Minnesota Timberwolves offseason review

As the NBA offseason plows ahead we’re taking some time to pause and assess the work each team is doing, building for the present and future. Today, we’re looking at the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Last season showed the Minnesota Timberwolves that their rebuild was headed in the right direction. Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine blossomed. Karl-Anthony Towns was every bit as transcendent as advertised. With new head coach and president of basketball operations, Tom Thibodeau, they have their foundation in place. What’s next?

Inputs: Kris Dunn (PG, NBA Draft pick No. 5); Cole Aldrich (C, signed for three years, $22 million); Brandon Rush (SF, signed for one year, $3.5 million); Jordan Hill (C, signed for two years, $8 million)

Outputs: Greg Smith (PF, unsigned); Damjan Rudez (SF, unsigned), Tayshaun Prince (SF, unsigned)

Retained: None

Pending:  None

Although there were rumors that Kris Dunn was being shopped on draft night, he really is a fantastic pick for the Timberwolves. A mature, physical, and defensive-minded point guard, he can play next to Zach LaVine or Ricky Rubio. Dunn played four years in college and, at 22-years old, is older than Wiggins, Towns, and LaVine. That puts him on a similar developmental timeline and ensures that this young roster should be cresting together.

There is plenty of excitement about Dunn in Thibodeau’s defensive system and he should be very good right away. He can defend both backcourt positions and plays with plenty of tenacity at that end. On offense it remains to be seen what will translate. He was an above average shot creator and decent outside shooter in college but could be even more efficient without having to carry the entire offensive load like he did at Providence.

Cole Aldrich, Jordan Hill, and Brandon Rush are nice supplementary pieces. Aldrich can help with rim protection and rebounding. Rush can add some wing defense and three-point shooting. Hill is a physical presence, working the offensive glass. Ideally all three are playing very small situational roles for the Timberwolves but as the team pivots from a focus on pure development to starting to compete for the playoffs, having the flexibility they provide will be an asset.

3 Big Questions

To really dig deep on Minnesota’s offseason, I’m leaning on friends with some Timberwolves expertise. Derek James (@DerekJamesNBA) covers the Timberwolves for 1500 ESPN in the Twin Cities and is a regular contributor to FanSided’s Hardwood Paroxysm. Ben Beecken (@bbeecken) is the editor for FanSided’s Dunking with Wolves.Chris Manning (@cwmwrites) is a regular contributor to FanSided and Hardwood Paroxysm, as well as an editor for SBNation’s Fear the Sword

Derek, Ben, and Chris were nice enough to help out by answering three big questions about Minnesota’s offseason.

Is keeping Ricky Rubio the right move for Minnesota’s future?

Derek James: Considering the alternative is leaving point guard duties to a rookie and Tyus Jones, absolutely. Fortunately for the Timberwolves, Dunn is willing to learn as well. This will allow them to bring Dunn along slowly, so they won’t have to make a decision on Rubio any time soon. That is unless someone tries to blow them away with an offer. For now, it would be foolish to hand Dunn the keys to the most important position in the league.

Ben Beecken: In short: yes. Rubio is a great fit with the rest of the Timberwolves’ young core, and is an absolute bargain on his current contract. He’s entering the prime of his career, and Kris Dunn was a turnover-prone, inconsistent college point guard. Wouldn’t the prototypical point guard to pair with the likes of Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins, and Zach LaVine be a lanky, pass-first point guard who is a very good defender? Dunn certainly could have a bright future, but there’s no reason to force the issue when the current answer is already on the roster.

Chris Manning: Yes, because he’s honestly really good. Particularly if Andrew Wiggins figures out his shot and Zach LaVine doesn’t play point guard, Rubio’s combination of precision passing and top-level defense is exactly what the Wolves need. Plus, throwing Dunn to the wolves (sorry, not sorry) right away doesn’t make sense when they have a guy like Rubio in place already. The move here is to bring Dunn along slowly to help his development while also letting Rubio properly set up guys like Wiggins, LaVine and Karl Anthony-Towns.

This season, Kris Dunn will be                              .

James: Very good. I don’t know if he’ll be great but I’m excited for him based off of two summer league games. That sounds absurd to me too but the potential for him to impact games on both ends with his athleticism is too great to ignore. Considering the Timberwolves’ backup point guards the last five years have included Luke Ridnour, J.J. Barea, Andre Miller, and Mo Williams, I’m excited to have a viable option off of the bench.

Beecken: A solid backup point guard. Truthfully, the Timberwolves don’t need him to be anything else. The Wolves’ bench was miserable in 2015-16, and Dunn should add much-needed defensive help to the unit, as well as the ability to initiate and potentially even create offense. As long as he doesn’t feel the need to force his own shot off the bench, he could ultimately be an above-average backup point guard as a rookie.

Manning: A perhaps overly competent understudy. Dunn looked amazing in summer league and he’s probably too good for the Wolves to keep him on the bench for an extended period of time. But because the Wolves have Rubio, he doesn’t have to start right away and he can grow into a bigger role over time. By season’s end, he might be ready to start, but that’s ok. Having good players at the same position is a good problem to have.

What do Cole Aldrich, Jordan Hill, and Brandon Rush have to offer to a team focused on youth and development?

James: I liked these signings. Well, except for the Hill signing, but that isn’t for basketball reasons. Regardless, these three can be steadying presences for the young Timberwolves this season. The Timberwolves desperately needed frontcourt help and found two viable options on good deals. Besides, Adreian Payne cannot be your third big man.

Rush also addresses the team’s need for perimeter shooting. Unless Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine, and Shabazz Muhammad became shooters overnight, they needed to bring in outside help. Being able to space the floor will allow more room for Karl-Anthony Towns and Gorgui Dieng, as well as Wiggins and Muhammad to work inside. Hopefully the returning players have improved, but Rush is a solid hedge as long as he’s healthy.

The Timberwolves were also incredibly fortunate from a health standpoint last season. It’s unlikely they repeat that in 2017. All of Hill, Rush, and Aldrich provide insurance when the injuries do come. Not only that, but all three players can play more than the veterans the team brought in last year (Tayshaun Prince, Andre Miller, and Kevin Garnett).

Beecken: Aldrich is a great fit for Tom Thibodeau, as he is a perfect fit for a pick-and-roll heavy system. He also adds needed toughness off the bench, and will allow Thibodeau to play both Karl-Anthony Towns and Gorgui Dieng at power forward for stretches if he so chooses. The contract was a bargain as well.

Rush is also a great fit with the current roster and fills an obvious need. He’s a 40.3 percent career three-point shooter and is a good-sized body to add on the wing. Rush is on the wrong side of 30 and isn’t a good one-on-one defender, but should be good enough in a team concept and a good enough long-range marksman to slot in and play an easy 15-18 minutes per game for Coach Thibs at both the three and the four.

Hill is a questionable fit to the roster, although the price was right here, too. His best position is center, but Towns, Dieng, and Aldrich are all ahead of him on the depth chart, not counting the still-injured Nikola Pekovic. He’s a solid player whose offensive game relies on put-backs and scoring in the paint. There isn’t much to write home about, and Hill’s signing seems to be a bit superfluous and throws the roster balance out of wack just a bit.

Manning: These are fine, reasonable signings. The Wolves’ best strength is the potential greatness of their youth, but you still need veteran guys to come in, teach the younger players the ropes and show them what it takes to play in the NBA. Aldrich and Rush are perhaps more ideal fits than Hill, but there isn’t anything egregious about a single one of these signings.

Perhaps the most important part of these signings is that all three guys can actually play, the Wolves’ vets last season really couldn’t. They aren’t going to be stars or anything, but the Wolves already have their stars. What they need — and what these signing theoretically provide — is competent play that compliments what Towns and Wiggins do well. The Hill signing maybe wasn’t necessary, but it’s not really an issue that matters too much.

Catch-and-shoot balance

A catch-and-shoot jumper is one of the most efficient outcomes any offense can arrive at. They are, by definition, assisted and usually only materialize when the shooter has enough open space to actually take a shot. However, not all catch-and-shoot jumpers are created equal. Last season, the league average effective field goal percentage on catch-and-shoot two-pointers was 42.6. On three-pointers it was 55.6. That’s a difference of roughly 13 points per 100 shot attempts.

That difference is particularly relevant to the Minnesota Timberwolves who had the fourth-most catch-and-shoot two-point attempts last season, and the fewest catch-and-shoot three-point attempts in the league.

In all, 45 percent of the Timberwolves catch-and-shoot jumpers last season came inside the arc, the highest such ratio in the league. This was clearly a product of the system as catch-and-shoot two-point attempts per game were fairly well distributed among several players — Karl-Anthony Towns (3.4), Gorgui Dieng (1.8), Kevin Garnett (1.4), Tayshaun Prince (1.3), Kevin Martin (1.0), Andrew Wiggins (0.8), Ricky Rubio (0.5), Shabazz Muhammad (0.5).

An open jumper is an open jumper, and several of the players in this group were very efficient mid-range shooters. The concern with Minnesota is how often their system seemed to be arranged with the intention of creating two-pointers instead of three-pointers. With the exception of Garnett, who did not attempt a catch-and-shoot three-pointer last season, every one of those players had a higher effective field goal percentage on catch-and-shoot three-pointers. Running pick-and-pops to the elbow for Towns, Dieng, and Garnett is defensible. Having wings and guards spotting up inside the arc with this kind of frequency is counter-productive.

Prince and Martin are both gone, but this is less a problem of personnel than system. Tom Thibodeau’s reputation is as a defensive genius. But with a little more care devoted to backcourt spacing he could dramatically improve the Wolves offense this season, both in the return they get on kick-out jumpshots and in the space available to Rubio, Wiggins, and LaVine for dribble penetration.

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