They should know all about missing lamelo seeing how often he’s injured

Thats legit my only concern about him, if hes healthy for awards and playoffs, im happy, but i the odds are not in our favor

Im still surprised they traded him given how much Kon and Miller appreciate having a PG to set them up.

If he plays 65+ games a year for the rest of his career then definitely. But I’ll believe that when I see it

We will absolutely miss him and I wish him and the Wolves the best. The East is a buzz saw atm and it’s not going to be a good time most likely.

I think Charlotte is aware they’ll miss him, but are willing to live with the growing pains because they don’t believe in their ceiling with him.

They they don’t have a ball handler lol. Kon is not a pg. neither is Brandon miller. Idk what they’re doing but it’s not cooking.

Yeah the extremely analytics forward Charlotte FO totally didnt realize what they were doing.

The trade is about his ankle injury history and his reaction to physical play. We’ll take a step back. They know that lol.

The front office lives off numbers bruv they know what they’re missing that’s not the point of the trade

We miss him when he’s hurt as well

The FO understands this. Not saying I agree with it (I don’t) but the idea is we take a couple steps back now but will be better setup for the future

Yeah, I mean, there is a reason people make a fuss about him. He showed up last year in a focused mature way.

It’s not impossible that KK will regress as a sophomore, and that his overachieving as a rookie may have been somewhat due to LaMelo breaking down opposing defenses.

Is Anderson going to start? The track record of slightly built waterbug PG’s who can shoot is rather atrocious.

Charlotte has a lot of great players, but generally they excel off the ball. Without Lamelo their offensive rhythm won’t be as fluid, which I suspect will influence the quality of everyone’s shot.

Again, they’re all great players with a lot of upside and room to grow, but Lamelo is an elite engine on offense who makes everything easier and everyone better. Coby White can run a serviceable offense, but It’s going to be hard to match what they had.

They’re gonna credit Ant’s leadership and claim he turned Melo around

Somebody in the other thread about him claimed he plays “inefficient basketball”, like oh we just saying all the dumb casual shit

That’s because he is inefficient…he’s well below the league average TS%, doesn’t draw FTs, and takes really bad shots. This past year he had 29 games where he shot over 57% TS and the year prior he had like 6 games where he shot over 50% from the field which is terrible for his position. Just for comparison, Kon had 55 games where he shot over 57% TS. That’s not take away from OP’s point but you are absolutely wrong when it comes to his own individual efficiency.

Everybody said KAT wasn’t a winning player. He got trashed every season and postseason until he won.

Most people on here only care to talk about LaMelo when they get a chance to talk about how dumb he is.

Point blank, his play-in stats aren’t good. It’s fairly thematic over the course of the NBA’s history, there’s guys and teams that can light it up in the regular season, but come playoff time, the level of competition rises. Gameplans are dialed, execution matters.

LaMelo is getting 40+ million a year through 2029, which is 1/4th the salary cap, 1/5th the luxury threshold.

There’s obviously a valid argument to Charlotte’s front office and coaching not being adequate to unlock the roster and surround him with the right pieces. It’s not all on LaMelo, but they’d seen enough of him, or, not enough, in most cases, to pull the trigger on a soft reset.

Instead, he gets an ideal situation in Minnesota role wise, to play alongside a superstar with 2 other proven players in Gobert and McDaniels, and a solid contributor now in Dosunmo, where hopefully those ⁴⁄₅ can buoy a roster that is now lacking depth.

It’s a win/win/win for all parties involved, honestly. The biggest question marks now being LaMelo’s health and Coby White’s ability to be the lead PG. Both of which have a shaky track record in those areas.

Wolves are gonna be lucky to not be a playin team. Lamelo and Ant with no depth and no big men on the roster except 34yr old Gobert. They don’t even have a top starting 5 in the West. Maybe if they make a few moves but as currently constructed they look terrible

How much of that was actual injury and how much of that was Charlotte tanking? It IS concerning, but also I feel like he would have played more if they had a reason to have him play more.

Damn, that is less even than Zion.

He also played less than 30mpg because of the injury concerns

At least it’s an upward trend 

Now check his with Coby White. They’re basically the same as with Melo. The problem was that LaMelo was being replaced by Sion or some other player who is not a 1.

Do you have the actual numbers for these, as in makes /attempts for minutes with lamelo and without

He is absolutely not league average without him, but yes he shoots much more efficiently with Lamelo

He’s a good offensive rebounder and can certainly help on defensive rebounding, but T wolves need actual bodies, like dudes who will
Box out and physically battle for rebounds. Lamelo isn’t that.

Those certain players just happen to be Jokic, Luka, Pritchard, Caruso etc

I mourn for the team the hornets could have been. I have a soft spot for the hornets as a kings fan as I feel we have had somewhat similar histories, and I think the ball/miller/kon core could have been lightning in the bottle the way that the young nuggets and young warriors cores were. You just don’t see advanced lineup stats like that for lineups that are that young almost ever. Cutting it short after one play in loss is fucking idiotic and cowardly.

r/nba ⁹⁄₁₁ when you bring up the fact that “inefficient chucker” Kobe had the same career TS% as Tim Duncan

If he scores 100% of the 150 that you mentioned he still doesn’t hit 35ppg.

They probably tried to sell him high because he is so injury prone. The 3 previous seasons he played 36, 22 and 47 games. They think that this season in the exception and that he wont be healthy in the future.

I’m probably biased as a Hornets fan but I agree with the trade, I don’t think he could ever be a top 3 PG, at least not as a first option. He is an amazing playmaker and a good scorer, but he is just not a finals level first option.

Him having Ant will be huge imo, but I wouldn’t trust him time and again in clutch “Must score” situations in the playoffs. He has no go to scoring options in the half court outside of a PnR ig.

There have been too many games where a strong perimeter defender and a good game plan have rlly nullified Lamelo. I won’t forget Camara once had Lamelo in jail so bad he looked like a 3rd stringer

I agree with some of this, but I think you’re off on a couple of things. I don’t think the swaps are completely irrelevant. They’re not particularly valuable as of now, but it’s essentially a slight bet against Minnesota in terms of health/depth over time. I also think Rudy Gobert being 34 and so important is another interesting factor here. If Gobert eventually falls off a cliff in terms of play due to age, suddenly those pick swaps look a lot better.

I also don’t think the miles bridges trade really changes the Lamelo trade logic. Sure they got more assets, but it doesn’t change the fact that a Lamelo, Kon, and Miller core is extremely flawed for post season ball. All 3 guys struggle at getting to the paint and being effective inside the arc. Committing resources to that core was always going to come with big risk and the play in games really made that clear.

Kon and miller were always going to have to create more no Matter what happens with Lamelo. They’re meant to be the 2nd and 3rd options for charlotte. A natural part of their progression as players was taking on a little more ball handling. And frankly both guys showed growth there, especially Brandon miller. He was making more advanced reads out of the PnR as he played more this season and was a huge part of charlottes surge 2nd half.of the year.

And I think saying the team is “stuck” is a bit of an overstatement. They’re in a better position than maybe any team in the league to trade for a guy they need. Yes they need to add another ball handler who can inject some playmaking, but they certainly don’t need a Lamelo ball 1:1 player. They badly need someone who attacks the rim/paint consistently, draws fouls, and is effective in the PnR and isn’t as reliant on jump shots as miller and Kon. Also adding another ball handler embiid/AD salary to this team makes no sense really unless you truly believe charlotte is contending for a chip within a year of getting that player.

I feel like this wasn’t the most fair take on the trade.

Best take I’ve seen here. Although I do think miles bridges is a good player they should have kept, even to eventually turn into a backup pf

There was a thread recently, somebody asking who’ll be the next player to break the 30 PPG barrier. Ant looks like a shoo-in.

I’m seriously curious about this. I don’t know how we have a post about “winning basketball” that is seemingly only taking into account one side of the ball.

Also I think there’s an argument to be made that Lamelo is a great floor raiser but maybe not a great ceiling raiser. That wouldn’t necessarily show in the stats, but it could be an aspect to how he might not be a good championship piece even if he has technically played winning basketball with the Hornets

The most obvious thing to mention and it doesn’t look good, but this thread is just about glazing 

The Wolves are going from 72 year old 6’1” Mike Conley to 24 yo 6’7” 2nd best net rating LaMelo Ball.

We’ll be fine.

The minutes he was on the floor the Hornets offense elevated to a top 3 offense in the NBA. It’s not like he was just lifting a bottom cellar team into mediocrity, he literally raised them up to an elite level on that side of the court.

Michael Jordan era Hornets didn’t know you could build teams at all lol, and the new org clearly didn’t see him as their guy

Naz Reid without Gobert cleaning up his defense is gonna be the thing I am most interested in watching.

He’s been gone for 2 months and u guys already shitting on Naz, shameful

Since 2022 the Charlotte offense is 10 points better with him on the court its not a one year thing

true but since 2022 the Hornets offense is 9 points better with him on the court

Defense

Lamelo is gonna be amazing in Minnesota

I think taking a shot on Lamelo being healthy is worth it, it’s not like we gave up very much and I think it raises the teams ceiling, ant is gonna be unlocked next season. 

The offense was still multiple points better with Lamelo instead of Coby so they weren’t basically the same and there’s the fact Lamelo played over 1000 more minutes

Turns out when you compare anybody to a rookie Sion James they look like an MVP

Naz Reid is vertically higher than Lamelo

They’re not fancy numbers they’re the most basic measures of offensive impact

Ant is dumber than Lamelo off court and it’s not particularly close