Archives For Rick Adelman

Tanks but no tanks

Zach Harper —  April 3, 2013 — 5 Comments

Coach

To tank or not to tank?

That’s what teams are left trying to figure out at the end of disappointing seasons. For some organizations, the entire season is one big tank fest as they rebuild and try to bring some youth and cheap labor to their re-growing roster (see: Bobcats, Charlotte). For other teams, the season just hasn’t gone their way and they go with a “change in direction” for their organization so they start focusing on “the young talent” on the roster (see: Suns, Phoenix). Teams would never admit to tanking because it’s a nightmare in terms of selling your product.

Also, you can’t tell players not to try hard unless they’re Michael Olowokandi. In that situation, he’s WAY ahead of you. You have to finagle the roster and the lineups as an organization to put out a crappy product. But you can’t come out and tell the coaching staff that a guy isn’t allowed to play because you want a higher draft pick. Players get “held out with injuries” because it’s an easier sell than being “held out with hopes of landing a top-3 pick.”

I don’t have a problem with tanking either. I wish the system wasn’t constructed in a way that promotes tanking. I’d rather have an unweighted lottery because it wouldn’t give teams any incentive to put out a crappy product the last three weeks of the regular season. But the system is what the system is. You get more beer pong balls by losing more games and that means more chances at putting together the right combination to win the draft lottery. As long as the system is this way, you would be stupid not to tank in most cases.  Continue Reading…

In 2012-13 Season, Rick Adelman
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Maybe this whole season is a blessing? We’ll see

Zach Harper —  March 10, 2013 — 3 Comments

rubio smile

It’s frustrating, right?

For two years, we’ve had hope that the misfortunes of this franchise, which have often been used as setups to punch lines about the Wolves, were going to turn around. The Wolves have a roster that includes the number two pick of a recent draft, the best power forward in the NBA, a point guard prodigy that has been competing at a professional level since he was 14, and one of the best coaches of the past 25 years. We’ve had a big man made of granite emerge from the depths of the roster.

But the Wolves have also had a horrible run of injury “luck” in the past calendar year. Ricky Rubio tore his knee, Nikola Pekovic had bone spurs, Kevin Love had a concussion, Love broke his hand, Chase Budinger tore part of his knee, Brandon Roy had the same issues, Andrei Kirilenko got dinged up, Ricky Rubio had a back issue, Kevin broke his hand again, Pek strained his groin, AK hurt his calf, then his quad, Pek strained his abdominal, etc. Let’s not forget the scary stretch for Rick Adelman in which his wife had medical issues, which she hopefully can put far behind her very soon.  Continue Reading…

In 2012-13 Season, Rick Adelman , , ,
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Timberwolves 3-point shooting: Infinite Sorrow

Zach Harper —  December 4, 2012 — 10 Comments

The NBA 3-point line has been around since the 1979-80 NBA season. Even the rule change was supposed to help usher in a new era of basketball from the 1970s to the 1980s, it wasn’t exactly an accepted practice to start chucking 3-pointers like we see teams doing today. Instead, it was a seldom-used arrow in the quiver for most NBA teams.

Because it wasn’t a widely practiced action in the NBA and used more for shooting games after practice than anything else, we saw some hilariously low 3-point production from NBA teams during the first 13 seasons of the 3-point arc. The 1982-83 Los Angeles Lakers have the lowest 3-point percentage in NBA history. They shot just 10.4% from the 3-point line that season. Sounds absurdly low, right? Well, they only took 96 attempts that season and made 10 of them. They also went on to win the Western Conference Finals because they had Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

From the 79-80 season through the 2011-12 season, there have been 171 teams in NBA history who have shot less than 29% from 3-point range in a season. But the problem with this statistic is the 3-pointer wasn’t really a thing until the 1992-93 season. In the first 13 years of the NBA 3-point line, only three teams (88-89 New York Knicks, 90-91 Denver Nuggets, 91-92 Milwaukee Bucks) took more than 1,000 3-point attempts in an NBA season. That total doubled after the Suns, Hawks, and Rockets all attempted over 1,000 3-pointers in the 92-93 season.

In the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season, only seven teams DIDN’T attempt at least 1,000 3-pointers.

Why this little bit of 3-point history?  Continue Reading…

In 2012-13 Season, Rick Adelman, Statistical Analysis , , , , , , , , ,
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Raptors 105, Wolves 86: All of the turnovers in the world

Zach Harper —  November 5, 2012 — Leave a comment

Thought you might want to see some pleasant turnovers for once.

Remember how the Wolves took such great care of the ball against the Kings, which was a huge contrast to the careless nature with the ball last season? Apparently, there is a big difference between playing a Keith Smart coached team and playing a Dwane Casey coached team.

The Wolves were disgustingly careless with the basketball. They didn’t seem to value their own defensive boards enough, giving up 16 offensive rebounds to the Raptors. Those offensive rebounds led to 21 second chance points. And then there are the turnovers — my god the turnovers! There were 24 turnovers by the Wolves in this game that resulted in 32 points for Toronto. That’s 53 points off of carelessness by the Wolves. Half of the Raptors’ points came off of carelessness. That’s disheartening.  Continue Reading…

In 2012-13 Season, Game Analysis, J.J. Barea, Kevin Love, Rick Adelman , , , ,
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Wolves 114, Haifa 81: It’s a process

Zach Harper —  October 17, 2012 — 5 Comments
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Malcom Lee and the rest of the Timberwolves know this will take time. (Pic from our friend @cjzero)

Before Tuesday night’s warmup game against Maccabi Haifa, Rick Adelman seemed pretty intent on reminding folks that he really wanted to see his key players together on the court so he could see what they’ve got. While the Wolves have had glimpses of good things in the brief preseason so far, one thing we haven’t seen a lot of is the probable starters playing together, and the bench unit getting to be the bench unit in a game setting.

Thanks to Luke Ridnour’s back, Andrei Kirilenko’s hamstring, and Kevin Love’s horrible use of a Sleep Number bed, the Wolves haven’t had much of a shot at continuity in the first three games of the preseason. With everybody available against Haifa, coach Adelman was finally going to get to tinker with some lineups. When I asked him during pregame if he felt like the team was getting more accustomed to the system, he said, “Well, we had a good practice yesterday. I think that helped having practice and I hope it carries over to today. We had those three in four nights, were missing guys in the lineup, and we didn’t play well offensively so hopefully we’ll see an upgrade in that today.”  Continue Reading…

In 2012 Preseason, Game Analysis, Rick Adelman
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Honesty is the Wolves’ policy… which is nice.

Zach Harper —  October 8, 2012 — 7 Comments

There is a lot of coach speak out there in which fans are forced to read between the lines. And it makes a lot of sense. You’re not going to give away strategies and team philosophies at will on most nights, especially during the regular season.

You can’t let the opponent for that night or for future nights know exactly what you’re thinking and how you view your strengths and weaknesses. It’s stuff they can probably figure out on their own, but you don’t want to do the legwork for them. But with Rick Adelman, there is an overwhelming sense of honesty that seems to come from his talks with the media.  Continue Reading…

In 2012-13 Season, Minnesota Timberwolves, Player Analysis, Rick Adelman , , ,
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