The Minnesota Timberwolves have a roster full of players who serve a specific purpose. Some, like Malik Beasley and D’Angelo Russell, are great at shooting threes. Others, like Josh Okogie and Jarrett Culver, are better suited for steals, blocks, and playing lockdown defense. The issue with Minnesota’s roster is that it doesn’t have anyone who can do both at an elite level. Beasley and Russell are two of the worst defenders in the league, while Okogie and Culver’s shooting is borderline explicit content.
The Wolves have little room to improve their roster outside of a 27.6% chance of keeping a top-three protected pick in the upcoming draft and making a monumental trade involving one of the franchise’s building blocks. Minnesota already has $134.8 million committed next season, leaving just $1.7 million worth of wiggle room under the luxury tax. But they’ve got the taxpayer mid-level exception to play around with, which means they can sign someone for up to three years and about $18.5 million.
With little room for error, president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas will have to thread the free-agency needle and prioritize players who excel in multiple functions on the court. Luckily, there may be an affordable Swiss Army knife player who can fill various roles on the roster.
Most casuals dismiss Alex Caruso as a nobody. Let’s be honest, he looks pretty weird mixing it up with basketball deities like LeBron James, Luka Doncic, and Kevin Durant. He’s white, bald, wears an increasingly thick headband. He looks like he should be playing at your local YMCA instead of contributing to a championship contender.
Caruso, 27, worked his ass off to get where he is. He was a nice player on a middling Texas A&M team, went undrafted in 2016, and signed with — and was quickly waived by — the Oklahoma City Thunder before signing a two-way contract with the Lakers in 2017. In 184 games over his first four seasons in the association, Caruso is averaging a modest 5.9 points, 2.3 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game.
The Bald Mamba isn’t the greatest player in the world, but he won a championship with LeBron last season and gained the King’s trust, making him a valuable asset for any team. Caruso does two things exceptionally well, and they should make him a top priority on Minnesota’s free-agent wish list: He can shoot threes and plays defense.
This season Caruso shot 40.1% from three on 2.4 attempts per game and is a career 37.7% shooter from deep. That 3-point percentage would have been the highest mark on the Timberwolves roster this season. He would be an immediate deep-shooting upgrade over Okogie (26.9%), Culver (24.5%), and Ricky Rubio (30.8%).
His 3-point shooting percentage might be a tad misleading on its own if you don’t factor in how few threes he’s actually taken. In four years, Caruso has only jacked up 350 threes. That’s 1.9 per game and just 2.4 per game this season. To put things in perspective, Naz Reid let 2.5 threes fly per game this year. Caruso has shown to be an above-average 3-point shooter throughout his career. Still, it may be foolish to expect him to be among the league’s elites if he’s asked to carry more of the offensive load in Minnesota off the bench.
However, while Caruso’s 3-point shooting would be a huge upgrade for the Wolves, his impact on defense would be an even bigger upgrade. He may not look like it, but Caruso is one of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA despite not being named to either All-Defensive team. FiveThirtyEight’s Raptor WAR, which tries to measure a player’s all-around impact on the game, calculated that Caruso gave the Lakes 3.9 defensive wins above replacement. That’s the second-highest mark of any perimeter player (ninth overall) behind Matisse Thybulle of the Philadelphia 76ers. It would easily be the best metric on Minnesota’s 28th-ranked defense.
The Bald Eagle may have earned himself a significant pay raise from the 2-year, $5.5 million deal he signed with the Lakers, which could be an issue for the cap-strapped Wolves. Perhaps $18 million over three years could be enough to lock down the backup combo guard. However, it may be hard to sign him away from L.A. There’s nothing more enticing than playing alongside the greatest player of this generation on the premier team, especially when you’ve beaten the odds to become an unsung sex symbol in the NBA community.
Free agency begins on August 2nd at 5 p.m. The Wolves won’t have many options, but finding a way to sign Alex Caruso away from the Lakers should be a top priority for a team desperate for shooting and defense.
