It was no accident that Patrick Beverley ended up in the Twin Cities, and it’s not some stroke of luck that he has fit seamlessly into the culture the Minnesota Timberwolves are trying to create. Beverley wanted to be here, and the Wolves wanted him. The organization has treated him with respect throughout his time in Minneapolis, and Pat Bev has helped reinvigorate the basketball team and the fanbase in return.
Before he arrived in Minnesota, Beverley was faced with affronts to his standing in the league. The first came when negotiating a contract extension with the Los Angeles Clippers. Recently on the “Old Man and the Three” podcast, Beverley opened up about how the end of his Clipper tenure went down.
Beverley thought that he had brought something special to the Clippers saying, “When me, Lou, and Trezz got to the Clippers, we weren’t Blake Griffin, we weren’t DeAndre Jordan, we weren’t Chris Paul, we weren’t J.J. Redick. That wasn’t our era. We wanted to kinda have our own identity.”
But Clippers brass didn’t see it the same way, and the two sides were far apart when negotiations over his new contract started. Beverley felt his contributions to the organization would make the negotiations “easy” saying, “We in the Western Conference Finals, something the team has never done. Me being there from the beginning, I’m thinking that this contract extension, I’m thinking it’s going to be easy. I walk in and they throw me a number that I felt was borderline disrespectful.”
So the Clippers traded Beverley. On Redick’s podcast, Beverely said that he told his agent that “L[awrence] Frank knows he has to trade me. … He can’t pay me. He has to trade me, he know that.” In the end, Beverley was given some say in where he ended up, he continued saying,
“…From that point he told me give me my teams. And you know, Minnesota was in my top-3.”
But before he could get to the Timberwolves, he had to stop in Memphis. There was uncertainty about whether the Memphis Grizzlies would be a permanent landing spot for Beverley, so when he got there, he made sure to check-in with the front office to see if they were on the same page.
“I talked to the GM” he said “And the GM goes ‘Yeah, we’ll see how it goes this summer camp,’ and in my mind I’m [like] summer camp? M——–, I’m the starting guard there next to Ja Morant, what the f— are you talking about summer camp?”
Simply said, that just wasn’t going to work. So in came the Minnesota Timberwolves, trading Jarrett Culver and Juancho Hernangómez for Pat Bev in what proved to be a pivotal transaction. The Wolves were able to turn two players who were hardly in the rotation into Beverley who would quickly become a culture changing player and a fan favorite. Shout out to friend of the CnD NBA Show Jakes Graphs (@Jakesgraphs) for the excellent Pat Bev apparel.
It’s never been about counting stats for Beverley. He’s averaged 8.8 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.5 assists during his career. Beverley’s success has come from his constant effort and intensity. He’s made three All-Defensive teams not due to his overwhelming frame and athleticism, nor any sort of outstanding statistical achievement. Rather, Pat Bev has proven to be one of the best point-of-attack defenders in the league with a keen sense of defensive intelligence and sheer force of will. Chris Finch and the Minnesota Timberwolves have seen the value in that. They saw so much value that on Feb. 16th, Beverley inked a new 1-year, $13 million extension.
“He’s a guy that we value greatly, a guy that we want to go forward with. His leadership has been phenomenal,” Finch said shortly before Beverley signed his extension. “We knew it was going to be good. It’s been even better than expected. His production and play on court has been really, really good. Changes personality on our team in a lot of ways.”
It should come as no surprise that Finch and Beverley are a good pair. Both had long journeys to the NBA, having to prove themselves overseas before they could find a home stateside. Finch coached in England, Germany, and Belgium before landing with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers and eventually the Houston Rockets to begin his NBA coaching career. Beverley made stops in Ukraine, Greece, and Russia before making his way to the NBA via Rio Grande Valley and Houston. There is a certain stick-to-itiveness shared between the two and the dynamic thus far has been a revelation for the Wolves.
Now here we are, the Wolves have won 39 games and the state of Minnesota is starting to rally behind this team. Beverley is no small part of that. This organization believed in what he can do and thus far he has delivered. The Timberwolves have found a veteran leader in Patrick Beverley and Pat Bev has found a home in Minnesota.
