Despite Rough Present, Timberwolves Are NBA's Most Promising Future Powerhouse
A 12-game losing streak is never cause for celebration. Neither is a 10-year losing streak, even less so when those skids are simultaneous, as in the current case of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
These are dark days, indeed, for basketball in the Twin Cities. Kevin Love, the team's post-Kevin Garnett superstar, practically forced his way to the Cleveland Cavaliers this past summer. Ricky Rubio, Love's most promising running mate, succumbed to a severe ankle injury in just his fifth game of the 2014-15 campaign.
Nikola Pekovic and Kevin Martin, the T-Wolves' only reliable scoring threats, joined Rubio on the shelf shortly thereafter. Minnesota all but waved the white flag when it sent Corey Brewer to the Houston Rockets in December.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the Wolves, at 5-28, are all alone at the bottom of the Western Conference and could challenge the Philadelphia 76ers and New York Knicks for absolute futility in the NBA. These and the league's other dregs can all hope for a brighter future, with draft-day dreams and free-agent coups coloring their respective blueprints.
But only the Wolves can point to tangible proof that better days lie ahead, however far off those days may be.
Waiting for Wiggins
The sooner Andrew Wiggins develops into the superstar he's long been pegged to become, the sooner those days will arrive. With Minnesota so bereft of healthy and productive veterans, the 19-year-old has seen his role expand at warp speed.
Fortunately for the Wolves, his skills are catching up. Wiggins has been superbly productive since late December, averaging 21.0 points on 50.0 percent shooting (45.5 percent from three) over his last seven outings.
His defensive performance still leaves much to be desired, as Arron Afflalo's 34 points on 11-of-18 shooting Monday, largely at his expense, will attest. On the whole, Wiggins ranks among the bottom third of the league defensively, according to ESPN's Real Plus-Minus. But Wiggins has all the requisite tools to grow into a standout stopper: length, quickness, instincts and a desire to be great, among other things.
So long as his frame fills out and his principles on that end improve, Wiggins should be no worse than merely above average defensively.
"He’s so athletic," Brewer, then still with the Wolves, told Bleacher Report back in December. "He doesn't know how athletic he really is yet, I don’t think, because he does some stuff, and it’s like wow, it’s amazing. There’s a lot of great players like that.
"They’ve just got to keep getting better, though. Even though they’re athletic, they have to work on their games, and they have to get better at the little things."
So far, Wiggins has gotten better at those all-important little things—quick cuts to the hoop, moving off the ball on the perimeter, rotating on defense—and, in all likelihood, he'll continue to improve.
For now, as Steve McPherson noted for Rolling Stone, Wiggins' talent may not always show up in the analytics, even when he flashes it more frequently on the floor:
"I don't mean to discount the work that Wiggins needs to put in. He is, after all, being paid a healthy sum of money to work as hard as he can. But he's 19. I don't believe that any of the authors of the recent analytics pieces on Wiggins feel we can write him off or stop paying attention to him now, but numbers laid out on a computer screen can have a way of shutting down a conversation before it even starts.
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The pressure on Wiggins to become a star is understandable, for the most part. He is, after all, not only a former No. 1 overall draft pick but also the crown jewel of Minnesota's return on investment for Love, its most recently departed superstar.
The Other Bounce Brother
But Wiggins, while the most important young piece in the Wolves' puzzle, is hardly alone in that regard. Minnesota's litter of Timberpups runs deep, with a total of eight rookies or sophomores on head coach/team president Flip Saunders' current roster. Of that group, only Glenn Robinson III and Troy Daniels have yet to sniff significant playing time in Saunders' rotation.
Daniels, though, is the newest of the bunch. He arrived in Minnesota by way of the Brewer trade in mid-December and has played just 58 minutes in eight games since then. Robinson, on the other hand, is a second-round rookie who's just shy of his 20th birthday.
As for the other five non-Wiggins youngsters, they've each seen their respective roles wax and wane with the tides that have rolled through the Wolves locker room.
Zach LaVine, Minnesota's own pick at No. 13 in 2014, saw a big bump in playing time once Rubio went down and Mo Williams missed time. The 19-year-old caught everyone's attention when he outplayed Kobe Bryant, his childhood idol, during a 28-point outing in a win over the Los Angeles Lakers in late November.
"Once I saw my first shot go through the hoop, I’d never played at Staples Center before. I grew up a Laker fan," LaVine explained. "Kobe was my idol growing up. I had a little chip on my shoulder. That was my first time back, being that I came from UCLA. I wanted to put on a little bit of a show."
The next game, LaVine was held scoreless in Portland. In the Wolves' return to L.A. to take on the Clippers, LaVine managed a modest 10 points.
He's seen plenty of ups and downs since then—17 points in Houston, his first double-double as a pro (22 points, 10 assists) in San Antonio, 14 assists at Golden State in late December on the one hand; six turnovers opposite Stephen Curry and company, 4-of-15 shooting against the Lakers in mid-December, 2-of-9 shooting against the Denver Nuggets in his third game of 2015 on the other.
LaVine figures to see his role shrink back down in the weeks to come. Williams displaced LaVine from the starting lineup. Rubio figures to do the same to Williams whenever he returns from his ankle injury.
The Strength of Sophs
Gorgui Dieng seems likely to suffer a similar fate whenever Pekovic is ready to play. Dieng, the 21st pick of the 2013 draft by the Utah Jazz, has held his own (and then some) in Pek's place. Over his last 26 games, 25 as a starter, the Louisville product has averaged 10.5 points, 8.7 rebounds and three combined blocks and steals in 31.7 minutes, including seven double-doubles and two 20-10 outings.
Dieng may never be the starting center on a playoff-caliber club, but the 24-year-old is certainly capable of cleaning the glass, though he has a ways to go as far as refining his interior defense is concerned. According to NBA.com, opponents have converted 56.9 percent of their 9.5 attempts at the rim per game against Dieng—the fifth-highest mark among players who've faced more than five such shots across at least 10 games this season.
Even so, the Wolves figure to deploy Dieng rather liberally once Pekovic is ready to play. As the Pioneer Press' Andy Greder wrote back in late September:
"Pekovic averaged 31 minutes a game last season, and Wolves coach Flip Saunders said his plan will be to limit the center's time on court to six or seven minutes at a time. That strategy was on display when Saunders limited Pekovic's scrimmage time during the Dunks After Dark event just after midnight Tuesday morning.
Second-year center Gorgui Dieng figures to be the primary center off the bench, with 10-year veteran Ronny Turiaf also providing help.
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Among Minnesota's second-years, Shabazz Muhammad may be the best bet as far as current production and future potential are concerned.
It certainly helps that Muhammad, the 14th overall pick in 2013, has such a clear path to a steady starting spot on the wing. Brewer's no longer around to impede his development, and while Martin may seize that role once he returns from wrist surgery, there's no guarantee that Saunders won't keep him on the bench to serve as a scoring sixth man.
Either way, Muhammad's made the most of the opportunity in front of him. In nine starts since Brewer's departure, Muhammad has averaged 17.8 points on 47.2 percent shooting, including a career-best 30-point explosion in Utah.
"Coach is letting me play a lot more minutes and letting me make my mistakes, and hoping to play better," Muhammad said during the Wolves' recent visit to L.A. "That’s something that I’ve really been trying to do, and I thought I’m really doing a good job of just starting to play and get a lot of minutes, and it’s going well for me."
Frankly, Muhammad's uptick in production isn't a huge surprise. The 22-year-old's shown himself to be a born scorer, dating back to his days as a high school phenom. His offensive repertoire—replete with herky-jerky moves, quick post-ups and all manner of close-range jumpers and flip shots—is a throwback to a bygone era, when the mid-range wasn't such anathema to NBA offenses.
That makes Muhammad somewhat unique and, in turn, uniquely valuable in his ability to exploit the league's market inefficiencies in the middle.
Of greater import is the extent to which Muhammad has emerged as a marksman in Minnesota. After hitting just 27.3 percent of his scant three-point attempts (0.3 per game) as a rookie, the former UCLA Bruin has seen his accuracy (.429) skyrocket along with his tries (1.3 per game), particularly over his last nine outings (48.1 percent on three attempts per game).
The playing time has helped to boost his confidence and production but so, too, has Muhammad's improved conditioning after an injury-riddled rookie year.
The Wolves had hoped the same would happen for Anthony Bennett, the other big bounty from the Love trade. But a summer spent reshaping his body and a season absent the night-to-night uncertainty that surrounded him in Cleveland haven't magically transformed Bennett, the No. 1 pick in 2013, into a player becoming of his draft stature, as Grantland's Zach Lowe wrote:
"Bennett is just 21, still something like a rookie after logging 663 minutes in Cleveland amid a deluge of injuries and medical issues. But Bennett doesn’t do much of anything during his brief stints with Minnesota’s sad second unit; he exists to miss 20-foot jumpers, play awful defense, and return to the bench.
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Even Bennett's abysmal beginnings, like those of the Wolves as a whole, aren't without silver linings. He's exceedingly young and built like a tank. In time, he could be a reliable contributor to Minnesota's frontcourt rotation...or not.
As Many Possibilities as Lakes
In any case, Bennett is but one cut from the Wolves' crop of cheap, young talent. Among him, Wiggins, LaVine, Dieng and Muhammad, Minnesota should be able to dig up a star, with another quality rotation player or two among the remainder.
And there will be more on the way, in case those ones should falter.
The Wolves will own their 2015 first-rounder so long as it lands among the top 12 in the lottery—which, at this point, seems about as sure a bet as the sun rising in the east. Beyond that, they're owed a slew of second-round picks between now and 2017 and won't have to dole out any other first-round selections unless Saunders decides to start trading for veterans.
But the Wolves needn't wait to spend those picks for things to start improving on the floor. According to Yahoo Sports' Marc J. Spears, Rubio should be back in action later this month. With Rubio in tow, Minnesota can continue to concoct on-court chemistry between its soon-to-be handsomely paid point guard and its stockpile of eager recipients.
Per Fox Sports North's Phil Ervin, Martin and Pekovic are targeting mid-January return dates, as well. They'll join Thaddeus Young, a versatile veteran in his own right, to solidify the Wolves' foundation beneath their youth. They'll also cut into the minutes currently allotted to some of Minnesota's youngsters, though that may be for the better.
"Sometimes, I think players, especially when they’re younger, they think part of their development is just going out and playing, just playing minutes, that’s it," said Saunders back in December, in reference to how he handled Garnett's development in the mid-to-late 1990s. "That’s not part of it."
For all young players, those in Minnesota included, it's about doling out responsibility...responsibly. That will be easier for Saunders to do when he doesn't have to play his prospects big minutes by default.
The Big Picture
The Sixers don't have that luxury and could suffer lasting consequences as a result. Their supply of prospects at present is at once underwhelming and mysterious. Michael Carter-Williams, the reigning Rookie of the Year, and Nerlens Noel look less like stars than capable role players, though that could certainly change in time.
There's no telling yet what Philly will get out of Joel Embiid, a gifted but oft-injured center who's expected to miss the entirety of what would've been his rookie campaign, or Dario Saric, whose triumphant arrival from Europe may be two years away.
There are no quality veterans to hold the fort in the meantime, unless Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Jason Richardson somehow qualify. The Sixers will have to hope that they can dig up a blue-chipper in the draft over the next few years, with their high lottery picks and flurry of second-rounders snagged from across the Association.
As for the Knicks, the NBA's other five-win bottom-feeder, they already have an established superstar—Carmelo Anthony—but only the barest of cupboards around him.
Team president Phil Jackson emptied the cache even further on Monday, when he offloaded J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert in a three-way trade for little more than a second-round pick and cap relief. Now, New York will focus its efforts on finding a young talent in this June's draft and luring some more experienced pieces to the Big Apple in July.
The Lakers are stuck in a similar predicament, with their collection of castoffs tepidly supporting the ever-aging Kobe Bryant. The Utah Jazz have put together a nice nucleus, albeit one bereft of a true star to this point. The Orlando Magic are still sorting through the parts they've gathered since bidding adieu to Dwight Howard. The Boston Celtics are just beginning their latest teardown in earnest now that Rajon Rondo's gone.
There's no guarantee that the Wolves will bounce back sooner or stronger than the rest of their rebuilding brethren. Injuries and underwhelming results could submarine this project, just as they did the one that once had Love at its epicenter.
But, as far as the ingredients on hand and the plan to use them going forward are concerned, Minnesota can take heart in the recipe for success that Saunders has put together. Whether that yields a tasty product or another bitter flop, only time will tell.
Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter. All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
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