The Minnesota Timberwolves have been driving will a bum wheel for the majority of the first half of the 2022-23 NBA season. For one reason or another, they’ve rarely been at 100 percent. Karl-Anthony Towns has missed the last 18 games and counting with a calf strain. Jordan McLaughlin has missed 21 games with an array of injuries. And even the newbies, Rudy Gobert and Kyle Anderson, have been in and out of the lineup with their share of bumps and bruises. It’s a rough spot in the season that’s seen the team go 8-10 since Towns went down while Chris Finch is scrambling to find enough bodies to throw at better, fresher teams.
Luckily, the Wolves are beginning to replenish their arsenal of versatile bench players, and not a moment too soon. Even on a two-game win streak, they still find themselves out of the play-in picture in the West. Taurean Prince, who had been sidelined with a shoulder injury since November 25th, made his triumphant return to the Target Center on Friday to help the Wolves to a 7-point victory over the Portland Trail Blazers.
In his first action in over a month, Prince scored 11 points on 5-6 shooting and 1-2 from three. He provided a spark to a Wolves bench that desperately needed a pick-me-up after slogging through the last month of fill-ins and changing rotations. Prince has always been an important piece for Minnesota since coming over in the Ricky Rubio trade last year. But what he brings to the table is exactly what the Wolves need to stabilize their bench and vault themselves back into the playoff race while Towns recuperates.
Since the Utah Jazz took Prince in the first round of the 2016 draft, he’s been a Swiss Army Knife for all four NBA teams he’s played on. The former Baylor forward provides everything the Timberwolves lack, beginning with his three-point shooting. Prince is arguably Minnesota’s most consistent three-point shooter since arriving in the Twin Cities. He’s a career 37 percent shooter from deep and is firing at a 39 percent clip in 19 games this season. Prince was the best three-point shooter on the team before his injury and still would be had Austin Rivers not set himself on fire in December.
The consistent three-point shooting is exactly what the Wolves need coming off the bench. Minnesota’s second unit is the worst three-point shooting bench in the NBA this season. His shooting versatility should open up the floor for guys like Jaylen Nowell, who are struggling a bit this season. It will also give Chris Finch even more lineup versatility with a 6’7” wing player who can stretch the floor.
Prince will also raise the floor of the defensive unit coming off the bench. Minnesota’s bench is chock full of practice cones on defense. Prince is the perfect man to re-insert into a struggling unit that occasionally looks like five propped-up mops with basketball jerseys on, watching opposing players skip down the lane straight to the rim. He’s not going to help Naz Reid protect the rim, but he’s one of the team’s best perimeter defenders, and the Wolves shave nearly seven points per 100 possessions off their defensive rating with Prince on the court.
There are limitations to his impact. For a 218-pound small forward, Prince doesn’t rebound well, which is the Achilles heel of the Timberwolves team so far this season. For a team that traded for the best rebounder in the NBA in the offseason, the Wolves are the fourth-worst rebounding team in the NBA through 39 games. He needs to buy in with Anthony Edwards and rebound his position better to help Gobert on the glass.
Regardless of his versatility on offense and defense, Prince’s return brings an added grit and toughness that the Wolves had been lacking. Until Austin Rivers started playing his way into the lineup, the Wolves have been missing a scrappy leader on and off the court. They traded Patrick Beverley partially because the front office thought they had the leaders in-house to take his place. Prince was meant to be part of that solution. He’s re-integrated into a team playing with some verve now that Anthony Edwards is finally making the leap. Therefore, Prince should bring some added tenacity to a team that usually looks like it’s running in place.
The Timberwolves are standing on a knife’s edge as we near the halfway point of the NBA season. Even a few losses in a row, and this becomes a lost season before the All-Star break. If the Wolves can muster a win-streak with the prospect of adding even more firepower with Towns and McLaughlin returning, they can propel themselves back into the playoff race and prove that going all in wasn’t a mistake. In the meantime, Prince is the key to filling that gap. He’s the perfect stabilizing force for a team that needed a spark. He won’t drag them to the playoffs himself, but Prince is a winning puzzle piece for a team trying to get back into contention.
