Minnesota Timberwolves' Bench Is Killing Team's Postseason Dream

How good is the Western Conference in the NBA?

Just ask the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The Wolves entered this season with nothing but high hopes. Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio, Nikola Pekovic, Kevin Martin, and a clean bill of health were supposed to lead Minnesota to the Promised Land—or at least to the playoffs.

So far, it’s actually gone well for those individuals.

Love is having a typical, best-power-forward-in-the-NBA season. Rubio has been doing such Rubio things as dishing dimes, but shanking shots. "Pek" is essentially replicating his 2012-13 season, which makes him one of the more productive centers in the league. And Martin has actually exceeded expectations. 

Add Corey Brewer’s seamless integration into head coach Rick Adelman’s fast-paced offense and you’d think the Wolves would be in great shape, but then you look at that bench and you realize all the flaws this team truly fosters.

As of Dec. 16, the Wolves sit at 12-12, good enough for 10th in the Western Conference and two games in back of the eighth-seeded Dallas Mavericks.

It’s not like the Wolves are out of it. Clearly, that’s hardly the case. They’re right in the middle of the hunt in the Western Conference—but after a 7-4 start that included wins over the Mavericks and Oklahoma City Thunder and near-wins over the Los Angeles Clippers and Cleveland Cavaliers, it seemed like the Wolves may have been heading for a better spot than “fighting for the No. 8 seed.”

But that’s OK. If I were to have told you in the preseason that Minnesota would be treading .500 territory 24 games into the season and in the hunt for the playoffs, you wouldn’t have been surprised.

Maybe the way the starters have played has adjusted expectations. Maybe their production means we should think more highly of the Wolves. But if that’s true, then the Wolves' bench has brought the team right back to .500. And that’s exactly where all of Minnesota’s problems lie—with the bench.

Walk into a bar in Minneapolis and ask 20 people who is the best bench player on the Wolves. The first thing you’ll realize is that you’re the strangest, most socially incompetent person in the bar. (Who goes around a bar asking about Timberwolves’ bench players?) The second thing you’ll realize, though, is that no one is going to repeat the same answer.

J.J. Barea? Sure, he’s the “instant offense.”

Dante Cunningham? He makes his mid-range shots when he chooses to take them.

Then it really starts to go downhill.

Luc Mbah a Moute is still getting acclimated. Robbie Hummel isn’t providing much when he’s not hitting his threes. Alexey Shved has played himself so far out of the rotation that he may be playing himself out of the NBA altogether. Because every non-starter has failed to contribute in the way he was supposed to, the Wolves haven’t been able to develop any sort of chemistry in their lineups.

Adelman has lineup indecision galore—and it’s not necessarily his fault. So far this season, all 30 NBA teams have combined to play 183 five-man lineups for at least 30 minutes. Only two of those lineups are from Minnesota.

So much shuffling, so much change, so much inconsistency. All of that makes it so much harder to develop chemistry and any sort of familiarity between teammates.

Basically, when the Wolves put three or more bench players on the floor, they don't produce—at all.

When Barea, Cunningham, and Shved share the floor, the Wolves score only 93.2 points per 100 possessions. When Barea, Cunningham, and Hummel share the floor, they score a mere 98 points per 100 possessions. When Barea, Cunningham and the recently departed Derrick Williams—now a member of the Sacramento Kings—played together, it was the same story—well below-average offense and only 93.7 points per 100 possessions.

The offense transforms into bleak nothingness when the starters leave the game. Now, consider that Minnesota's starting unit is scoring 107.7 points per 100 possessions, a number that would be good enough for third in the NBA if a team scored at that rate, and it's pretty easy to figure out why Adelman can't—and won't—take his starters off the floor. No team can survive that sort of drop-off in offensive efficiency.

So what is there to do in Minnesota? The newly acquired Mbah a Moute will help, especially defensively, once he starts to get comfortable. But really, the issue with all these bench lineups is the lack of scoring, and that hasn't been a problem that seems to have a remedy.

Clearly, the absence of Chase Budinger, who would be the best non-starter on the Wolves, has hurt Minnesota, but it's hard to wait on a guy who missed significant time last season with a knee injury and who is amply taking his time in coming back from a surgery in which he had part of his meniscus removed.

Who knows how dependable Budinger will be when he returns? Who knows when he'll even return? That leaves the Wolves with the pieces that they have.

Mbah a Moute is going to help defensively, but is a jump-shooter who doesn't make many jump shots. Cunningham, who has attempted only six free-throw attempts in 473 minutes this season, might need to start taking more shots at the rim, but he's shown absolutely no interest in doing so. 

Maybe Barea, whose numbers are down across the board will start playing up to his capabilities. That's supremely possible, but is it enough? Waiting for Barea to progress to the mean might be Minnesota's best shot at getting some slight help off the bench, but it also might not have the strong impact this offense needs.

At least the Wolves can take comfort in the fact that they don't have to win this season.

This isn't a must-win year for them. It's a must-step-forward year and, so far, we've seen some of those strides. We've seen a mold that can work in future seasons, as recent as next year.

Look at what the Portland Trail Blazers, who confidently rock a record of 21-4, did last offseason after finishing 33-49 and harboring one of the worst benches—if not the worst bench—in the entire league.

They went out and acquired Robin Lopez and Thomas Robinson, essentially for free. They signed Mo Williams to a low-end-of-the-market, late-summer contract. and they signed a consistent three-point shooter in Dorell Wright to a cheap deal.

They did all of that while furthering the development of their young point guard and holding onto their stud power forward, who had been in the center of trade rumors for so long that no one can even remember when those rumors started anymore.

There's a model to be copied here. The blueprint is there. The Wolves just need to be patient on the way to building their own gem of a team.

For now, though, the starters have been effective enough to make up the starting five on a Western Conference playoff team. But the bench has done all it can to keep the Timberwolves out of the postseason, and until that gets fixed, the Wolves might continue to stand outside the postseason peering in on what could have been.

* All statistics as of Dec. 16.

Fred Katz averaged almost one point per game in fifth grade, but he maintains that his per-36 minutes numbers were astonishing. Find more of his work at RotoWire.com or on ESPN’s TrueHoop Network at ClipperBlog.com. Follow him on Twitter at @FredKatz.