[外電] Hollinger 版灰狼季前分析 2010-2011

看板Timberwolves (明尼蘇達灰狼)作者Kreen (La Reine)時間15年前 (2010/10/02 01:42)推噓7(7推 0噓 3→)

留言10則, 7人參與討論串1/2 (看更多)

2010-11 Forecast: Minn. Timberwolves By John Hollinger http://is.gd/fEJlZ 2009-10 Recap It was tough for the Wolves to sell the idea that the bad old days of the Kevin McHale era were over when the team on the floor was worse than ever. In a campaign in which theNew Jersey Nets nearly broke the league record for losses in a season, it slipped under the radar that many objective measures showed Minnesota to be even worse. En route to a 15-win disaster of its own, Minnesota had a worse point differential than the Nets (or any other team in captivity), a worse defense and a much worse ending -- the Wolves won only twice after the All-Star break. Say that again slowly: They won twice after the All-Star break. In a league in which several teams had openly given up on the season in order to pursue free-agent dreams, the Wolves managed to decline despite harboring no fantasies of offseason grandeur. HOLLINGER'S '09-10 STATS W-L: 15-67 (Pythagorean W-L: 14-68) Offensive Efficiency: 98.9 (29th) Defensive Efficiency: 109.3 (28th) Pace Factor: 98.5 (3rd) Highest PER: Kevin Love (20.72) Minnesota put together the league's third-worst offense and its second-worst defense; finding categories in which the team was merely average required some serious sleuthing. (It turns out there were three in which the Wolves ever-so-barely eked past the league average: offensive rebounding, 2-point field goal percentage and opponent free throw attempts per field goal attempt. They weren't good in these categories, mind you; they were just non-bad.) While fans expected a long rebuilding project after McHale's series of cap-killing mistakes, the medicine proved much harsher than expected. The regime of new general manager David Kahn and new coach Kurt Rambis hasn't displayed a single truly horrifying lapse of judgment yet, but the two have experienced enough plods and stumbles along the way to leave everyone frightened of what's next. Let's start with the big stuff. Kahn got off to a rocky start with the consecutive selections of point guards Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn in the 2009 draft. Rubio opted to stay in Spain and has shown little enthusiasm for the idea of becoming a Wolf, while Flynn struggled mightily as virtually every other rookie point guard bloomed. Kahn's choice for coach, Rambis, got a fairly generous four-year deal to bring the Lakers' system up to Minnesota, and the first read was that he employed it a bit too religiously. The Wolves ran the triangle just as if they had Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan, with slightly different results due to the fact that they didn't. It seemed a classic example of forcing the talent to fit the system rather than vice versa. Flynn and free-agent pickup Ramon Sessions both are born pick-and-roll specialists; asking them to space the floor in a triple-post offense hardly seemed an ideal use of their skills, and each struggled to carry out the assignment. Instead, the offense degenerated into midpost face-ups for the likes of Ryan Hollins or Ryan Gomes. Roster redundancy made Rambis' project more difficult. The Wolves infamously selected three point guards in the 2009 draft and signed another as a free agent; while only two of them were on the team last season, those choices prevented other gaps from being filled. The team had a glaring lack of wing scorers all season, filling out the roster with assorted veteran flotsam like Damien Wilkins and Sasha Pavlovic, and their inability to create offense became particularly noticeable at the end of the shot clock. As a result of those shortcomings and Al Jefferson's gimpy return from a torn ACL, the Wolves rated among the league's least effective offensive teams. Perhaps the most damning stat, for both the offense and Rambis' triangle, was this one: The Wolves didn't have a single player with a 10-assist game until Sessions finally accomplished the feat in Game 81. Flynn, in fact, finished dead last among point guards in pure point rating (see chart) -- a bit of a concern considering he was the first U.S. point guard taken in the 2009 draft. One presumes that he'd move to a third-guard role if and when Rubio arrives. Pure Point Rating -- '09-10's Worst For PGs Player Team PPR Jonny Flynn Min 0.19 Eddie House Bos-NY 0.79 Jordan Farmar LAL 0.86 Daniel Gibson Cle 1.00 Jannero Pargo Chi 1.13 Pure Point Rating = 100 x (League Pace / Team Pace) x ([(Assists x 2/3) - Turnovers] / Minutes) Min. 500 minutes Defensively, the Wolves' redundancies were equally problematic. While most teams are fond of adding "length," Minnesota might have led the league in "width" with Jefferson, Love andNathan Jawai. Jawai fell out of the rotation as the season wore on, but Love and Jefferson were a big problem because both were too good to sit. Inevitably, one of them had to, however, because they proved wholly incompatible defensively. Neither was capable of guarding the perimeter, and both were equally useless protecting the rim. While the Wolves were nearly the league's worst team in a laundry list of statistical categories, there was only one in which they were the absolute worst: shot blocking. That spoke directly to the land-locked nature of their two feature frontcourt players. Jefferson and Love blocked only 121 shots between them the entire season. As a result, the Wolves sent back only 4.4 percent of opponent deliveries, the worst percentage in the league (see chart). Pct. Of Opp. Shots Blocked, '09-10 Worst Team % blocked Minnesota 4.40 New York 4.42 New Orleans 4.46 Houston 4.67 Golden State 4.83 Additionally, each was slow enough in transition to give any opponent interested in the opportunity a good shot at a five-on-three break. Minnesota ended up third in the league in pace factor despite not playing with any particular urgency at the offensive end. Its opponents just scored so much in transition -- Minnesota was 28th in opponent fast-break points per game -- that it skewed the numbers to make the Wolves look like a run-and-gun outfit. Rambis responded at midseason by bringing Love off the bench, which was a baffling decision given that Love was the team's best player. Not surprisingly, this just exposed other holes in the dike -- a lack of quality frontcourt depth, a shortage of shooters to penalize opponents for doubling Jefferson and of course Jefferson's fondness for keeping the ball to himself even when he was in the corner surrounded by three opponents. The one solid move Kahn made was swapping Brian Cardinal's expiring contract for Darko Milicic at the trade deadline. I don't want to oversell the benefits here -- the team went 2-25 after the trade. But Milicic played some of the most motivated basketball of his career (this, of course, is damning with the faintest of praise), and provided the defensive complement to Love and Jefferson that Minnesota desperately needed. Since it cost the Wolves essentially nothing, it was a worthwhile risk. Had a few other gambles -- drafting Flynn with the fifth overall pick, say, or signing Hollins -- worked out as well, the Wolves might have pulled together a quasi-respectable season. Instead, only the Nets prevented them from being a laughingstock. New Jersey is in far better shape this time around, so the Wolves have some work to do to avoid becoming the league's punchline. Offseason Moves One big piece of Minnesota's future remains overseas. Rubio will play at least one more season in Spain and hasn't indicated any particular desire to join the Wolves at a future date. However, Minnesota widened its European imprint in the offseason by hiring former Pistons European scout Tony Ronzone to be its new assistant general manager. Considered among the best talent evaluators -- if not the best -- working overseas, Ronzone added instant respect for a front office that has received little to date. Unfortunately, Kahn went right about losing it with a series of moves that completely overhauled the roster without revealing a hint of an overarching plan: Drafted Wesley Johnson. The Wolves were in a bit of a quandary with the fourth overall pick. On talent, the obvious choice was to take DeMarcus Cousins of Kentucky -- another big, plodding post player who would have paired terribly with Love. I don't think Johnson is in the same orbit talent-wise and don't see him as a star, but he unquestionably fills a glaring need at the 3. Given that every player on the board besides Cousins had similar question marks (and Cousins, it should be said, came with a few red flags of his own), it's hard for me to get too down on the Wolves about this pick. It's just a lower ceiling than you'd like to see when a 15-win team picks fourth in the draft. Traded Ryan Gomes and 16th pick to Portland for Martell Webster. This was an absolutely baffling trade that sent the 16th pick out for a backup at a position where they already were covered and were about to draft two more players. Gomes' nonguaranteed contract could have been waived and eventually was by the Blazers, so Minnesota essentially traded the 16th overall pick (Luke Babbitt) for Webster. Traded 23rd and 56th picks for 30th and 35th picks; selected Lazar Hayward and Nemanja Bjelica. This was a good arbitrage trade with Washington, which overpaid to move up to No. 23 and allowed the Wolves to get two solid prospects in Hayward and Bjelica. While one can fairly question whether Hayward can stick in the league as something more than a Michael Curry-esque role player, Ronzone's track record and the ability to stash Bjelica in Europe free of charge combine to make that selection seem promising. Drafted Paulao Prestes. Ronzone had one other international stash pick with Prestes, a skilled Brazilian big man of modest athleticism who is somewhere between a 4 and a 5 in the NBA. He won't arrive for at least another year, if ever. Signed Nikola Pekovic for three years, $13 million. This was my favorite Wolves move of the past year. They took Pekovic with the first pick of the second round in 2008 -- one of the few things McHale did right in recent drafts -- and locked him up as soon as his contract expired overseas. Pekovic is a paint-area beast who somewhat overlaps with Love as a productive scorer around the basket and who will have some defensive limitations; nonetheless, this was too great a value to pass up. If the Wolves can get over their Milicic fantasies, Pekovic could end up starting and challenging for rookie of the year. Signed Darko Milicic for four years, $20 million. This year's Beno Udrih Award -- for a team overly congratulating itself on the previous year's scrap-heap find -- goes to the Wolves and the outsized deal they bestowed on Milicic. While Milicic had his moments last season, he's a below-average offensive player whose motivation and focus have been questioned at every stop despite repeated opportunities. Players like that typically don't engender bidding wars, which is a nice way of saying Minnesota could have offered half as much and still been free and clear. The final year isn't guaranteed, at least, but this was a bad idea. Traded second-round picks in 2011 and 2014 to Miami for Michael Beasley. This was a good move in the sense that the Wolves received a talented player for nothing; I think Beasley could be a beast in the right environment. That said, I'm not sure this is the right environment. He's likely to see a lot of minutes at the 3, but he's been far more effective as a 4 his entire career. Additionally, he's not a defender, exacerbating a weakness that already persists throughout the frontcourt. It's hard to criticize the deal given how little it cost, but this might not be the right landing spot for Beasley to break out. Signed Luke Ridnour for four years, $16 million. There's no way to sugarcoat this: This was a horrible decision. Ridnour turns 30 in February, comes off a Fluke Rule season he has no chance of repeating, and, as with Flynn and Sessions, he's a pick-and-roll specialist who will be a fish out of water in Rambis' system. Bravo to Ridnour for cashing in on a career season, but it's hard to comprehend how this advances the rebuilding effort one inch. Signed Anthony Tolliver for two years, $4 million. This deal can become $4.8 million with incentives; either way, it was reasonable value for a fifth big man who showed some promise for Golden State last season. Traded Al Jefferson to Utah for Kosta Koufos and two first-round picks. Perhaps the most contentious move of the summer was the salary dump of Jefferson to the Jazz. The idea of trading him was defensible given his inability to coexist with Love, but the Wolves traded Jefferson right when his value was lowest and got 50 cents on the dollar in return. The first-round pick from Utah is likely to be a late first-rounder; the other pick is from Memphis and is top-nine protected through 2015. In other words, Minnesota is left with two picks that are unlikely to produce a player of Jefferson's caliber. Traded Ramon Sessions, Ryan Hollins and a 2013 second-round pick to Cleveland for Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair. Minnesota's two free-agent signings from the summer of 2009 went into the discard pile in this trade, as the Wolves immediately cut West and will have only Telfair around as an emergency point guard. One would congratulate them on admitting their mistake so quickly were it not part of the larger what-is-the-plan-here-anyway theme emanating from the Kahn administration thus far. Biggest Strength: The Bench o(一︿一+)o Rarely has such a bad team been blessed with such a good bench. Minnesota's projected second unit this season is Jonny Flynn, Martell Webster, Michael Beasley, Anthony Tolliverand Nikola Pekovic. Webster and Beasley started for playoff teams last season, Flynn was the Wolves' third-leading scorer as a rookie, and Pekovic was arguably the best player in Europe. I didn't even include Wayne Ellington in that list, but with just slight improvement, he'll be a rotation-worthy player as well. If so, he could bump Beasley to the backup 4 spot and Tolliver out of the mix entirely. Lazar Hayward also could factor into the mix, although he seems likely to be the 12th man on most nights. I'm also partial to Kosta Koufos, who will begin the season as the third center but will force his way into the rotation if he ever gets a spine. I've been hard on Kahn, but this speaks to one thing he's done right: accumulating a bunch of assets, most of them young, whom the Wolves can develop and barter at some point farther down the road. Biggest Weakness: The Management (￣□￣|||)a I'm including the gamut from top to bottom here. Glen Taylor is widely considered one of the league's least competent owners, and Rambis made several head-scratching moves in his first campaign on the sideline. Nonetheless, Kahn is the focal point here. He's yet to provide any convincing evidence that Rubio will ever suit up for the Wolves, he made three highly questionable offseason moves (signing Ridnour and Milicic, and trading Jefferson), and his public comments -- most notably the ones about Beasley that got him fined by the league -- make one wonder whether he's out of his league in this job. In fact, if you look at his personnel moves in his first two offseasons at the helm, it's hard to find a single one that bore any permanent fruit for Minnesota. First-round picks Flynn and Ellington struggled last season, Rubio didn't play, and Ty Lawson was traded to the Nuggets. Sessions and Hollins bombed as free agents, and Milicic's contract is, at best, a premature declaration of victory. Similarly, it's not clear what he got out of this summer. Converting the 16th pick into Webster is a break-even move at best, and the two first-rounders for Jefferson are likely to provide two more second-tier players. I'm more enthused about the acquisitions of Beasley, Tolliver and Pekovic, but Kahn's administration is long overdue for a victory. In the big picture, the only player on the roster who would appear to have high long-term value is Love … who is one of only two current Wolves inherited by Kahn when he arrived. Outlook ( ‵▼′)╯☆(￣#)3￣)ξ∵ The Wolves are likely to improve in spite of themselves; most teams don't stay at rock bottom for long, because the combination of draft picks and cap space gives them a powerful forward boost no matter how inefficiently the resources are used. That should be the case for Minnesota. Despite giving away Jefferson, cutting salary to the bone and making several other puzzling personnel decisions, the Wolves will be hard pressed to match the misery of last season. The improvement of the wing positions alone should give them a powerful shove forward -- it's difficult to emphasize enough how awful Minnesota was at these spots last season, but adding Johnson, Webster and Beasley should improve the situation significantly. Additionally, this team has much more quality depth than it did last season. As noted above, the second unit looks downright solid. Love provides another opportunity -- the mere act of starting him should add a few wins even if he doesn't improve at all, and he's likely to keep progressing. Unfortunately, much work remains to be done. Right now the team is basically Love and a mismatched collection of half-good players; while that's a dramatic improvement on what the Wolves had last season, it's a long way from contending for anything important. Prediciton: 27-55, 5th in Northwest Division, 14th in Western Conference -- ◢█◥◤ ◥ ──馬尾 +25 ─臥蠶 +10 ─喜歡甜食 +10 ─愛講髒話-41╮ ▉ █ \ \ \◣ 白皙 +15 腿漂亮 +10 158～163CM +10 政治魔人-10│ ▋ ▍│ ︽︽鎖骨 + 5 小於Ｃ +10 講話沒腔調 + 5 粉紅布鞋-10│ ▍ ▍│ 〃〃長的像 http://is.gd/bHxsA +100 │ ▏ ▍│◥ ▄ ◤ 我可以要求六十分嗎？ │ ☆─◣│ ▉ ────────────http://www.facebook.com/KreenK2 ─╯ -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 220.138.128.154