I’ve been hearing national media regularly point to the loss of Kyle Anderson as a reason why we’ll regress. I wish people remembered anything besides the Mavericks series because other than that series, Kyle was VERY ineffective on the wolves last year with by far the worst net rating and this matched the eye test in my opinion. Now I think he can be a solid even great role player in the right system (see 2022-23 or Memphis run) and he may have been hampered by the eye injury but the fact is he was BAD all year long.
Now I’m not super optimistic about our bevy of 1st and 2nd year guys or the corpse of Joe Ingles being even net positives next year but the bar is so low for them compared to what Kyle brought us last year that we don’t need much to end up in the same place.
If national guys had a clue about how poorly Kyle played on the two big roster last year, they wouldn’t worry as much about us replacing him.
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All I am getting from this chart is Luka Garza is our best player
SloMo was great in the Dallas series
Slomo still catching strays
Analytics don’t work on him btw
This is the playoff net rating, and Kyle Anderson also had a +5.1 net rating in the regular season. You do have to play well in the regular season before you can make the playoffs, and having a high seed increases your odds of a deep play off run.
It also isn’t just “national media” people who don’t have a “clue” about the wolves talking about the impact of losing Anderson. The wolves success was primarily about their phenomenal defense and Anderson was a big part of their bench unit’s defense. He was a versatile defender who could fill in for multiple roles on the defensive end. None of the players that would be replacing him can do that. The team made a bet that they could lose some of defense and gain more in offense. It might work, but as you said it is relying on an old Joe Ingles and some rookies or other young players to step in right away. It is not unreasonable to think the wolves as a whole will take a step back from losing Anderson, even if it is a small one. At the very least, it will probably take time for the new guys to adjust to playing for the Wolves.