“I thought winning would be easy,” said no one who has ever won anything.

For 13 years, following the Minnesota Timberwolves required a skillset: The ability to articulate what is going wrong.

If there weren’t debates about Ricky Rubio’s true effectiveness, Kevin Love’s leadership ability, or Andrew Wiggins’ ceiling, there just wouldn’t have been much to talk about in Minnesota.

However, the idea — at least for me — was that winning would quell some of these noises. I thought once the number on the left side of the record exceeded the right the angry roars would dull. That has not been the case in 2017-18, a year in which the Minnesota Timberwolves’ win total nearly doubles its losses.

Early this season, seemingly every other game would trigger an alarm to highlight Karl-Anthony Towns’ pick-and-roll defense. And when Year Four Andrew Wiggins looked like Year Three Wiggins — after signing an extension for $148 million — panic ensued.

Of course, there was also the minutes debacle that led to all hell breaking loose after Tom Thibodeau played Jimmy Butler for 250 minutes (42 minutes per game) in the first 12 days of December.

And then something crazy happened; all of those things stabilized. Towns became a passable — teetering on good — defender; Wiggins looked consistently engaged, and the rotations normalized. The anxiety surrounding the franchise did not. No, things going well do not mean happiness; not in Minnesota. It was time to find a new issue.

Enter Tyus Jones:

Jones has been phenomenal and therefore inspired a new debate.

Should Tyus Jones Be Starting?

Since mid-December Jones has been a key ingredient to the fuel of great Timberwolves basketball. He has appeared to be an instigator of a surge all the way to the third best record in the Western Conference.

According to ESPN’s real-plus minus numbers, Jones has performed at the quality of starting point guards. To be specific, his RPM  — a statistic that combines offensive effectiveness and defensive effectiveness — suggests he has been the fifth-best point guard in the NBA this season.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j4I7ZdcflU

That is really good. Juxtapose those numbers with Jeff Teague’s and you have some legitimate thought bubbles percolating.

Teague ranks 36th amongst qualifying point guards in RPM. Which, to many, suggests he should be a backup.

But Teague is not the backup. He has started every game when healthy and in those games is averaging 33.7 minutes, leaving 14 minutes per game for Jones.

Teague and Jones never share the floor.

As a backup, Jones has not played more than 23 minutes in any game. Insinuating: a clear path to real playing time would require Jones moving to the starting lineup.

So, as a starting point for the debate, the question becomes should this happen?

Minnesota’s two most frequently used 5-man lineups are Teague with the starters and Jones with the starters. Jones’ effectiveness is comparatively jarring.

Remove Towns from the equation and replace him with Gorgui Dieng and the difference is starker.

Statistically, when Jones is playing in place of Teague, Minnesota protects the ball better while distributing more, their propensity to rebound increases and they shoot with better effectiveness.

The biggest justification for the lack of change falls on Teague’s pedigree and the contract that pedigree derived this summer — three years, $57 million.

But other justifications exist. Most notably: The causation versus correlation question.

The numbers indicate there is a correlation to the Wolves success with Jones on the floor but maybe, when parsed through, the causation is not there.

Perhaps the rest of the Wolves were hitting their stride right before Teague went down with an injury and the happenstance of Jones’ minute increase was simply a parallel that distorted the comparison.

For example: Why does the Teague lineup’s defensive rating crater when Towns is removed but surge when Towns is removed from the Jones lineup?

Beyond the sample size, there is another explanation: Towns’ defense was terrible early in the season and he has made massive strides over the past month, the time Jones happened to be in the lineup more frequently.

Or, perhaps the quality of the opponent Jones played against — and held to uncharacteristically low offensive numbers — was not the same caliber Teague faced while on the floor.

Another example: In seven of the ten games Jones has started in place of a hurt Teague, the opponent happened to be without their best player and/or was simply in disarray.

• Phoenix, Nov. 26: Devin Booker out with injury
• Washington, Nov. 28: John Wall out with injury
• New Orleans, Nov. 29: Anthony Davis ejected in the second quarter
• Indiana, Dec. 30: Victor Oladipo out with injury
• LA Lakers, Dec. 31: Ball, Lopez, Caldwell-Pope all out
• Brooklyn, Jan. 3: D’Angelo Russell out with injury
• Cleveland, Jan. 8: Whole team in disarray

Those are fair arguments that require these kinds of difficult-to-quantify qualifications that do not show up clearly in metrics. But even if so — even if those narratives are bought into — a statistical differential so daunting between Jones and Teague would suggest some sort of compromise.

A logical step towards a middle ground would be finding more of a balance between the two.

Thus far, Thibodeau seems steadfast on the idea of one lead point guard playing heavy minutes. So, why not leave Teague as the lead guard but play he and Jones together? If Jones added eight minutes a game alongside Teague he would be a perennial 20-minute-a-night player.

Is Jones Big Enough To Play Alongside Teague?

Tyus Jones is very short, he measured 6’0.25″ at the NBA Draft combine. Teague is also diminutive, he too measured 6’0.25″ at the combine. Playing two players that combine for 12 feet of height is too small in many matchups — I get that — but situationally this could work.

One of those situations could be Wednesday night against the Portland Trailblazers — the Blazers start very short guards. Again according to NBA Draft Combine measurements, Damian Lillard is 6’1.75″ and C.J. McCollum is 6’2.25″. Jones can guard both Lillard and McCollum, so can Teague. Heck, they already have this season. Even with Jones and Teague completely staggered, both players situationally drew each of the Blazers’ backcourt members.

Would doubling down really be a huge concession?

The Portland Model

Somewhat coincidentally, Portland has served as a guinea pig for this doubling down with smaller guards/wings concept. Not only do they start an undersized backcourt but their best bench player is the 5’11” Shabazz Napier.

Napier’s size does not stop Blazers coach Terry Stotts from playing him alongside Lillard or McCollum. Quite the contrary, Portland has played all three together.

Lillard, McCollum, and Napier — have shared the floor for 143 minutes. Of Portland’s most successful 3-man lineups, Lillard-McCollum-Napier tops the list.

As you can see, much like the case with the Wolves and Jones, Napier is Portland’s bench goon. Every lineup Napier touches turns to gold. He is having a fantastic season and his compact frame is not rendering any ill effects, even on the wing.

A season ago, Portland was easily penetrated on the perimeter with a wing faction of Lillard, McCollum, Allen Crabbe, and Mo Harkless. That group, while offensively successful, was largely to blame for the sixth-worst defense in the league.

This season, with Napier and Pat Connaughton in place of Crabbe and Harkless, Portland owns the sixth best defense in the NBA, according to basketball-reference.com.

Had Portland not been willing to shift the 5’11” Napier — who is still listed on ESPN’s RPM as a point guard, where he ranks 14th-best at the position — to the wing, the Blazers would not be where they are today.

Similarly, the Wolves would not be where they are today without Jones’ contributions. This all leads to the newest conundrum in Wolves-land: Is Thibodeau limiting his team through an unwillingness to get creative with his backcourt?

Could rolling with the Napier-sized Jones on the wing tap into buried potential within the Wolves roster?

These are fair questions and the Wolves’ Wednesday night matchup against a petite Portland team presents an opportunity for a trial run. A run of something smaller.

Teague and Jones together.

Listen to Dane on Wolves Wired!

Dane Moore

Dane Moore is Zone Coverage's staff writer covering the Minnesota Timberwolves. Dane has been covering the Wolves in various capacities since the inception of the Tom Thibodeau era -- which was a really weird place to start his NBA writing career. You can find Dane's coverage of the Timberwolves and the NBA with Charlie Johnson at Zone Coverage and on The Dane Moore NBA Podcast. The goal is perpetuating a love of the game and elevating the basketball conversation -- because that's what Nikola Pekovic would want. (Will talk about jump hooks.)

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