Orangemen and the NBA...

[Moontan]

How many Gopher players are fairing well in the NBA?

Are you talking about:

1. Before the war?
2. The modern era?
3. The last 15 years?
4. Whatever criteria that I choose (and change) at will?

 

[moqui]

Wes is having the best season of his career, it is true, but he is still nothing more than a replacement level player

 

[Trueblue25]

I still feel like Hak could've done more.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Minnesota Timberwolves all time record: 667-922. That's a .420 winning percentage.

You're basically the Rutgers of the NBA. Retitle this post, The Timberwolves and the NBA Draft. And rather than focusing on Flynn and Wes, list all of the bad Timberwolves draft picks:
1990 -Felton Spencer #6
1991-Luc Longley #7
1992-Christian Laettner #3
1993- JR Rider at #5 (Allen Houston was available, better, and not completely insane)
1994- Donyell Marshall #4 (not terrible but Eddie Jones, Jalen Rose, and Juwon Howard were better pros and were available)
1999 -Will Avery #14
I'll throw in the Joe Smith debacle that basically cost them the chance to blow their first round picks for like the next 5 years.
2005 - Rashad McCants at #14
2006 - Brandon Roy for Randy Foye. Ouch.
2007 - Corey Brewer. At #7? Noah was available.
2011 - Derrick Williams at #2

I didn't even mention trading Ray Allen for Marbury(who was good). Obviously we know Marbury got out of Minn. as soon as possible.

Kevin Garnett and Kevin Love are the only high picks Minnesota has gotten right. Don't pin your failures on us.

Theyre pretty damn good ones to get right though.

They botched the Garnett era, but let's see what they can do for Love. I like Pekovic a lot, Rubio has had a slow start to the year though.

 

[AlaskaSU]

Are you talking about:

1. Before the war?
2. The modern era?
3. The last 15 years?
4. Whatever criteria that I choose (and change) at will?

check your dictionary. are is present tense. were is past tense.

 

[Madbiker]

Minnesota fan here. Coming over here mainly because of the Gophs playing the Orange in football. However, we Minnesota fans have a bit of a bad taste for orange as our Twolves have picked a few Orangemen in the first round of the draft and they have flopped royally. Does anyone here have a good explanation for why Carmelo Anthony is basically the only Orangeman worth talking about in the NBA?

Is it that players can't figure out how to play man-to-man and make the rotations in the NBA? Is it that as individual players they have some major flaws that get exposed in the NBA, but the team play of Coach Boeheim covers up the individual flaws? Or is it...(add your own thoughts).

Finally, perhaps I'm missing a whole bunch of players that have had good to great NBA careers and I'm just biased by the complete flops that have been picked by the Twolves. When the Twolves picked Flynn and Johnson I had high hopes. What gives with the Orangemen when they move on to the NBA?

Maybe the T Wolves should have drafted Carter-Williams or Dion Waiters. Maybe it's the T-Wolves organization that's the real problem since they pick in the top 5 in the lottery every year...and they still perpetually suck.

 

[Moontan]

check your dictionary. are is present tense. were is past tense.

Yup.

You apparently haven't read the football side this past week.

 

[OrangeDW]

Theyre pretty damn good ones to get right though.

They botched the Garnett era, but let's see what they can do for Love. I like Pekovic a lot, Rubio has had a slow start to the year though.

When you're in the lottery 75% of the time for 20 years, I would hope you'd hit on a few really good players.

Love won't stay, IMO.

 

[EastCoast2]

The "Syracuse players suck at defense in the NBA because of the 2-3" is the most overplayed crap myth ever. Yeah, they're barred for playing man to man for 4 years.

What do you think they do in practice? They play vs man in every game, don't you think they scrimmage man to man in practice, every day?

What about Jason Hart? Basically made a 10 year NBA career just because of his defemse. And MCW is at the top of the league in steals. As a rookie.

Most 1st team all Americans don't pan out. Most lottery picks don't. I think if Flynn was in another system as a rookie (he still averaged 13 ppg) and if he wasn't hurt to begin, he'd be, at worst, a very good backup pg on a good team.

 

[orangefan13]

12 positions x 30 teams = 360 spots.

Off topic but it would be real cool if the nba doubled the amount of nba teams. There is that many division one college teams let alone players.

Alot of the fun of watching the college game is watching the mismatches and team weaknesses in college ball. In the nba you listen to the talking heads :blah:ing about the all star talent more then the team chemistry. Instead of building these d league teams to maybe be a nba team someday, they send them to smaller cities.

 

[BlackKnight76]

Off topic but it would be real cool if the nba doubled the amount of nba teams. There is that many division one college teams let alone players.

Alot of the fun of watching the college game is watching the mismatches and team weaknesses in college ball. In the nba you listen to the talking heads :blah:ing about the all star talent more then the team chemistry. Instead of building these d league teams to maybe be a nba team someday, they send them to smaller cities.

The NBA needs fewer teams, not more.

 

[Marsh01]

Off topic but it would be real cool if the nba doubled the amount of nba teams. There is that many division one college teams let alone players. Alot of the fun of watching the college game is watching the mismatches and team weaknesses in college ball. In the nba you listen to the talking heads :blah:ing about the all star talent more then the team chemistry. Instead of building these d league teams to maybe be a nba team someday, they send them to smaller cities.

They need to drop 8 franchises immediately. That would make the nba so much more enjoyable.

 

[OrangeJEM]

Wes Johnson sucks so much at Man to Man he has been assigned to Lebron James all game.

 

[44cuse]

Well, the injury hurt him too obviously. But playing in that offense on that team for that coach hurt his stock big-time. If he had went somewhere else and had a better start to his career, he would've gotten a second contract regardless of injury.

I totally agree with that (which isn't like me because I'm the "stats are what they are" guy). But for some reason I really think the whole Minn/Kahn/Rubio/triangle thing just ruined him.

My sense was that he lacked the size (height) and was drafted way before he should have been. But his competitiveness and athleticism could have made up for it. We'll never know, but JF was great here and would have loved to have seen him somewhere like the Spurs or even Miami.

44cuse

 

[orange2win]

Well, the Minnesota Gophers currently have one player in the NBA. SU has 6 (11th place among Div. 1 schools).

 

[Moontan]

Well, the Minnesota Gophers currently have one player in the NBA. SU has 6 (11th place among Div. 1 schools).

I only count four, but that's still better than one.

 

[LennX6]

i imagine people here wouldn't be bristling so much at the allegation (SU players don't fare well in the NBA)
if in fact they didn't indeed sense the same notion . is it a zone thing? can't say. but it's definitely out there.

You know though I agree , except, Melo has Dave Bing stat lines, and all he does is get denigrated. He's not much different that Kobe (remember Kobe's rings were Shaq, Kobe, and Phil's rings), and he gets worse press despite Aspen. Derrick Coleman was a more than serviceable pro. Played 15 years. Yet reading about him you'd think he was Felton Spencer. I do think the media (whatever that means today) has the bar raised higher for SI guys than most.