It hasn’t been an easy start for Jeff Teague as a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
He suffered a pair of injuries and is putting up a career low in true shooting percentage all amidst a season where he’s replacing a fan favorite and starting over another.
On Monday, the Wolves will go up against Teague’s first team, the Atlanta Hawks. In Atlanta – at least for a long while – Teague was the fan favorite.
Will the Wolves ever see that side of Jeff Teague in Minnesota? More importantly, do they need see it to for the three-year, $57 million deal to be considered “worth it?”
This won’t be Teague’s first return to Atlanta since leaving the team in 2016, but it will be his first time back with a team anywhere near his last couple with the Hawks.
Atlanta drafted Teague in 2009 with the 19th overall pick. He spent his first couple years playing backup – very similar minutes to Tyus Jones, actually – to then-aging veteran Mike Bibby.
By year three, Teague had the starting role and never gave it up.
Teague quickly made his mark in the league as a score-first point guard that made up for his average athleticism with elite craftiness.
But that aspect of his game hasn’t left him in Minnesota. What does seem to have withered from his game are his hops.
In his early years as a starter, Teague was much more apt to use his speed to get a quick bucket on the fast break, and use his vertical to throw down a surprisingly strong jam.
As time went on, Teague got better at virtually every aspect of the game, and so did the Hawks.
The pinnacle in both the career of Teague and the state of that Hawks era came in the 2014-15 season. The Hawks had the NBA’s second-best best record at 60-22 – the Warriors won 67 games, and the championship, that season – playing some of the most dynamic basketball the league has seen in recent memory.
It was the year after the Hawks hired Mike Budenholzer as head coach. It’s not a coincidence that Budenholzer, a disciple of Gregg Popovich, quickly adopted a fast-paced halfcourt offense.
Teague, a player whose slow pace in the halfcourt has rendered frustration in several Wolves fans, was indeed running this offense.
He was even the team’s leading scorer. That’s right, of a 60-win team.
The Hawks would run the ball up the floor at a fast break pace, but then would generally settle into a halfcourt offensive set that was very tough to guard.
One commonality in the Hawks offense was a quick pass after the ball got past halfcourt. Teague and backup Dennis Schroeder rarely had the ball for more than a second before they’d give it up to a teammate and start their motion.
For example, on this play, Teague brings the ball up but immediately gives it up to Kyle Korver and heads to the corner. But through the motion, he’s still the one that ends up with the assist to DeMarre Carroll.
In 2014-15, while Teague was leading the Hawks both in scoring and to the best record in franchise history, the Timberwolves franchise was going through one of its worst.
It was their first year without Kevin Love. The Flip Saunders-led team fronted by Andrew Wiggins finished 16-66, good enough for last place in the entire NBA.
That season was rock bottom for the franchise, and the next three years – minus, of course, the tragic death of Saunders – would lead to better times.
Some luck in the lottery, the hiring of Tom Thibodeau and the eventual trade for Jimmy Butler gave the Timberwolves a base to attract some free agents.
Eventually, it led to the signing of Teague in Minnesota.
To some, he came into Minnesota immediately at a disadvantage in terms of fan favorability. He was replacing Ricky Rubio; a flawed player in his own right, but one that garnered a strong following during his six years in the NBA.
But Teague was brought in because Thibodeau saw him as someone that fit the offense better than Rubio, someone who could add to the scoring load when Butler, Karl-Anthony Towns and Wiggins weren’t hitting.
To start the season, he did just that. Through the first month, he shot over 40 percent from 3-point land, was averaging over 7.5 assists and nearly 2.0 steals per game.
At the time, the Wolves weren’t playing to their maximum potential, but Teague’s numbers were where people hoped for when he signed.
But then he hurt his ankle and missed four games. Just 13 games later, he hurt his knee and missed an additional seven. Since then, he hasn’t been the same.
In the 10 games he’s played since returning from his second injury, he’s shooting 34.4 percent from the field, 29.8 percent from 3-point land and has seen his assist numbers drop.
Meanwhile, Jones – another fan favorite – ascended to relevance in the starting lineup in Teague’s absence.
There’s a lot to why Teague hasn’t been the Hawks – or even the Pacers, where he spent the 2016-17 season – version of himself.
Part of it is absolutely the injuries. Coming back from lower-body injuries on separate occasions within a couple weeks of each other, all while you’re attempting to get acclimated to new teammates and a new system, is a difficult task.
And part of it is, simply, the system Thibodeau runs does not necessarily lend itself to what Teague used to do in Atlanta. With the Hawks, Teague gave the ball up almost immediately upon crossing the halfcourt line.
Even when he doesn’t, the Timberwolves are much more based on the isolation workings of Butler, Towns and Wiggins. For Teague to get his, he often is asked to do it himself.
In Minnesota, his over-dribbling has been mention before, and perhaps for good reason.
Looking at the two seasons in terms of time of possession are very telling. In 2014-15, Teague averaged a time of possession of 6.1 seconds, and 4.9 seconds per individual touch.
This year in Minnesota, it’s up but not by much. The number jumps to 7.1 seconds per possession and 5.59 seconds per touch. Still, that leads the team big a wide margin.
The number is high for every point guard, but it’s higher this year because the system has changed for Teague. They expect him to run the offense in a different way than he did in Atlanta.
None of this means Teague couldn’t eventually find himself in Minnesota. He showed good success early in the season, and has had some major highlights even after the pair of injuries.
Perhaps it’s unfair to expect Hawks-era Teague to ever manifest itself in a Wolves uniform, but with patience, it’s still very possible that one of similar efficiency could eventually arrive.
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