Basketball has finally returned! The Minnesota Timberwolves kick off the season with a pair of games overseas in Abu Dhabi. Preseason hoops may only be a tune-up for the starters. But with how talented the NBA is, the back end of the bench players and rookies will be playing vital minutes. The Wolves come into the season with plenty of end-of-the-rotation options. Still, they must consolidate them as we move closer to the regular season.
Let’s split the roster into two different groupings, the new additions and the returning players.
Josh Minott and Jordan McLaughlin are two key returning players vying for roster spots. JMac is coming off a rough end of the season where he could not find any rhythm offensively. Opponents often left him open, and he’s very undersized as a defender. His saving grace could be that he’s the only true point guard on the team other than Mike Conley. On the other hand, Minott may have an uphill battle to find the rotation. However, his ability to play as a cutter and bring end energy could earn him a situational role.
However, things are a little more complicated with Shake Milton. The Wolves should be pen into rotation. Still, it should be interesting to see how he adapts to more on-ball reps. In Philadelphia, Milton was often off the ball from James Harden or Tyrese Maxey, and the Wolves need more help at the lead ball-handler role.
Troy Brown Jr. is in a similarly comfortable situation. He should make the rotation, but other players will push him, looking to take over his slot. Brown’s size and shooting should easily slot into Taurean Prince’s old role. Leonard Miller had an impressive Summer League, and he should push Brown. However, he still needs to prove that his game will transfer to the NBA.
The preseason is vital for players in Leonard’s situation. The Summer League is a phenomenal way to get our first glimpse of the newest talent in the league, but it’s hard to know what to glean from it. The games are often sloppy, full of turnovers, and feature little to no offensive structure or shooting. Those mistakes can very easily be eliminated when surrounded by NBA players, who can bring more out of each other’s play.
Occasionally preseason can still see these instances carry over. That was the case last season with Bryn Forbes. He looked like a shoe-in for the rotation after he scored 9.6 points per game on 48.5/55/87.5 splits in five preseason games. But Forbes’ output was the complete opposite in the regular season when playing higher-level talent. He was unplayable against real rotational opponents when he was unable to find his shooting stroke.
Despite this early-season mistake, the Wolves quickly moved on from Forbes’s rotational stint before experiencing meaningful negative consequences. His stats were an outlier, and you could see with his play how his smaller size and reliance on his shooting was a weakness in the lineups he played in.
Why is this important, and how does this apply to this year’s team and circumstances?
The Wolves find themselves with a much larger safety net to avoid misevaluating players in the preseason. The young players, returning players, and new free-agent signings will bring a higher level of basketball than what they had last season. If a player needs more time, they can afford to send them to the G-League or have them as viable reserves. They are much more likely to find mainstays of the rotation through what they currently have, and it will only be easier to come to those realizations sooner than they did last year.
Minnesota will probably take the same approach they did last year, using more of a deeper rotation to begin the initial set of games. As the preseason progresses, it will become more evident who will be sticking around and give us a glimpse of who is ready for NBA rotational minutes. That will give us an idea of the opening night rotation and a valuable temperature check of those on the outside looking in.
Most importantly, Rudy Gobert and KAT only played two preseason games and one together in the preseason last year. That small sample size truly hindered the team and was a reason for their slow start to the season.
As we move into the preseason flow, it will be important to not only see how the staple lineup players perform but also how the rest of the rotation irons itself out. Results and stats may not always be the telling of how certain players fit around others, or how coaches can maximize his abilities. There is always something to learn from in the preseason.
