Monthly Archives: October 2015

by | October 31, 2015 · 2:26 PM

Talking Towns, Rubio, Wiggins

“I’ve had thirty years of NBA experience. I’ve seen guys come and go. This guy, to me, looks like he’s special. He’s the real deal.”

–Jim Petersen, on Karl-Anthony Towns, during the 3rd Quarter of last night’s telecast.

In previewing this Wolves season, I posed questions about each player, and finished with perhaps the most important franchise question about the most important player on the team:

Is Karl-Anthony Towns the real deal?

He was the player they selected with the first overall draft pick, for the first time ever. With a semblance of a young Timberwolves nucleus forming, Towns figures to be in the middle of it, next to Andrew Wiggins. If the Wolves are going to succeed in their Thunder Model rebuild, Towns needs to be an all-around force; the kind of player that can put a team on his back and carry them to some wins.

For the first time in his two-games-long career, we saw evidence of this last night in Denver. The stats tell most of the story: KAT had 28 points, 14 rebounds, 2 assists, and 4 blocks in 33 minutes of +15 basketball. His team won easily (in a game that Vegas pegged them as underdogs) and he was by far the biggest reason why. Towns looked comfortable shooting or driving, as the situation required. When an interior defender was out of position, Towns initiated the precise amount of contact to both draw the foul and maintain balance to finish the play and make the shot. His awareness might have been highlighted best by a play that didn’t register a stat: in the post, he head-faked, drew extra defenders, pivoted out of the defense and kicked out a perfect pass to Ricky Rubio at the top of the key. Ricky’s shot rimmed out — so no assist for Towns — but it was a helluva play; one that demonstrated poise and awareness befitting a player way older than 19.

On defense, Towns was very good. He had those 4 blocks and 14 rebounds (11 of them defensive) and goes after defensive boards with the same type of urgency that Kevin Garnett and Kevin Love do. When Towns senses an opponent’s hand creeping in to poke the rebounded ball away, he promptly flares out his elbows and looks for Ricky Rubio to push the ball.

This was just one game, but it seemed almost unbelievable that a 19-year old rookie could look so good in his second professional game. Fans should be excited about this player.

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by | October 29, 2015 · 1:27 AM

Wolves Hold Off Lakers, Win for Flip: (Wolves 112, LAKERS 111)

The Wolves win over the Lakers was an exciting and gratifying one for a few different reasons. It came by just one point, as Lou Williams’ shot narrowly missed at the buzzer. The Wolves trailed by double figures for much of the night, including by 15 points midway through the third quarter, and rallied for a big comeback in the fourth. Ricky Rubio had one of his best career games, scoring a career-high 28 points and dropping 14 assists next to just 1 turnover. He was clearly the game’s most valuable player and showed off a skillset that would elevate him to the bona fide stardom that many of us think is within his realistic potential.

But, of course, this win was most gratifying because of the circumstances under which it came. Flip Saunders was on everybody’s mind in the days leading up to this game, right up through the pregame routine when the Lakers wore shirts that said “FLIP” on the front, and held a long moment of silence for his memory. After the buzzer sounded, Rubio and Kevin Garnett were emotional, each pointing to the sky for an obvious reason.

Beating this Lakers team is not a big accomplishment in and of itself. Neither of the teams playing tonight will realistically contend for the playoffs in the West. But after arguably the toughest week in the history of the franchise, it felt appropriate to get this win, and that’s what the Wolves did.

Since it’s (very) late, these are a few quick reactions of mine to this game: Continue reading →

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by | October 27, 2015 · 1:35 PM

Timberwolves 2015-16 Season Preview: A Question for Every Player (Part II)

LOUISVILLE, KY - MARCH 19: Karl-Anthony Towns #12 of the Kentucky Wildcats reacts against the Hampton Pirates during the second round of the 2015 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at the KFC YUM! Center on March 19, 2015 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

[Eds note: I decided to preview this Wolves season by going player-by-player, posing one question for each. See Part I here. This is Part II, spanning from Andrew Wiggins as the last wing player through the entire front court.]

Andrew Wiggins

  • How many threes will Wiggins shoot this year?

This seems like a boring question to ask about the Timberwolves’ most important player; one who at this point seems best positioned to become their next franchise cornerstone. A reason for Wiggins having a boring, statistical-detail question asked about him is that he went a long way in answering the bigger, broader question about him last year. The one about whether he could be an alpha dog, go-to guy. Did he have the proverbial killer instinct?

In case you missed the answer to that question, let’s ask Rudy Gobert:

That epic flush was just one of many aggressive highlights that Wiggins made last season. Particularly in the final couple months, he was becoming more assertive as a first-option scorer. He had a lot of success both finishing in the paint and drawing fouls to score from the free-throw line. He won the Rookie of the Year easily. In the final month of the season, he had per-game averages of 23.3 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 4.0 assists. His ability to draw fouls was improving steadily from January through the end of the season, at which time Wiggins was shooting over 10 free throws per game in April.

That brings us to this year, and how he can improve. Wiggins can improve by learning ways to score without expending so much physical energy and putting his body through so much abuse. That will help him save energy to be the defensive stopper the Wolves hope he will eventually become. Wiggins can also improve by scoring more efficiently. One concern is that, despite his foul-drawing prowess, Wiggins is not a particularly efficient scorer yet. He shoots too many contested two-point jump shots.

The way for him to both ease his physical workload, and score more efficiently is to shoot more standing three-point shots; the type that both Rubio and Nemanja Bjelica will be able to set up for him this year, if he positions himself properly behind the line, with his hands ready. Andrew Wiggins shot only 1.5 three pointers per 36 minutes last year. I think a good reference point for Wiggins to compare himself to is Kevin Durant – in terms of what an ideal offensive career looks like for a rangy, athletic wing. KD has a career average of 4.2 threes per 36, but has shot a few more than that in recent seasons. Wiggins should aim to triple the frequency of his triples, starting as soon as possible.

By pulling defenders out to the three line in aggressive close-outs, Wiggins will only open up more opportunities for drives and huge slams like the one he put on Rudy Gobert. Extending his range and improving his scoring efficiency is a winning idea, all around.

My guess: He will shoot 2 to 3 threes per 36, this year. Not as many as we’d like, but an improvement.

THE BIGS

Adreian Payne Continue reading →

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by | October 26, 2015 · 11:53 PM

Timberwolves 2015-16 Season Preview: A Question for Every Player (Part I)

LaVine

Will Zach LaVine eliminate any of his weaknesses in his second season?

The Timberwolves regular, real season begins on Wednesday night at the Staples Center. They play against the Lakers at 9:30 CST on ESPN. On Friday, they play at Denver; a game that will be broadcast on Fox Sports North Plus. Then, on Monday, they play against the Portland Trail Blazers. This will be their home opener and will undoubtedly feature an emotional tribute to the team’s recently fallen leader, Flip Saunders.

Flip’s passing is going to weigh heavily on this team for a while, but the games will be played. The show will go on. I am qualified on neither a personal-relationship basis, or a simple “writing chops” basis to dig deep into the happy story of Flip’s life or the sad story of his death. The best I can offer on this tragedy are some words about what Flip accomplished in rebuilding this Timberwolves team, setting it in such a positive direction. I did that yesterday afternoon when the news broke and I could not focus on basketball. This is my awkward way of saying that I am going to move on, as far as this blog is concerned, and write about basketball again. As many have written in the past 24 hours, Flip understood better than most that “at the end of the day,” basketball is supposed to be fun. That is how I view it, and to me, it is fun that the Timberwolves are about to begin another season, and that is what I wanted to write about tonight.

For this piece, which I guess is ostensibly a “season preview,” I thought it would be fun to break down the Wolves roster by positions, and pose what I find to be important questions facing each player in the season ahead. Some of these will involve stats, some will involve style of play, and some will be a bit more big-picture or random. I’ll offer some quick guesses at my own questions, and open it up to commenters to weigh in on where they agree or disagree.

I’ll go through the positions in (what I believe to be) reverse order of importance to the Wolves future, for DRAMATIC EFFECT.

Without further ado…

[Eds note: This post is running longer than I anticipated, so this will be Part I, and I’ll publish a Part II either tomorrow or Wednesday that covers Wiggins and then the big men.]

THE POINT GUARDS

Andre Miller

  • How many minutes per game will appease “Professor Miller?”

When this season opens, and as long as Ricky Rubio is healthy (knocks on all of the wood) Andre Miller will be this team’s backup point guard. I think it seems reasonable to assume that a healthy Rubio will average about 35 minutes per contest. Given that neither he nor Miller are very good shooters, they will probably not share the floor much. This means that there might only be about 13 minutes per game for Miller – and that is if they play rookie Tyus Jones ZERO, and they play Zach LaVine exclusively off the ball. If the plans to prioritize development are sincere, Jones will probably see a few spot minutes here and there, and LaVine will probably play some point, too. (The part about Jones is especially likely, given the Wolves lack of a D-League affiliate where he might otherwise have spent most of the year.) Miller is going to turn 40 years old (!) in March, so his expectations for playing time might be realistically low. But consider that he finished last year in Sacramento, playing for his favorite coach George Karl, and was logging over 20 minutes per game.

My guess: Miller will be okay sitting some games out completely — with some communications and “heads up” from the coaches — but will expect some floor time, too. I think he will probably average 12 minutes per game and be happy enough with that.

Tyus Jones

  • Does Tyus have any interesting upside, and will we see any teases of it this year?

Tyus Jones was possibly the most acclaimed prep basketball star in Minnesota history. He was widely considered one of the very best prospects in his national class throughout his entire high school career, eventually made the McDonald’s All America Team, and chose to attend Duke, instead of, well, every other basketball powerhouse. In his lone season in Durham, he earned third team All ACC honors, led the Blue Devils to a national championship and was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.

If that was all that you knew about him, you would probably imagine someone who looks a lot different than Jones does. From McDonald’s games past, you might imagine somebody who looks like Jonathan Bender or Kobe Bryant or, locally, Kris Humphries. Somebody big, strong and super athletic.

But Jones is none of those things. He is only 6’1″ and very skinny. He plays with a nice pace, but is not particularly explosive. He has a lot of physical development ahead of him, if he is going to make an impact at the NBA level the way that he did in high school and college.

What I am curious to see is if there are early signs — this season — of upside that exceeds “quality backup point guard.” I notice people putting this type of ceiling on Jones’s potential, before he plays a single game. Given that Jones has been much, much better than his peers through this point in his life, and he has won championships at every level, through this point in his life, I suspect he imagines an NBA career that involves him making an impact on games; a career better than just backup duty. As a point guard, I suspect Jones envisions himself running a high-power offense — like he did at Duke — with not only smart decisions and crisp passes, but clever plays, too. Once the speed of the NBA game slows sufficiently down for him, and his body matures, can he do some of the things that Chris Paul does to clear so much space for himself around the elbows, shrugging off defenders with hand-check-deterring flops, and just generally make a positive impact on team performance?

My guess: He is one year away from showing us much to be excited about, but he may have a bright future and long career ahead of him.

Ricky Rubio

  • Will Ricky Rubio run the Wolves offense, or will it be run from the bench?

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by | October 25, 2015 · 4:08 PM

Flip Saunders Passes, Leaving Timberwolves in Better Shape than he Found Them.

FlipI was on my way out the door today when I heard the iTunes on my computer still playing. The plan was to head out to get coffee and bang out a post that previewed the Timberwolves season. I didn’t have a perfectly clear idea of what I was going to write. I was sure it would have to do with the team’s exciting young players, the patience that will be required as the franchise prioritizes development over winning in the short term, and probably some thoughts about the tactics we saw on display in the preseason, under the leadership of interim coach, Sam Mitchell.

When I leaned over to stop the music, I had my TweetDeck app open, and there was news on Twitter.

Big, huge, terrible, tragic news.

Flip Saunders died.

On one hand, this did not come out of left field. It was not necessarily a surprise, given that Flip’s cancer diagnosis was announced many months ago, and his attempt to continue working failed when he was hospitalized with complications. Nothing that has been reported in the past few weeks has sounded good, and I think most people trying to follow the situation have understood that this outcome was possible, if not likely.

Still, the news itself is enormously sad and significant on many levels.  The aspect about a person being taken too soon by cancer is self evident. But Flip is one of the most influential people in Timberwolves history, too. In his first go-around here, he was (with Kevin McHale) responsible for drafting Kevin Garnett, and coaching him through his entire professional development, and the prime of his Hall of Fame career. The Wolves went to the playoffs eight straight times with Saunders coaching. They had never been to the playoffs before he was hired, nor have they been back to the playoffs since they fired him in 2005.

Up through his recent cancer diagnosis and leave of absence, Flip was in a position of power that is possibly unmatched in modern professional basketball, or even sports. Flip was a minority owner of the team, he was the president of basketball operations in charge of managing the roster and drafting players, and he was the head coach. He had his hands everywhere, on this team.

Flip the President traded away the team’s disgruntled best player, Kevin Love, and somehow acquired a legitimate cornerstone talent, Andrew Wiggins. This came after Flip’s first draft, when his controversial decision to select Shabazz Muhammad would later prove to be wise one.

Flip the Coach made the development of Wiggins such a priority that it would better be characterized as an obsession. Nothing mattered more to Flip, last year, than making damn sure that his prized rookie cashed in on his enormous potential. By the end of the season, after continuous direction from Saunders, Wiggins was asserting himself the way that he needed to. He easily won Rookie of the Year honors, and many expect him to break out into All-Star form very soon.

Flip the President was working in close coordination with Flip the Coach. Together, they beautifully orchestrated the tanking development strategy that positioned the Wolves to select Karl-Anthony Towns in the 2015 Draft. Flip held Ricky Rubio out of 60 games for an ankle sprain (!), knowing full well that he would face questions almost everyday about what exactly was wrong that he couldn’t play his veterans. He faced that music with a shockingly upbeat spirit, and enjoyed the last laugh on lottery night, and again on draft night, when it all paid off.

Flip the Owner and businessman was also making his presence felt. He was obviously a key factor in bringing Kevin Garnett back to Minnesota; in the short term as a player, and in the longer term, as a future owner of this team. KG is perhaps the only person whose impact on Timberwolves history exceeds Flip’s, and the two of them were going to do everything they could to ensure its future was brighter than its recent past. The first concrete evidence of Flip’s business influence was the construction of a state-of-the-art practice facility in Downtown Minneapolis, across the street from Target Center. While I cannot say for sure, I doubt that this Mayo Clinic partnership happens, to this extent, without Flip’s participation.  This practice facility is the best in the NBA and Flip was a leader in getting it built.

Those are just the things that Flip has done since returning to the Timberwolves in 2012. In a very short time, he took an anxious franchise moment — Kevin Love’s contract timer ticking, Rick Adelman no longer fully invested in coaching responsibilities, the roster at large in great need of a young-talent infusion — and spun it into genuine excitement and optimism that the Timberwolves will become a championship contender again.

Flip’s passing is a pretty incredible thing for the Wolves organization to go through, and we will all be trying to sort out What Comes Next over the next few weeks, months, and even years. But for today, it’s best to just remember Flip Saunders and send well wishes to his family and (many) other loved ones.

Rest in peace, Flip.

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by | October 20, 2015 · 10:09 PM

INBOX Game Wrap: Wolves Lose Big to Bucks, Shabazz a Bright Spot

Andy G: The Wolves just played the Bucks in their penultimate preseason game of the 2015-16 season. The good news is that Nemanja Bjelica stuck a three-pointer with just seven seconds left in the game. The bad news is that his shot cut the Bucks lead down from 21 to 18.

The Wolves got smoked again. The Bucks won 106-88. The Wolves shot just 33 percent from the field, compared to Milwaukee’s 51. They were outrebounded, they missed shots, turned the ball over and — in the second half — played poor defense.

They are now 1-5 in the preseason, with 4 of the 5 losses being pretty lopsided games.

The bad stuff is pretty easily observed: tactically, their offense is outdated and their spacing is not where it needs to be. As a group of players, they are obviously very young and inexperienced, not to mention physically weak compared to the grown men that cause NBA teams to win consistently. They don’t have enough playmaking on offense, or enough general know-how on D.

Any bright spots out there in this game? I don’t mean to pile on, but that was another rough one.

Patrick J: There weren’t a lot of bright spots. But Shabazz Muhammad was by far the brightest. Bazz did not play a perfect game, but he was by far the most active and aggressive Wolves player. His stats are fairly representative of his game tonight: in 25 minutes, he scored 18 points on only seven field goal attempts. Far from the “Derricking” free-throw tendencies he’s known for, tonight Bazz shot a perfect for 11-11 and looked composed for a change while doing it. Muhammad “did stuff” in the other categories as well, pulling in five boards, dishing out four assists, and thieving one steal. Yet even though Shabazz was the bright spot, he didn’t look that great, either. He was out of sync with his teammates on both offense and defense. The difference between Shabazz and most of his teammates is that he can thrive in these kinds of scrums. That has its value, but you don’t want to have to rely on it all the time, as it’s a sign that you’re getting worked over by the opposing team.

I guess the question is, does this game even tell us anything about Shabazz and his value to the team?

Andy G: I wish they’d start Shabazz. I thought he made a lot of plays tonight — like you said, he was the bright spot — and he deserves a bigger role than it seems like he’ll begin the season with. Shabazz was arguably the best player on the Wolves team last year. He was certainly their best scorer. So far, in this preseason sample size, I think his on-ball defense looks improved. (He’s at least closing all the way out to his man, and seems to be a little bit more effective at cutting off dribble penetration.) Continue reading →

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by | October 17, 2015 · 11:54 AM

INBOX: Can Bjelica and Rubio Save the Wolves Offense?

bjelicaAndy G: The Wolves have played 4 preseason games. They have won 1 game (Wednesday night versus the Raptors in a game where both Kyle Lowry and Luis Scola sat out) and lost three; the first two in blowout fashion to the Thunder and Bulls and then a closer loss to the Raptors in their first leg of the Canadian double-header the two teams put on, in Winnipeg and Ottawa, respectively.

We could over-analyze these try-things-out, audition-type games to death, but I’d like to instead focus on something that I think might actually have relevance to the regular season to come:

Nemanja Bjelica, and how his style of play might positively influence the (outdated) style of offense that both Flip Saunders and now Sam Mitchell seem to prefer when putting together their default sets.

Allow me to briefly explain what I mean.

In these preseason games (and in the intrasquad scrimmage that was played at Target Center a short while back) the Wolves have been running an offense that has looked largely similar to what Flip ran last year. It involves down screens (“pin-down screens” in modern NBA lingo) set by bigs for wings, who either look for their own moving mid-range jumper, or catch the wing entry pass and then look to feed the post.

That’s the default setting. A lot of specific set plays are blended in — often times when Kevin Martin checks into the game, or if Andrew Wiggins has not been sufficiently involved in the offense — that are completely engineered to free up a wing player for either a quick jumper, or an isolation set of his own. These plays usually involve a few seconds of dribbling the air out of the ball on the wing while an assortment of big Timberwolves clump together near the paint to set a double or triple screen for the chosen teammate to be freed up for an isolation set.

Almost none of this action is good. (I think a limited exception involves Shabazz Muhammad posting up certain opponents.) It wastes precious shot-clock time and is purposefully engineered to create inefficient shots. The goal — a chance to shoot a defended two-point shot — does not make sense, in today’s NBA. There was a time when these were the premier play designs for legends like Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and Patrick Ewing. That type has passed.

This is where Bjelica comes in. I don’t know if it is because he struggles to understand the plays at this stage, or if the Wolves are intentionally running different sets to utilize his skillset or because he is just purposefully hijacking the offense, BUT:

When Bjelica checks into the game he tends to get the team playing smarter offense.

As a 6’10” forward who can shoot from 27 feet out with ease, he stretches the opposing defenses out, and thus creates more room for his teammates to operate in space. Along with the simple “he’s a threat to shoot from way outside” factor, Bjelica is also a facilitator of screen-and-roll sets both as a screen setter, and also as a dribbler who will call for ball screens to come his way, too.

Two questions:

  1. Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Does the offense look better with Bjelica out there, and does it seem to be in large part because of how he plays and influences their approach?
  2. Should we expect a better look from the starting squad when Ricky Rubio returns? He hasn’t played yet, and — thus far — the Wolves starters are the worst-looking group they have.

Patrick J: To answer your questions: Continue reading →

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by | October 7, 2015 · 11:12 PM

Shifting Expectations, Wolves Lose Big to Thunder

tyus

Tyus Jones, barely removed from Apple Valley High, started at point guard tonight versus Russ Westbrook.

How a person feels about tonight’s preseason game against the Oklahoma City Thunder depends largely on what that person expected, going into the game, and why they held those expectations. Ricky Rubio has been held out of action for the past few days and we knew that he would not play tonight. (His ailments are not expected to be serious or threaten his regular-season availability.) Add to that the announcement that 19-year old, was-attending-Apple Valley-High-School-17-months-ago Tyus Jones would replace Rubio in the starting lineup against Russell Westbrook, and nobody could reasonably expect a successful outcome. Along with the Jones/Rubio lineup swap, Sam Mitchell made a surprising proclamation yesterday: Zach LaVine will be this team’s starting shooting guard; not Kevin Martin, who was named the starter by… well, himself, at Media Day. This announcement was Mitchell putting bold, italized, capitalized type on that DEVELOPMENT word that he has been throwing around ever since taking over coaching duties. LaVine as a Day 1 starter sends a clear message that potential, and future take priority over actualized ability and the present.

So with all of that built into people’s respective Game Previews, a 23-point loss to the full-strength (well, aside from Steven Adams) Thunder was not surprising. The Wolves starting lineup featured two one-and-done rookies, and two one-and-done sophomores. None of these four are old enough to legally enter a bar in Downtown Minneapolis and yet there they were, all four of em trying to guard Westbrook, Durant, and Ibaka.

Defense was the big, obvious problem tonight. Aside from when Kevin Garnett was on the floor (all of 7 minutes 52 seconds) and when Westbrook and Durant were on the bench (they were both game-high +22’s) the Wolves simply could not get stops. Westbrook was coming off of high ball screens and flooring the accelerator straight down the middle of the lane. Help usually came, but the defense was so out of sorts that Russ was able to do something good with the ball almost every time. He had 14 points and 13 assists on the night, and was every bit as insane out there as he would be in a Finals game.

When the Thunder were not rolling behind Westbrook penetration (or transition sequences) they were running Durant off of Enes Kanter down screens, setting up equally unstoppable action on the wing. Durant, against this defense anyway, makes this a pick-your-poison proposition if there ever was one. Too much help led to nifty passes slipped to Kanter for an easy two points. Not enough help meant, well, Durant would score it himself.

In my opinion, the Westbrook stuff was more preventable (by a hypothetical, good defensive team) than what Durant was doing on the wing. I think Ricky Rubio would do a much better job than Jones and Lorenzo Brown did of jumping out, forcing Russ different directions from where he wanted to go, and at least making him do something besides those halfback dives to the rim.

In any case, the defense struggled. They gave up 122 points on 56 percent field goal shooting. It’s hard to say anything but bad stuff about that. It looked like last year, with the caveat that they (for 22 of the 48 minutes, when Russ & KD played) were facing elite competition.

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by | October 5, 2015 · 10:27 PM

Notes on a Scrimmage: Bjelica Shines when the Defense is Moving

The Timberwolves opened up Target Center on Monday night to fans, providing a free-of-charge opportunity to see this year’s team play against itself in a semi-formal intrasquad scrimmage. There were refs and a scoreboard. There was not regulation time being kept. A team primarily comprised of Tyus Jones, Zach LaVine, Andrew Wiggins, Nemanja Bjelica, Damjan Rudez and Karl-Anthony Towns easily defeated a team primarily comprised of Andre Miller, Kevin Martin, Shabazz Muhammad, Adreian Payne, Lorenzo Brown and Gorgui Dieng. The final score was 68-54, but the deficit was over 20 for most of the night.

As individuals, just about each player did some nice things at different points in the scrimmage. Jones showed that he knows how to play off of a ball screen and knock down perimeter jumpers. LaVine mixed in accurate jumpshooting with a dash of playmaking here and there. He also threw down a dunk or two. He nearly jammed right over Gorgui on the baseline, but was hacked too hard to hang onto the ball, so he went to the line instead. Wiggins made some shots and probably looked to facilitate for others a bit more than we’re used to seeing from him. Towns went hard after rebounds, talked on defense, and converted different types of shots near the basket.

On the losing team, things were less pretty. Miller did Miller things – a crafty layup here, a how-did-he-end-up-with-the-ball offensive rebound there. Martin was trying to bait refs into fouls in the early going, mostly to no avail. Muhammad missed badly on his first few shot attempts, but had more success later on both dribble drives and hard curling cuts. Dieng seems frustrated right now (in a general way, probably tied to his likely reserve status on this year’s team) but plays hard and made some things happen.

The most obvious player to talk about after the scrimmage is Nemanja Bjelica, both because this was the first time that we have seen him play in person (and for many, the first time they have seen him play at all) and also because he played very well, tonight. The media was questioning Coach Sam Mitchell about Bjelica immediately after the scrimmage, and Mitchell said that his new forward is sometimes “too unselfish,” but he has a hard time yelling at a player for that; he’d much prefer it to the opposite problem. Bjelica looked comfortable mixing it up for rebounds in the interior, and — on offense — thrived most when catching a pass after the defense had already begun shifting. Usually that shifting was in response to a ball screen that preceded his receiving the ball. Without that shifting, the entire Wolves team struggled offensively. They ended up with a spread out, 1-2-2 formation with wing entries and ball reversals that have almost no effect against modern NBA defenses, which are oftentimes a 1-2-2 shell masked as man-to-man.

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