He put up a nice game tonight. I'll take 13 points in just 25 minutes from my starting center. Plus, he's a great leader.

Sanrayin - You'll have to forgive me, I'm a rookie forum poster and I haven't figured out the quote stuff, but this is in response to your Gerald Green line and McCants in general.

I'll start by saying that I'm (a) no McCants apologist and (b) more realistically a McCants downer, but I think it's more a product of Wolves fans' lofty expectations for him.

I think at his best, he's a sixth man on a solid team. I'm huge on basketball pedigree and McCants learned from very good coaches on NBA-clone style teams. I think he's a smart player who worked hard on his conditioning last season even when he was injured. For him, I'm looking for solid play spelling a starter.

Here's my reasons why I think we need to start him at the beginning:

1) His rookie season (05-06) Dwayne Casey would yank him from games for making the slightest mistake. Casey was so consistent with this move that McCants would look to the sideline everytime he fouled someone or made a bad shot, etc., not unlike a Pavlov's Dog reaction. You can't do this to a developing player.

2) He was out with injury for a big part of last season and, even worse, it was microfracture surgery. Amare is the only guy I've ever seen that has been able to get it back.

3) IF (big if) he can play, I think it would be nice to have the option of using his qualifying offer once the market determines his value. THis way, we can either cut him lose or match the market's determination of his value.

I do think if it's obvious he hasn't gotten his explosiveness back post-injury, it's time to yank him.

I will also say this: I was genuinely excited for Gerald Green, but after going to the preseason game against Indiana Tuesday and going tonight, he looks absolutely lost. I think \"low basketball IQ\" is an understatement. Basketball retardedness might be more accurate, and I hope he's invested his money well because he's not long for this league at the rate he's developing.

TwinsTerritory wrote:
I'd argue that he even played better than the box score would indicate...very promising performance from Ratliff tonight. As I said in my recap, it sure looked like he'll be just fine in the starting lineup, based on tonight's game. Just gotta stay healthy.

TheOldLogoNo prob , either use the the \"quote\" button on the right downside of every post to quote the whole text (you might then want to manually delete all parts of the post you don't want to post), or you just use the \"reply\" button as normal, then use the quote function above to create two quote-brackets (like this (quote)(/quote) ), only with edgy brackets instead of round ones). Then put the text you want to quote between those brackets via copy&paste (looks like (quote)quoted text(/quote) ). When using this feature, you might also want to put the name of the person you quoted above the quote manually. You can also type the quote feature manually. When correct your post looks like this:

(b)Quoted Person wrote(/b) - the \"b\" feature makes bold letters
(quote)quoted text(/quote)
your response

Don't forget to use edgy brackets instead of the round ones I used to show you how it's done(otherwise I would have triggered the functions ).


By the way: I really like your Avatar!

Had to get some groceries for the weekend...can now get back to TheOldLogo and the \"McCants-discussion-in-the-Ratty-thread\" !

Well, it is really astonishing how we appear to sides of the same coin. I would consider myself \"pro Shaddy\", but while your sense of realism allows you to award him a starting spot albeit you seem to have not such a high opinion of him, my sense of realism allows me to recognize his potential as that of a roleplayer at best albeit my fandom of him. We are starting on completely different grounds, but by aknowledging the exactly same facts, we end up nearly on the same position...with the fun thing being, that we both venture a little into the other extreme: You \"dislike\" him and have him starting, I like him and bring him from the bench (sorry if I put things too blantantly to make my thoughts more clear).

Like I have stated above, I'm completely with you on your argumentation about McCants, I would just like to add the following thoughts:

~ From the things I have heard, he might have worked a little to much on his conditioning. When rehabbing from microfracture, your options for training are kinda limited, so Shaddy has added lots and lots of muscle, especially on the legs. But that has somehow (and naturally) affected his shooting mechanisms which has caused his shot to become more shaky than ever. He will need time to adjust to that.

~ I don't know, but on one thing you seem mistaken to me:Really? What about Kerry Kittles, Zach Randolph, Doug Christie, John Stockton and Jason Kidd? They all posted identical or even better statistics after undergoing the dreaded microfracture surgery. I'll admit that it can be held that only Amare's game relied so much on athleticism as Shaddy's appeared to do, but I for exactly the reasons you named yourself, Shaddy has other tools to carve out a career.

@ Gerald Green:
Sadly, I can't argue with you on that. If you haven't heard yet: I'm from Germany and haven't seen an NBA game in years, so all my assumptions are based on what I can find on the internet. If you get those impressions form live experience...fine with me. If I look at Greens statistics over his first two seasons, there is a slight decrease in his second year (per 48 mins), but that might result from being fielded against the opposing starters instead of against the opponent's secondary like in his rookie year (where he did not play that many NBA games anyways). And even those statistics look quite solid to me. If he collects those by sheer athleticism instead of hoops IQ...I don't care. If he was able to reproduce those statistics some time in Minny, I'd say we ride him as long as his legs hold up ! But you will be able to judge this situation better, because you have the first hand experience.

I've been really busy, so I haven't had much time to post in the forums...

However, props to Mad Dog on sticking with Ratliff despite being bashed by almost all of us. Although, had I known that McHale would have pulled off the impossible and traded Blount, I may have been more likely to back Ratliff.

To keep the discussion going - here's my starting lineup

PG: Foye
SG: McCants
SF: Gomes
PF: Jefferson
C: Ratliff

My first round of subs:

PG: Telfair
SG: Brewer
SF: Green
PF: Smith
C: Howard

However, if Telfair starts showing that he's competent, I move Foye down to the 2 spot and start Sebastian. Man, things certainly got a lot clearer with Ricky and Blount gone. You know longer have to decide which of the youngsters you're going to have to bury at the end of the bench.

You covered what I was saying in your last sentence. The athleticism is what I meant. All the players you listed above relied on skills that transcended raw athleticism. If McCants can develop lights-out shooting, then I think he'll be fine playing in the league. If he doesn't, he's just another run-of-the-mill undersized shooting guard. So, yeah, I think we both agree on what McCants is. I will say this: McCants does have the potential of being an overacheiver, which I would definitely welcome.

I have read through a lot of your stuff and I did catch that you are from Germany. I also like your writing and your basketball insight. As for Green, I was seriously excited to have him, although I had never seen him in a game before. Now that I have watched him, he's been a disappointment, and he hasn't been able to get close enough to the basket to use that athleticism. He also gets too frustrated with himself if things aren't going well. Overall, when he's on the floor, the team isn't as good (from what I can tell).

TheOldLogoAh, ok. I wasn't sure if your last half sentence \"able to get it back\" really referred to athleticism. Therefore I used \"seem mistaken\". But again we appear to be of similar opinion .Thanks for your words and compliments for reading up on older posts in this forum. You'll have figured I maybe riding that excuse a little too often, but it really hurts being able to feed only of second hand information.

Thank you very much for sharing your real life impressions, which seem substantiated as well as educated, with me. Maybe Green just needs more time to adjust to a new team because he isn't as fundamentally sound as other players...otherwise I'll hope that Telfair can finally get his act together so Foye can play more time at the two.

Not a problem. I realized my forum profile doesn't say it anywhere, but I'm also Jeremy and the fine people here at TWolves Blog added me as a contributor this past week. I did a recap of last night's game and I've written a couple other posts under the \"Jeremy\" module under contrinutors on the main page.

I'm looking forward to continued discussion with you and everyone else.

Have a good one.

Both times I have seen Ratliff play this year (the C's game & the game I was at v. Milwaukee), he has looked awesome. I knew he was a great defender, and if healthy would be a very solid defensive presence in the middle. I, however, had no idea that he had an offensive arsenal. I don't know if these two games are just a fluke or what, but I'm talkin jump hooks, post moves, and strong dunks galore! He has looked fabulous on both ends this preseason, and I am very surprised & excited!

Bytheway, my opening day starting lineup would read:
PG - Telfair
SG - Foye
SF - Gomes
PF - Al Jeff
C - Ratliff


I thought Bassy looked really good on the offensive end, and liked the way the team ran on offense when he was at point. Then, Foye could play OG, where he is definitely more suited (although small). The big problem with doing this would be our lack of backup PG, but if Foye is gonna play 35+ minutes as I expect, he could takeover at point while Bassy is out. Because Marko should never play PG. But I don't think Foye should start at PG either. Also, I have changed my SF vote from Brewer to Gomes. Brewer just doesn't look ready to start yet. And Ratliff & Big Al are locks, IMO.

BonK wrote:

Very good analysis of Theo last night. He looked just AWESOME. I was shocked by his play. Completely blown away. Mad Dog, major props to you for sticking up for Ratty the entire off-season. I apologize. I will also no longer call him \"Theo's Ghost\", \"Theo's Corpse\", \"The artist formerly known as Theo Ratliff\", \"The 11 million dollar expiring contract\", etc.

I guess I'll do my starting lineup while we are at it:

PG: Foye (only because there is NO ONE else.)
SG: Brewer (I know he's not ready to start... It should probably be McCants, but that's too painful for me to consider.)
SF: GOMES!
PF: Big AL
C: Theo's Cor... err, Theo Ratliff

I agree with your lineup Derek. Except for Howard because he just got bought-out today. That spot will probably go to Walker now.