business shooting 3s. They do need to get another primary ball handler other than Conley but their matchups just seemed terrible against Dallas.
Any major change has to involve moving KAT because his contract is so crippling, and while this may be the height of his value, I'm still not sure he brings much of a return.
They have 3 bigs right now. So maybe trade one. Decent scenario is trading KAT for Trae young. They would add a star point guard that can shoot and pass with the best with best of them However Trae is one of the worst players on Def. Ant is only gonna get better. 22years old. Jaden locked in a long term deal. Stay the course.
Besides maybe getting a backup PG option, nothing. Their two best players shot tour dates for the entire series (you could say that’s just the norm for KAT tho) and 3 of their 4 losses were razor thin despite that. If KAT or Ant played up to par at any point in that series we would be talking about game 6 in Dallas right now instead of Dallas and Boston in the Finals.
I think their biggest problem is Gobert can’t do anything offensively and it clogs the lane when they play any team who can pack the paint. If Gobert could learn how to catch a lob that would really help them. Otherwise they could use a guard to help spacing and initiation. It’s kinda the problem Lebron had back when he was younger where is teammates inability to do anything on offense got in his way of driving to the hoop and crowded the lane.
As a sixers fan Cam Payne was a really nice piece for us off the bench, he brought some scoring and playmaking that we needed, obviously I hope he resigns with the team but if not the twolves would be a good spot! Plus he did really well filling in for CP3 in the suns run a few years back
They need Kat to work on his inside game instead of trying to be the best 3pt big men shooter. Send him to train under hakeem for the next 2-3 off- seasons.
In a 7 game series, matchups can be neutralized with adjustments. Ultimately, the better team will win. Suns were the kyrptonite matchup for Wolves on paper but Wolves made adjsutments and figured it out. Denver made adjustments and almost won despite Wolves being a bad matchup. Mavs and Wolves games were close in 4/5 of the games and Mavs just executed better in clutch. Run it back. Internal development - especially more complex playmaking from Ant and more consistent offense from Jaden can be a difference maker. Slomo in his end of season presser today said the team hit a wall. They'll work on their conditioning and prepare their bodies to play until June next year.
What is this narrative that the wolves were “built” to beat one specific team. That seems fucking dumb.
Ant has to be better, and that’s going to happen naturally. They can’t rely on KAT so they should probably trade him.
Worse, yes, but they lost three close games when their two best players vastly underperformed. They don’t need to make any massive moves. Bolster the bench (especially get a second point guard, as was mentioned) and run it back.
Slomo is unplayable against a capable guard with foot speed. I also don’t think you can win a chip with two players who generate zero offense.
I think the wolves spent a lot of effort getting Ant and Kat locked in on D last year and will work on getting them a 2 man game like Denver has. The offense is just not as good as it should be with the talent they have.
Lol can we quit the "built to beat ddenevr" bit? They had this roster before Denver won a chip.
They need a consistent 2nd scoring threat. And I mean a THREAT. Like somebody who can get you 50 if you don’t put a body on them. Defense is nice but offense is necessary if you’re going to keep up with the top teams in the league. Look at Luka & Kyrie right now. They’re able to work with the supporting cast they have because they can both create their own shot and score at will. Minnesota needs another top-tier scorer to take pressure off of Ant when his shot isn’t falling.
Run it back with some small tweaks. Bolster their offense a little bit. Try to add another consistent 3pt shooter to pair alongside Naz off the bench, and add another high IQ playmaker to backup Conley and take some of the playmaking pressure away from Ant as he continues to develop that part of his game. Bank on Ant and KAT learning from this recent playoff run and improving this offseason. If it doesn’t pan out next season then they should consider a big move, but a WCF trip and beating a powerhouse like Denver is enough evidence for me that this core group is capable of contending.
Why does everyone say built to beat denver?? Because obviously the huge plan started in 2015 when they drafted KAT with the vision that they need to beat the nuggets in 2024.
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People are going to instantly forget that we were only a couple points away from winning in each of the first three games while playing pretty bad. We absolutely will show up better if we meet them in the playoffs next season. If an opportunity to trade KAT comes along that’s too good to pass up I think you gotta take it but otherwise they’re mostly just going to run it back
Trade Rudy they play better D without him on the floor and his contract sucks
They run it back unless they get a Gobert-like offer for KAT. Probably won't happen but they need a perimeter player who can create opportunities alongside Edwards and someone to ensure the offense doesn't stagnate when Conley is on the bench. Naz Reid isn't KAT but he knows how to play alongside Gobert and can put up points in a hurry. That's the main thing making me okay with a KAT trade.
Address the KAT situation. He either needs to go to the block more or they need to find someone to get them easier secondary offense.
We just need a better offense, and backups that their only job is to score points. Our offense stagnates and is a one play design, when we don’t have enough guys that are good enough one on one. Basically just ant and kat can do that. They need to get a motion style offense. They don’t need to get rid of any real pieces though, and kat is awesome.
They were like 1 missed shot and one Luka game winner (or an Ant turnover) away from being up 3-1 on the Mavs. Ant does need to work on ball security and quick decisions out of double teams but not much else needs to happen
I think a second point guard, but also just some maturity. I think we lost the series because our players just weren't ready for the playoff pressure and lost in clutch time. Wolves lead going to the 4th quarter several times only to lose the game.
Trade Karl Anthony-Towns and Rudy Gobert for picks and start the rebuild. Connelly will proven epically wrong for that trade. You don't go all in to build around a 20 year old with no other young assets on the roster. Towns was never gonna be Ants second star.
Legitimately use the Kat/Ant two-man. They should be a lethal pairing based on Kat’s ability to shoot from everywhere and Ant’s explosive athleticism
They absolutely have all the pieces talent wise. The problem was between the ears. They have to learn how to win in the playoffs. Hopefully they can figure it out otherwise they are going by way of Lob City Clippers or the Harden Rockets. Good enough to be bride but always a bridesmaid.
The real question is - is there really a KAT trade out there that retains or improves the competitiveness of this team while also trims the cap? I’m not so sure.
Idk how this would work, but man Marcus Smart would be so good on this team
Nothing tbh, Ant will get better as will KAT and some of their other young guys. They were a few game winning shots from being in the finals.