There is a clip from the hit 2000s TV show Scrubs where Dr. Turk looks toward his on-screen girlfriend and says, “You know I do what I do when I do what I do.” There isn’t a more perfect quote to describe Kyle Anderson‘s role with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Standing 6’8”, he has played most of his career at small forward and almost all of the 2022-23 season at power forward. Despite this, the Wolves have asked Anderson to play point guard for most of this season. Anderson has been an adaptable and reliable player, and he’s thriving in his new role by doing what he does when he does what he’s doing.
The Timberwolves entered the season with myriad backup point guard options. They expected Jordan McLaughlin to be fully healthy, and he was having an excellent start to the season before being struck down by an MCL injury. Nickeil Alexander-Walker showed flashes of greatness as a lead ball-handler for Team Canada before the season and was starting to garner more trust in the backup role. But Jaden McDaniels’ injury thrust Alexander-Walker into the starting lineup. The Wolves had a third option in free-agent pickup Shake Milton. But due to his uncharacteristically poor play, Milton has been unreliable in such a crucial role.
Anderson has hinted that he classifies himself as a point guard. He has logged 47.6% (82 minutes) of his total minutes playing guard this season, compared to 46.2% (80 minutes) at forward. His success in his new role as a guard can be seen in the team production; the Wolves have scored 86 more total points in Anderson’s time playing guard compared to forward.
Extrapolated to Anderson’s 24 minutes per game, and the Wolves score 4.5 more points per game when Anderson is playing guard versus forward. The increase in production on offense can be seen when Anderson is thriving in his point guard role. In the clip below, Anderson makes a slick mid-jump pass to Edwards as the announcer notes that Anderson could do “all of that” in high school, referencing his ability to run the offense.
Anderson’s traditional stats don’t show much of a change. His 3.9 assists per game is still the second-best mark of his career, only eclipsed by his 2022-23 mark of 4.9 assists per game. But looking at the per 36 minutes statistics, the number becomes closer: He’s at 5.8 this season and 6.2 in 2022-23. Interestingly, his assist percentage has gone up 1.6% from 2022-23 to this season and is at a new career high of 24.1% when Anderson has the ball in his hands. That means that almost a quarter of Andersons’ offensive possessions end in him getting an assist. For context, Mike Conley is in the midst of a career season and is at 28.4%. In the clip below, Anderson shows why his percentage has risen. Instead of taking a semi-contested floater, he drops the ball off to the trailing Rudy Gobert to finish the possession with a dunk.
On the defensive side of the floor, Anderson has also been adjusting guarding more point guards. But Anderson has been successful in this despite his size and lack of athleticism. Affectionately known as SlowMo, Anderson has been matched up on guards 42.6 percent of the time versus 34.1% in 2022-23 and 29.4% in 2021-22.
Despite the increase in time guarding guards, Anderson has been playing rock-solid defense this season with a 102.7 defensive rating, his best since the 2017-18 season. That’s largely thanks to his ability to use his length to bother smaller defenders. Anderson allows only a 39.3% overall shooting percentage when he is the closest defender. Even more impressive is that opponents shoot 24.2% from three-point range when Anderson is the nearest defender.
Opponents are not beating Anderson off the dribble, and he’s not giving up three-point shots in his new role. In the clip below, Anderson closes out from the corner to the wing to affect Devin Vasell’s three, followed by a clip of Anderson battling through a pick-and-roll to use his length to contest a Trae Jones pull-up. In both cases, he forced the miss.
Anderson is not a perfect player. He’s struggling to shoot from distance and appears reluctant to shoot from any distance. However, this has not seemed to be a detriment. He’s doing his best to keep the offense rolling and get shots from where he is comfortable. Anderson has been abysmal from three this season, shooting 16.7%.
He seems to have recognized his struggles and focuses more on driving to the basket and getting shots from within 10 feet. 72.3% of Anderson’s shots come from inside 10 feet, an increase from 63.7 percent in 2022-23. He’s converting shots from inside 10 feet (53.1%), and Anderson is also shooting 50% from five to nine feet, which is floater range.
These percentages show that Anderson can get to his spots and knife through the defense to still be a capable scorer despite his struggles and reliability to shoot from distance. His ability to get the shots he wants to shoot rather than firing from anywhere has resulted in his second-best overall FG% at 49.1% since 2018-19. Despite his poor three-point shooting, Anderson is cobbling together another efficient offensive season. Below is a clip where Anderson runs a pick-and-roll reminiscent of the pre-spacing NBA days where the San Antonio Spurs defense hedges hard toward Gobert and allows for a beautiful Anderson finger-roll.
Anderson has displayed another iteration of himself this season to adapt and fit one of the Timberwolves’ needs. Just as Anderson had to fill in for Karl-Anthony Towns last season at power forward, he has been a more than adequate fill-in for Minnesota’s lack of backup point guards this season. Once McDaniels returns from injury, we’ll have to see if the Wolves will ask Anderson to continue his current role or if he’ll need to reinvent himself. In an 82-game season, Anderson has proved he is an invaluable piece for the Wolves regardless of role or position.
