“He’s going to empower players to be as good as you want and he’s going to give you enough rope to hang yourself.”
Chris Webber has earned his keep in broadcasting. He’s smart, fair and usually honest. But he’s never said something before that fit so perfectly. C-Webb knows Rick Adelman as well as any NBA player in the league, perhaps of all time. He paired with Adelman in the summer of 1998, Webber being banished from Washington for reasons that had more to do with his off-the-court issues than anything else, and quickly became the De Niro to Adelman’s Scorsese. The perfect partnership making beautiful music together. It was there Webber was re-discovered and resurrected, Adelman putting Webber at the high post and taking advantage of his unique gifts. He allowed those teams to play, to make mistakes and to grow. The best teacher is experience, and in all his years in the NBA getting his teams to play over their heads, Adelman knows that as well as anyone.
His system emboldens players to make decisions themselves. He encourages it. The best parents are always the ones who aren’t overbearing, won’t slap you around or punish you for coming home drunk one night. They’ll be sensitive, still will scold you, but will ultimately let you decide for yourself.
If you’re open and don’t shoot it for Adelman – as Webber says – he’ll take you out. “Play your game” is what I imagine he says to nearly every one of his players behind closed doors. “Be yourself.”
Ricky Rubio has to be feeling rather lucky right now. For a while, it was rumored he didn’t want Minnesota. He wanted a big market, probably better weather and the chance to become one of the greatest international players ever. On Saturday night, he showed us a little of everything: lobs, behind-the-back passes, his rebounding potential and even his saving grace as a Tebow-esque crowd pleaser. With Adelman coaching him, I have complete confidence Rubio will turn into a very good NBA player.
Kaaaaaahhhnn. I can’t really hate on the man the way we used to. Outside of the fact that we’ve gone through nearly every point guard/small man joke in the book, David Kahn has proven to be vastly more competent than we ever dreamed (And before you start chastising that J.J. Barea signing, remember this: Adelman doesn’t run many pick-n-rolls but as a change of pace guard off the bench, one of the best pick-n-roll point guards in the league could offer something different). I remember one of the very first pieces I ever wrote for Dime was a research post discussing the different ways you could build a team: through the draft, free agency, trades, doing everything and anything you possibly could to find that one star player. Kahn was ironically one of the GMs I talked to. He was down to Earth, engaging and absolutely positive about what his plan was.
He needed great players. Actually, Kahn needed something more. He needed one of the top picks in a draft that had potential superstars. Perhaps his plan all along was to suck, build up his assets on young players and pray to the the gods of Ndudi Ebi that he’d get lucky and fall into the lap of another Kevin Garnett.
“That sounds obvious or simplistic,” Kahn told me. “But if you go back through history, very rarely will you have a championship team that doesn’t have one or sometimes two players who are at the top of their field.”
Minnesota was bad enough that they drafted Wesley Johnson, Ricky Rubio and Derrick Williams. They were stubborn enough that they kept Rubio when they could’ve shipped him out to make room for any of their 15 point guards from the past few seasons. They also had to be lucky, and in a way, luck netted them Kevin Love, their cornerstone.
Whereas a few other teams – I’m talking to you New York – are assembling rosters and coaching staffs in complete disregard for how they function together (You shouldn’t mix Mike D’Antoni and a team designed for the half-court), Minnesota went after their man and got him. Adelman works best with skill players, and for a team coming off a 17-win season, the Wolves are surprisingly FLOWING with skill players.
Minnesota won’t make the playoffs this year. Probably. I think. But all these months we’ve been searching for the next OKC, another young, small-market team that could prove to us you can do it outside of the big city if you’re smart, it’s ironic it may turn out to be run by the guy who was a laughingstock for years.
One preseason blowout is like hearing the first single off an album. More often than not, it’ll be a different sound, and a different feeling than the rest of that joint. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Minnesota won 17 games last year. If they’re able to win close to 30 this year in a condensed season, that’ll be a success. Still, to see them slaughter a potential playoff team (Milwaukee), and watch their forwards (Love, Michael Beasley, Derrick Williams) make plays all over the court, you want to jump ahead of yourself. The Wolves spent the past few years building up to this point – to finally see the results. For the first time since KG left, they look like a content team. No one is on the move. No one is hoping to leave. The core is solid.
“I think (familiarity) is a balancing act,” Kahn once told me. “On the one hand, you don’t want to do things impulsively or impatiently. If you have a core nucleus, then you would ideally like it to grow together.”
Minnesota’s been patient enough to veer their course towards the edge of respectability. Stay poised a little longer and they’ll be exactly where they want to be.
The Starks aren’t the only ones preparing for something devastating. Minnesota knows Winter Is Coming as well. So bundle up. And if all else fails, play Bonzi Wells.
What does Minnesota need to get to eventually make the playoffs?
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