Meh, playing hard, trying to score in a blowout is fine. But I want to see the young guys get minutes there. For my Wolves I want to see Leonard Williams getting some minutes where if he makes some mistakes on D, they can learn from that. Or see if Luka Garza can finally start defending the pick and roll, or see if Minott can put in some quality minutes… I could care less if Anthony Edwards gets his 30th point in a game because he’s still in in the final couple minutes of a blowout.

Things I don’t want to see in garbage time:

Teams situationally taking time outs, to swap in players or even to go over game plan unless it truly is a teaching moment. I don’t want that last few minutes to be taking 15 minutes of real time because they are playing it like a 3 point game.

Stars risking themselves late in games, especially against a frustrated opponent.

Hucking up shots or trying to get some stat in the final 30 seconds. Looking at you Ricky Davis. Or as a Magic Fan in the Shaq years, Anthony Bowie

Still playing “chippy” late in games, taking obvious fouls late in games, trying for the steal when the shot clock is dead and a team is running out the last 20 seconds or so.

One of my fun memories of a game last year I went to for the Wolves was an earlier one last year, where the Wolves were starting to get that big lead vs. Houston. And finally up by 20 or so with 2-3 minutes left. And got to see Boban hit the floor and play a bit. That was more fun than KJ Martin try and get 20 points or something.

I agree, play to the whistle (or the shot clock expiring). Run your offense and take good shots if they are there in that time, don’t just keep passing in circles and toss a contested 3 for multiple possessions. If you are a full court press team, see what those non-rotational guys can do in that defense and press. But I’m fine if those minutes are your 10-15 bench players.

I don’t know. He’s meh defense and low efficiency offense. I’m not sure he would be a 19-6 point guard with better talent around him. I mean offensively he’s a bit like a lot more turnover prone, not near the shot version of Kemba Walker.

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He doesn’t strike me like that “great player on a bad team” type of guy… Not Beal his rookie year, Kat his first couple, Devin Booker playing on 20-25 win teams for his first 4 years, even early Trae on bad Atlanta teams.

He’s got that feeling of a guy that is being forced to do more than he should be. Kinda early Michael Carter Williams early on. He did stuff yes. But his role was much better suited as taking a step back with a more talented roster.

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Cade’s usage rate is 31%. That’s higher than Wemby, Trae, Lebron, Dame. He’s closer to Jokic than Jaylen Brown. On a decent roster he probably should be in that 18-22% range (Austin Reaves, VanVleet, Marcus Smart, Dinwiddie, Suggs).

Yeah, it probably means instead of 22-7 on 35 minutes a game, he’s more like 12-5 on 28 minutes. But I bet he’d start playing better in that role. And probably not be averaging 4.4 turnovers a game either.

Has the team let him down… Sure. But he’s also dead last in win shares of the 2021 draft class. He’s getting asked to do a lot and he’s not able to.

It kind of makes sense… As pointed out, taking a D from last in points allowed and last in effective FG% allowed to now 3rd to last in points allowed and last in effective FG% allowed, what’s the value of the player who can do that for a defense?

It shouldn’t be THE metric, sure, but it should definitely play a part, and I am fine if leading arguably the worst D in the league prohibits a guy from winning defensive MVP votes vs. other guys doing similar things but leading better defenses.

Iif you can have a team where avoiding that great defensive player mitigates his impact, it makes it hard to gauge that value to his team, which is why I think the bigger guys who can rotate and contest shots from other players more tend to win DMVP more often.

So I get that being a part of the impact or value of that player for his team is 2nd or 3rd worst D and near the top in the lottery vs. a great defender pushing his team from a solid to a great defense and competitive to at the top of their conference.

Take Dwight for example. Rashard Lewis, older Vince Carter, Jameer Nelson, Redick, Williams, Ryan Anderson, Turkoglu… These guys weren’t great defenders, but with Dwight they were arguably the best team defense and capable of winning 50+ consistently. I think Wemby will get to that. Not the highlights, but the communication, the knowing where to move and be a step quicker, etc will come and you’ll see that team defense improve with that whether or not he has the block numbers as high or not.

But lets face it, he is in the running (not the front runner but I believe was 2nd best odds by vegas to win DMVP behind Gobert by Vegas), so it’s not like most people are saying “horrible D, he’s out”. And Gobert is playing more, Davis is out on the court something like 17% more often where Wemby is on the bench not impacting the defense… Those things will come into play too. Tatum I like a lot in how he affects the entire team defensively… and again, 23% more time on the court where Wemby’s impact is zero.

Sadly the obvious reason is then fans wouldn’t buy tickets and revenue drops.

I get it, if you knew Taylor Swift wouldn’t be performing and instead she’d have an understudy sing her stuff with her band that night, no one would buy tickets.

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But the NBA does that pretty consistently now (Saying this as a Wolves fan who’s been to 3 games so far this year and didn’t see a healthy Jimmy Butler or a healthy Zion in two of the 3). Last year I went to 10 games and about half I missed out on the opponents best players (Denver didn’t travel their stars, Lilliard sat out, a couple others I don’t remember now and of course I’d gotten Nets tickets before they sent away Irving and Durant lol). Wolves won most of them which was cool and their guys aren’t resting much outside of injury so that was ok, but still. At least Lebron was back from injury early late in the year.

There’s a few things living in Minnesota working against us. Small market team with limited success means the “national broadcast games” where there are more fines don’t apply as much (I think we have 5 this year). And it’s often a long trip stop in the Midwest so that’s a perfect spot to maximize rest.

I’m not sure I can think of a good answer there. Maybe something where if a player rests on a road game, they have to rest the next home game they play as well? It’s a bit drastic, but I truly don’t know another good answer.

Calf injury. Was nice seeing him come out in intros. And to see Jaylen Clark walk out.