briantw

Holy shit was that show bad.

In accordance with the WWE Wellness Policy...

Nothing's gonna change until Vince dies or retires, so either get used to it or stop watching WWE like I have. Between NXT, NJPW, and Lucha Underground, there's more than enough good wrestling to go around. No need to be a slave to the WWE empire. Hell, even Impact is rebounding now and getting interesting thanks to their Lucha Underground partnership.

Supposedly he's backstage tonight, so my money would be on him making an appearance.

Hulkamania is back, brother! Just goes to show, if you say something horrible, just wait three years and people will probably forget about it.

You should, as it's the best weekly wrestling show on television and it has a wholly unique style compared to other promotions.

Pentagon revealing himself as a member of the crowd and then demolishing Cage with a chairshot this week on Lucha Underground was one of the best wrestling moments I can remember watching. Made me grin like a fucking kid.

Keeping Wiggins over Butler is the type of decision that will haunt a franchise for years. Even in the most optimistic Wiggins projections I can't see him ever becoming as good as Butler has been.

Love love love that Channing Frye signing from the Cavs. One of the big problems during their last rebuild (aside from botching several draft picks) was that they really lacked any mature adults in the locker room, and thus got sucked into a culture of losing and negativity. You need guys like Frye in a young locker room to give the kids some perspective and to keep guys from developing losing habits. It also gives them a bit more rope to trade Love, as they'll still have a veteran floor spacer who has a good attitude and doesn't cause drama. Now I just hope they bring back Jefferson so Road Trippin' can make it's spectacular return!

Tough for a guy on a rookie deal to force his way out. Only real way to do it is take the qualifying offer, but if he does that he costs himself the five year max the Wolves can give him. I guarantee you he signs that five year max and then forces his way out after year three or so. I don't think there's been a single rookie contract guy since they changed the supermax rules that's passed on it if it was offered. You'd be a fool not to, even in a shit situation.

Any time you can give a max contract to a guy who isn't even good at basketball and then lowball one of the fifteen or twenty best players in the league, you gotta do it.

Yeah, but the other problem with Wiggins is that he wasn't even remotely efficient before he regressed under Thibs. Even in his best season thus far, he's been a below replacement level player. Also, I don't think the team matters at all right now. Love, no matter the team, is an asset. At the very worst, you can probably flip him at the deadline for a younger guy and a draft pick. Wiggins, on the other hand, is a player who has never shown any indications that he'll be anything other than an inefficient volume guy, and he quite literally has the worst contract in the entire NBA right now. I don't care if I'm the Hinke Sixers. I'm taking Kevin Love all day every day. I can always trade him. I can't trade Wiggins, and I'm certainly not holding out hope that he ever becomes a star. Too big a risk for a guy on the books for the next five years at an average of around thirty million a year. No intelligent GM would take on Wiggins' contract. Which means you guys should be calling up Sacramento yesterday.

Well, the main thing that separates stars from role-players is efficiency. The problem with Wiggins is that, while he scores a decent chunk of points and plays a lot of minutes, he's not efficient in the slightest. He's a low-efficiency volume scorer. And that's fine if he's your sixth man on the MLE, or even someone who is only moderately overpaid like Jordan Clarkson. The issue with Wiggins is that he's being paid like he's LeBron or Durant when he's never even statistically been an above replacement level guy. Wiggins was supposed to be, at worst, a 3&D guy, but four years later he still can't shoot threes all that well and he's still awful on defense. He just hasn't shown anywhere near the level of improvement you'd expect to see from a guy you gave a max contract to. Also, if you had told me at the time of the Wiggins trade that, five years later, I'd still much prefer having Love than Wiggins, I'd have thought you were crazy. Funny how things work out. Kevin Love is making less than Wiggins this year despite actually being a productive NBA player. Lot of people thought the Cavs lost that trade, but here we are today and Love is an actual asset while Wiggins' contract is completely untradeable.

Ultimately, I think the Wolves sealed their fate when they signed Wiggins to that godawful contract for no reason. No one would have given him anywhere near that money in the open market, and he sure as shit isn't even worth half of it. That's the kind of contract we'll look back on in a few years when Towns demands a trade and mark it as the moment that any chance of contending passed the Wolves by. Just a remarkably awful decision. Right up there with trading Harden right after making the Finals.