Game #65, Road Game #33, Lakers 109, Minnesota 102
1. Point Guard Roulette
Mike James was the best Timberwolves point guard tonight and it wasn’t even close. James had his best game in a Wolves uniform in at least 6 weeks, going off for 18 points (6-14 FG) and 11 assists versus one turnover and ringing up a gaudy, team-best +15 (sez popcornmachine.net). Meanwhile, starter Randy Foye–taking over for Troy Hudson, back to obvilion with a DNP-CD–had one basket in 4 attempts, one assist and 3 turnovers while going -22 in just 15:03 of play.
Foye should have received the majority of the minutes.
Look, the Wolves started the night needing to leapfrog *4* teams in order to bag the final playoff spot, including the club that whupped them by 20 just 48 hours ago. One reason they are in this position is because Mike James spit the bit during the first two months and a half months of the season. Back in early December when people were grumbling for James’s scalp, I said it was way too early to punt a three-year $24 million investment. But by the time James was finally removed from the starting job in favor of Foye, it was almost a mercy move, legitimately spun that maybe James would get back on track being more of a shoot-first player coming in with the second unit and playing against opposing scrubs. That worked for maybe a game or two and then James was back to clanging wide open three pointers and playing abysmal defense.
The past week or two, James has been almost an afterthought on this squad, demoted to third string point guard with the recent Hudson flirtation. Tonight, Foye gets the starting nod and frankly stinks up the joint, bringing James into the game with 3 minutes left in the first and the Wolves already down 17. In other words, James has absolutely nothing to lose, and he plays like it, going to the hole more consistently and as hard as he has all year–and, as a new wrinkle, looking for people to dish to off the dribble. James still doesn’t play defense very well, but let’s give him his due; he arguably was the best Timberwolf on the floor tonight.
But James has had plenty of chances to do this earlier in the season, and rarely came through. Due patience was exercised. As of now, Mike James ranks as the biggest disappointment in a disastrous season full of disappointments. Here’s what we don’t know: Has James somehow turned a corner, figured things out, settled down, made the transition–pick your own cliche–or does he have the kind of mental makeup that allows him to flourish after little or nothing is expected of him, which seems to have been the pattern his entire career? As I say, we don’t know.
We also don’t know how high Randy Foye’s upside as a point guard can be. Will Foye continue to yo-yo between confident, in-the-flow games and ones like tonight’s walk in the twilight zone? If he has the shot, why doesn’t he stroke it? If he prefers to drive, why doesn’t he penetrate? How does a guy who has 14 free throws coming off the bench Friday not get to the line in 15 minutes as a starter on Sunday?
Two players, two sets of questions. Which set does this organization most want answered? Taking it the way Wittman did tonight and going with the hot hand, the one that gave him the best chance to win, ultimately gives him and the team partial, less reliable answers about both players. Because, unless Wittman and Co. are planning on letting the best performing point guard get the lion’s share of time on a game by game basis over the next three years, it sets up a false construct.
Here’s why I think this team should play Randy Foye over Mike James for the rest of this season regardless of their performances from here on out. One, Foye has a much greater upside. Two, James has had a shot–50 starts at the point versus 9 (plus one at shooting guard) for Foye–and has more of a track record to judge already. Three, because salaries have to be within 15 percent of the person you are dealing for, James can bring a better player in a trade than Foye can if and when the Wolves decide to ease their logjam in the backcourt at the end of this season.
Look at it another way: Say James blossoms and Foye flounders in the remaining 17 games of the season. What are your plans for this ballclub in 2007-08? Now say Foye blossoms and James flounders–what are your plans for next year then?
Now let’s make it really simple. The bottom line is that the Timberwolves are not going to make the playoffs this season. The bottom line is that Foye is the one out of the two who looks like the raw material from which you can create a bright future–not guaranteed by any means, but better odds than James suddenly taking his game to a dramatic new level at age 32. So yeah, if James is going like he was tonight, bump his minutes for that game up to 15, maybe even 20. And if he keeps producing, keep him in that 15-20 minute range, with the promise that he’ll get a chance to compete again for a starting spot in next year’s training camp. But take a good, hard, honest look at Randy Foye, who, by the way, was never a point guard in college and is trying to make the jump as a rook in the pros, on the fly. His play this season deserves a solid 28-40 minutes per game from now until the end of the season, not the measley 15 he got tonight while James logged 33. All that did was further scramble and obscure an already unfocused, hodge-podge situation at arguably the most important position on the court. For those invested in silver linings, it looks like the great Huddy experiment is over.
2. Davis 41:45; McCants 6:15
Apparently Wittman has no doubts about who his shooting guard is. Ricky Davis, whose contract expires at the end of next year, got off for 33 points (11-21 FG) and supplemented it with 6 rebounds and 6 assists. Rashad McCants received a cursory 6:15 (-2), giving Mr. Davis (-5 in 41:45) enough time to catch his breath. Wittman obviously prefers to divvy up the small forward minutes between Trenton Hassell and Marko Jaric, leaving the 2-guard spot between Davis and McCants. Davis continues to leak out whenever possible, catching at least two court-length passes tonight, and making himself eligible for many more. Defense? Sometimes he plays it, sometimes he doesn’t. This is fine with Randy Wittman, as one of his assistant coaches should remind him every third or fourth time he wheels around and furrows his brow and stamps his foot during a game. Those invested in silver linings should note that Mark Madsen (+1 in 14:59) and Craig Smith (+9 in 12:51) combined to get more minutes than Mark Blount (-16 in 25:29).
3. Taking KG Off the Dribble
Kevin Garnett had a marvelous line: 26 points, 15 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 blocks. As J-Pete frequently pointed out, he was manhandled yet again without getting enough calls, a pattern that is only going to intensify if opponents can get away with it. I admire his selfless grit in that regard: One of the few abiding conceits in KG’s career was his constant need to be announced as 6-11 before the game when he is actually closer to 7-1. This, it was once explained a long time ago, was because Garnett did not want to be regarded as a center, or anything resembling a paint-centric pivot man. The dude is a large small forward at heart.
But small forwards have to stay with their man off the dribble, and that was something KG failed to do with a rather alarming consistency tonight. Granted, Lamar Odom is a tough matchup, a legit 6-10 and pretty quick. He also had a legit 16-9-8 tonight and seemed to operate pretty easily in penetration. On other occasions, Garnett seemed out of position in transition. Now, the standard cavaet to all this is I don’t know how the coaches were instructing the team to play pick-and-rolls and quick transition plays, and how they were instructed to play Kobe, who had 50 points tonight, by the way, when Kobe had the ball. On the play J-Pete correctly called the pivotal play of the game tonight, for example, late in the 4th quarter, Odom drove across the lane and KG was temporarily picked by Ricky Davis’s man. KG was fighting through the pick and had every intention of staying on Odom, but would have quickly adjusted if Davis had made the right play and done an immediate switch to block Odom’s path to the hoop. Instead, Davis stayed home, Odom was too quick turning the corner, and KG fruitlessly fouled as Odom laid the ball in. Other times, KG had Odom straight up and Lamar simply beat him to the hoop. Other times, KG jumped out on a man in transition and the man fed the ball by him to a teammate KG once was guarding for an easy hoop.
Put simply, not one of the superstar’s better games on D. But when you play Ricky Davis over 41 minutes, and Mike James 2 seconds shy of 33 minutes, you better anticipate an opponent shooting 52.5% and getting 36 assists (on 42 baskets) and half as many turnovers.
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