The Minnesota Timberwolves played their worst game and best game of the young 2015-16 season 48 hours apart last week, an understandable zig-zag for a team with a spread-eagled salad of young studs and aged former stars playing for a new head coach in the aftershock of losing the architect of the franchise less than two weeks earlier.
The death of Flip Saunders has already provided the big-picture definition of the season, the opening sentence on any future synopsis of what happens in the 82 games of this campaign.
But beneath that frame is a fascinating whir of tangible goals and fundamental uncertainties. Saunders’ replacements, head coach Sam Mitchell and general manager Milt Newton, have to assemble the disparate assets Saunders collected in a manner that establishes them as worthy heirs to his blueprint — a balancing act of force and finesse further complicated by the presence of Saunders’ son and closest confidant, Ryan Saunders, on the coaching staff.
Ironically, the most incendiary ingredient in this whole situation is hope. These first five games of the season have already revealed that rookie center Karl-Anthony Towns in conjunction with reigning Rookie of the Year Andrew Wiggins and a healthy Ricky Rubio at point guard are the most reliable foundation for a sustained run at championship contention that this franchise has ever amassed. That raises the stakes, and the passions of a fan base that has long been given two options on how to approach rooting for the Wolves — as a cynic or a sap.
In other words, this season is set up as a bumpy ride with incredibly valuable cargo using a continually improvised road map under fraught emotional circumstances.
The agony of defeat, the thrill of victory
Thursday night’s home loss to the Miami Heat was the sort of soul-sucking experience that inflames lingering doubts and emboldens nasty, sardonic quips that assure everyone you are above any investment in such a tawdry spectacle.
The Heat are the most talented team the Wolves have faced thus far, with capable counters to all of Minnesota’s marquee figures. Center Hassan Whiteside is enough of a rim protector to compel Towns to take his shots from outside the paint, leading to a miserable 3-for-13 field goal performance. Shooting guard Dwyane Wade has always played larger than his 6-4 height, and has enough strength and savvy to bedevil 6-8 Andrew Wiggins even when Wiggins isn’t mending from an aching back. Wiggins shot 5-for-18 and only got to the free throw line twice. Goran Dragic is one of the few point guards who matches the intensity of Ricky Rubio, and blended a pass, penetrate or pull-up for a jumper bag of options with an ingenuity Rubio couldn’t parse.
In other words, the Wolves weren’t going to win this game under any circumstances. But the outclassed starters made the typically lackluster performance by the second unit more aggravating.
Playing Zach LaVine at the point is ongoing source of provocative confusion for fans and his teammates alike. It’s bad enough that LaVine has trouble making a proactive pass that rewards movement off the ball, incapable of the vision and timing that sweetens the flow and brightens the confidence of shooters in rhythm. He is also playing alongside teammates who are competing for minutes and don’t believe they are receiving their proper due.
Like Kevin Martin and Shabazz Muhammad. Both are ball-dominant scorers who can make a case for being in the starting lineup. LaVine’s inability to get them touches, let alone set them up, triggers a go-it-alone mentality when they do snag possession. Given the tragicomedy that point guard LaVine likewise is more successful simply creating his own offense rather than passing to teammates, the situation devolves into a wretched display of hero ball by all three. The Miami loss was the most blatant example thus far.
Having already armed his critics by continuing to deploy LaVine as a backup point guard, Mitchell compounded the second-guessing by benching the hot selfish scorer, Muhammad, until the game was out of reach, and bringing in the more capable backup point guard, Andre Miller, for the first time this season with 3:58 left in the game. Miller led the Wolves to a plus-9 scoring advantage in that closing garbage time.
Two nights later, on the road against a Chicago Bulls team many expect to finish second behind only Cleveland in the Eastern Conference, the Wolves delivered a signature victory by holding the Bulls scoreless in overtime.
Wiggins, who looked so stiff and disengaged against Wade, finally backed up his claim that his back was feeling better by dominating 6-foot-7 All-Star Jimmy Butler at both ends of the court, including a 13-point first quarter that including a trio of three-points, two assists and a blocked shot. Wiggins had 22 by halftime and 31, compared to Butler’s 11, for the game.
Towns, gulled into foul trouble by the wily Bulls pivot man Pau Gasol, was faced with the challenge of blending in with a positive flow after logging less than six minutes of play in the first half. Mission accomplished.
The 11 points, 7 rebounds, two blocks and an assist that Towns registered in 15:51 of plus-16 basketball in the second half was a mere prelude to his versatile overtime heroics. He began the extra stanza by blocking Gasol’s shot on the low left block, came down, grabbed an offensive rebound and fed Nemanja Bjelica for a layup, then went back on defense and blocked a Derrick Rose layup attempt.
After that bouquet of big-man skills, Towns tipped in a Wiggins miss and fed Tayshaun Prince for a layup. At that point there were 30 seconds left to play. Towns was responsible for 6 of his team’s seven points without having a play called for him, and was the main reason Chicago was held scoreless in overtime.
Making an identity, sorting out a rotation
Sam Mitchell remains unpredictably churlish and defensive at times. He belittled the media for reasonably asking why Rubio didn’t play more against Miami, claiming it would be silly to give him more burn in a blowout situation with a slew of games bunched on the horizon. But he sat Rubio with the Wolves down 10 and 4:44 left in the third quarter, and brought him back (for all of 78 seconds) with the Wolves down 19 with 5:17 left to play. Either bring him back earlier or don’t bring him back at all.
But on the big things, Mitchell has laid an excellent foundation for a ballclub sorely in need of priorities and an identity.
Specifically, the coach has backed up his claim that Minnesota would emphasis defense this season. As ugly as the Miami loss looked, the final score was 96-84 because even when the ball isn’t moving and the shots aren’t dropping, the top crop of starters know how to limit points at the other end.
What makes that defensive acumen especially fulfilling is that Towns and Wiggins are among those responsible. Two years ago, Saunders proclaimed that the Wolves roster desperately needed more two-way players, who could be equally adept at offense and defense. Towns and Wiggins have that capability and Mitchell is mining it at a formative point in their careers. For that alone, he deserves high praise — and an acknowledgement that in this crucial phase of the game he is an improvement over Saunders on the sidelines.
As I mentioned in the last column, this virtue is bound up in Mitchell’s decision to surround his future core of two-way stars — Towns, Wiggins and Rubio — with a pair of past-their-prime veterans who nevertheless can perform and teach quality defensive teamwork in their dotage.
Fans and critics can complain about how little KG and Prince score. It’s true, that the five starters are collectively 36-for-99 from the field and 2-for-9 from three point territory together, which is just terribly inaccurate shooting. But they have yielded a mere 91 points in 59 minutes on the court together—that’s an average of 74 points per 48 minute contest. And it is 18 fewer points than they’ve scored.
Establishing an identity that can help you win ballgames? Check. Developing the bedrock of your future — Towns, Wiggins and Rubio — together in a manner that creates synergy and compels teammates to follow their example or get exposed? Check.
Attaining these two priorities has not come without a cost, however. Specifically, it is at the root of the otherwise unexplainable and inherently ugly immersion of LaVine at the point.
Remember the brief three-game flirtation of LaVine as the starting shooting guard during the preseason. Mitchell, who has always liked LaVine extending back to his days last season as an assistant, was forced after those three games to listen to his head and not his heart. If defense was indeed to be the team’s calling card, LaVine would be a saboteur.
So why not play LaVine as the backup shooting guard? Because that would mean even less court time for Martin, the 11-year vet who led the Wolves in points-per-game last season and is less-than-enthused about coming off the bench in the first place. Martin, like LaVine, lacks the dogged defensive proclivities that further this year’s culture; and, like LaVine, would bump Wiggins back up to small forward in any case.
The elephant in the room is Martin’s presence on the roster. By now, everybody knows what you are getting with K-Mart: a remarkably efficient scorer whose ability to sink three-pointers and draw fouls has him ranked 30th all time in true shooting percentage; and a chronically indifferent defender.
Right now, the Wolves are enduring the worst of both worlds pairing Martin beside LaVine as the second team backcourt. Thus far this season, K-Mart has played 112 minutes and sat 133 minutes. According to Basketball Reference, the Wolves score 95.7 points per 100 possessions when he plays and 102.3 points per 100 possessions when he doesn’t — a difference of 6.6 points in an area that is his strength.
At the other end of the court, Minnesota yields a whopping 107.7 points per 100 possessions when Martin plays and 87.9 points per 100 possessions when he doesn’t — 19.8 more points! Put the two together and Martin is factoring into a drag of 26.3 points per 100 possessions when he is on the court.
Oh, and he is also impeding the development of LaVine and Muhammad — and he’s unhappy with his role.
If you look beyond the development of the three core players, arguably the next priority is figuring out how to align the starting wings in 2017 or so. There are some who argue that it should be LaVine and Rubio in the backcourt, with Wiggins as the small forward and Muhammad coming off the bench. Others (including yours truly), would prefer retaining Rubio and Wiggins in the backcourt and slotting Muhammad as the small forward, with LaVine the instant offense off the bench.
This presupposes that either LaVine or Muhammad can become at least rudimentary defenders and at least adequately foster ball movement. And let’s face it; a lot can happen in terms of their respective developments and potential roster moves Newton and the front office can make.
But right now, that closet competition for a future starting slot between LaVine and Muhammad isn’t happening, and mollifying an ineffective Martin is a significant reason why.
NBA rotations are like a game of musical chairs — there are always more eager applicants than available slots, and the more meaningful the situation, the fewer slots become available.
Right now the second unit is a mess and the most valid source of criticism concerns Mitchell’s rotations. Both LaVine and Muhammad are players with at least theoretically huge upsides who aren’t being put in a position to succeed — or fail definitely enough to make a decision on their future viability.
P.S. Hopefully next time I’ll get to Nemanja Bjelica, the only healthy player on the roster in the prime age-span of his career (27), with an assortment of tantalizing skills and a couple of concerns. The 6-foot-10-inch Serb, nicknamed Professor Big Shots, is a former Euroleague MVP with the potential to play either forward position.
K Martin analysis
I agree with most of your points. Still, it is disheartening that the team has so much trouble finding an appropriate place for the only proven scorer on the team, Martin. He’s on a decent contract. He’s leading the team in scoring. He’s a calm veteran. I get that he’s not a lockdown defender. Neither was K Love. All players are flawed. And Martin doesn’t demand being the focal point of the team.
The points per possession discrepancies are startling, but Martin isn’t on the floor by himself at those times. Much of his playing time has been with LaVine and Muhammed. Neither of them is known for defense, either.
Some of this quandry came about when Rudez (sp) was kept at the expense of Brown, plus the roster spot of Andre Miller. If Brown were there and Rudez & Miller were not, they could play Brown (or Jones) at backup point, with Martin (or Lavine) at SG.
Lavine sees way too much time in an effort to further his development. The coach call for players to earn their time on the floor has always been out the window for him. He has been the golden child, in a sense. I say this and I like Lavine and want him to succeed.
If development is so important, then give bull-in-a-china-shop Payne full run as a backup PF/C. He ALWAYS gives max effort. And the unpredictability of what might happen will keep fans (and team medical trainers) tuned in. Payne appears to want as desperately as Shabazz to succeed. Lavine seems more in a blank fog.
Good stuff Riley
There is only one sentence that snagged me here. I think Martin does kind of “demand being the focal point of the team” in that he doesn’t adjust his game to prevailing circumstances (the way the guy stealing his starter’s minutes, Tayshaun Prince, obviously does) and he really can be a black hole with the ball when he isn’t being fed enough to his liking.
Otherwise, agree that in retrospect Brown was the choice over Rudez (but only because Mitchell has played Tyus and Miller less than four minutes combined thus far this season–would it be different if Brown was here?). Agree that LaVine is granted minutes a lot more easily than Bazzy or Payne, who clearly both work at being ready. And I agree that Kevin Martin has value–last season he was better under Flip than he ever was under Adelman, in terms of diligence. ‘
Rotation
It seems to me that having our 2 player / teachers on the starting line up with our 3 next best defenders (by a very long way) is over doing it a bit.
Add to this that Bjelica is probably our next best defender tends to be an early substitution. It would be reasonable for him to start. This adds to the offense but doesn’t hurt the defense that much, if any.
Moving KG to the second group where the most help is needed on defense. I think it might also help the offense by getting them to play more as a team. Not only is he respected, perhaps even feared a bit especially as a likely owner in the future. It also shows that the 2nd unit is considered important.
First post – really appreciate and enjoy your analysis!
Privileged legend
Dan–
I think you have to “overdo it a bit” to get the habit set, especially early in the season with a couple of young players in the lineup and the utter absence of a disciplined plan (other than to tank the last 50 games) last season.
Second, I think KG specifically wants to mentor Towns and Wiggins, who are the top priorities.
I get the case for Bjelica starting. If I hadn’t run out of room and time today, I probably would have unpacked my thoughts on Bjelica. For one thing his numbers with Rubio versus LaVine are perhaps the widest gap of any two teammates. He also has terrible numbers with Muhammad and Martin. Not meshing with ball hogs isn’t damning, or even necessarily a weakness, but one answer is to let it fly himself more often, especially from long range.
Not sure how much KG could improve LaVine or Martin. Maybe Bazzy tho.
Starting Lineup
I agree that instilling a defensive mindset should be a priority so KG/Prince makes sense to start. A change needs to be made sooner rather than later though.
The first change should be Bazz for Prince though not Bjelica for KG which I think you’re getting atas well. Bjelica is getting good minutes as is. Bazz at SF actually does draw the more physical wing defender off of Wiggins (not sure Prince actually does that with his limited O) and with 4 other decent defenders in Rubio, Wiggins, KG & KAT having Bazz as the only subpar defender is less of a concern. Prince off the bench breaks up the Lavine, Martin, Bazz mess with one fewer guy needing the ball/shots. Lavine at PG is another issue, but Prince off the bench would allow his minutes to be parsed more maybe with Miller taking a few of them so that Lavine can get a little run at SG as a start.
LaVine at SG
For those who didn’t catch it, Jim Peterson had a good tweet about LaVine, noting how much better he plays with Ricky (though it’s a small sample size for the SG minutes):
https://twitter.com/JimPeteHoops/status/663572475071057920
I’m sympathetic toward Mitchell’s rotations and think he’s done a fairly good job. Starting our defensive-minded vets alongside our core youth is a good idea in the short and long term, to say nothing of sticking with them at the end of that Bulls game. The team doesn’t lose much oomph defensively when swapping out KG for Bjelica either, which was a concern I had going into the season, and could’ve been a factor with the Bulls’ depth in the frontcourt.
If we want to be serious about addressing LaVine at the point, we need some real solutions though. As Britt mentioned, Kevin Martin is standing in the way of LaVine’s minutes there, especially if we continue to start Wiggins at the 2, which I believe we should. Barring a trade (which is my preferred long-term solution; as much as I’m a K-Mart fan, he’s likely the odd man out), we’d need to play Wiggins at the 3 to open up minutes for LaVine and Martin. There’s some logic to that arrangement, but the benefits are outweighed by Wiggins guarding more physical opponents and LaVine/Martin getting lit up at SG. Not worth it.
Everyone on the bench is a minus defender compared to the player they sub in for. Zach is getting minutes at the point because that’s where the minutes are, and calling for him to play at SG doesn’t fix our roster imbalance there, which is already the natural position of Wiggins, Martin, and Muhammad.
But let’s also keep things in perspective: of the problems this team faces, having too many talented guards is probably the easiest one to deal with. Martin’s value will rise as the playoffs approach and other teams look for scorers to bolster their roster. Martin can still be very good when defenses can’t pay much attention to him because of other players on the court.
Yes LaVine and Rubio has its allure
Anton–
Good stuff as usual.
Let’s face it: Anybody who gets to play beside Ricky Rubio this season is going to improve. It is baffling to me that LaVine brings the ball up when the pair are together on the court, but I can see how not worrying about turnovers or play-calling (remember Mitchell’s offense isn’t exactly the same as Flip’s more learning there) allows him to channel his inner superhero and utilize his amazing athleticism.
I think you do a good job of moving through why the logjam exists, and why losing a really good scorer like Martin may be the best solution.
The Burning of Atlanta
That was a very exciting game against Atlanta last night. I turned away for much of the third and fourth quarters as the game seemed to slip away. I thought for sure they’d lose but like the Chicago game, the young guys proved they are finishers. Both games showed offense and defense when the game was on the line. Good to see Wiggins healthy in the last couple of games; he made some incredible moves last night. I like when Rubio starts the game aggressively and pumps in some quick points. I think it gets the team going, reminding guys to be aggressive.
I remembered Britt making a prediction of how many games the Wolves would win this year and I had to dig through a few columns to find it. He said they’d be lucky to win 32. I know it’s a small sample and I think they are playing a big handful of games in the near future which should give a clearer view of their potential, but I don’t see how they won’t be a .500 team if they stay healthy, especially the big three of Rubio, Townes and Wiggins. Wiggins and Townes are playing like stars who believe in themselves. I think most people would have assumed they’d lose the last two games but they didn’t. The Atlanta game exposed their weakness but they way they closed both games showed a lot. The starting line up is definitely playing as a team and hopefully the second five can start to show the same.
As optimistic as I am I will be tempering my expectations Thursday when they play Golden State but I expect to see them play hard and with confidence no matter what.
long season
Bill–
Hope you are right but it is a long season and the Wolves have not played a single Western Conference team expected to play in the postseason this year.
This is a season to enjoy the journey, not necessarily chart the standings. And if you are right and they even get to .500, wonderful. But why plan on a 25-game improvement in a brutally competitive conference?
Long indeed
They’ve been at .500 or better after 6 games in half of the seasons in their history, including 3 of the last 4 seasons.
minutes
really appreciate mitchell’s approach and steadfastness to sticking to building something. rotations are going to get messy and results inconsistent, but we’re playing for the future (while winning some games). my only beef is rubio’s minutes.
it alleviates so many of the issues addressed here, particularly relating to lavine and the rest of the 2nd unit. yanking him before the under 3 TO in 1Q/3Q and not getting him back in until well into 2Q/4Q is maddening. what’s the rationale here? is it injury concerns? could someone send him the study about how pop disperses minutes please??
a lot to be excited about for the future, but feel like we’re at risk of sacrificing Ws in the present.
Rubio minutes
John–
I agree with the notion that Rubio is the floor general who makes everybody better and thus should be out there as often as possible to facilitate development, as well as win games.
Right now he is averaging 30.8 mpg, second only to Wiggins who is 32.2. And the recent dinging of his knee attests to the fact that he has been injury prone at various points in his career. So those are valid points in Mitchell’s favor here.
I would say that minutes don’t necessarily correlate to injury unless you really overdo it–sort of like a pitch count in baseball. Limiting Rubio to the equalivalent of 80 pitches instead of 95 doesn’t seem that value added. No, you don’t want him pushing 40 minutes, but I do think you want him pushing 35. FWIW, this is his lowest minute per game count since his second season when he was coming off major knee surgery.
Time will tell. Getting minutes for LaVine also a factor here, but not one I agree with.