The news conference the Timberwolves had Tuesday to introduce LaMelo Ball and Josh Green felt like the bow on what has been an active Wolves offseason.<\/p>\n
Assuming LeBron James doesn\u2019t shock the basketball world by coming to Minnesota, the Wolves\u2019 major moves are done more than three weeks after they agreed to trade Julius Randle to the Brooklyn Nets.<\/p>\n
That was the first step for a busy week that ended with them bringing in Ball and sending out their two best power forward options in Naz Reid and Randle.<\/p>\n
Assuming LeBron takes his talents elsewhere, here is how the Wolves stack up.<\/p>\n
In 2022, a Chris Finch-coached team that featured Karl-Anthony Towns, D\u2019Angelo Russell, a second-year Anthony Edwards, Patrick Beverley, Taurean Prince, Jarred Vanderbilt, Malik Beasley and Jaden McDaniels had the top offense in the league from January on.<\/p>\n
Finch came into the NBA thanks to his offensive mind, but in the past four seasons, he has never had as open an offense as the 2021-22 team. The addition of Rudy Gobert has turned the Wolves into one of the NBA\u2019s most consistent defensive teams, but it has come with a cost, as Finch tried to make offenses work with Towns at the four, then Randle at the four to varying degrees of success.<\/p>\n
The Wolves\u2019 offensive ratings the last four seasons, beginning in 2023, were 23rd, 17th, eighth and 13th. Expect those numbers to approach the upper echelon of the NBA with Ball, even with Gobert still at center.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the impact Ball can have on the offense.<\/p>\n
Over the past two seasons, Charlotte\u2019s offenses were better by more than 11 points per 100 possessions when Ball was on the floor as opposed to off it. That was in the 99th percentile in the NBA, according to the website Cleaning the Glass. In other words, no player has as much positive impact on his team\u2019s offense when he plays than Ball. Charlotte had the No. 2 offense in the league from the All-Star break onward last season.<\/p>\n
Ball is a 36.5% career three-point shooter. Combine his shot-making and playmaking ability with Edwards, who has connected on close to 40% of his shots from deep the past two seasons, and the offense is going to be more prolific than any Finch has had.<\/p>\n
Defenses won\u2019t be able to load up on either Ball or Edwards. With the continued growth of McDaniels (41% from three last season) as a third option and the ability of the re-signed Ayo Dosunmu to get the team out in transition, this should be the most fun brand of basketball to watch on the offensive end in the Edwards-Finch era. At least on paper.<\/p>\n
The main caveat on that is, \u201cHow long will it take Ball and the Wolves to get acclimated?\u201d<\/p>\n
One constant about the Finch era is his teams have always, eventually, figured out how best to play together. But it has taken time, sometimes several months, to get to that point.<\/p>\n
The Towns-Gobert pairing didn\u2019t click until late in their first season together (following a significant calf injury to Towns). It took the Wolves two-thirds of a season to work through the additions of Randle and Donte DiVincenzo.<\/p>\n
Will there be a similar adjustment period, or can the Wolves hit the ground running faster than they have after previous roster upheavals?<\/p>\n
The number of games they win and their playoff seeding depends on it.<\/p>\n
The Wolves are thin at power forward (the \u201cfour\u201d), and Finch told the Star Tribune he doesn\u2019t automatically assume McDaniels is going to start in that spot.<\/p>\n
Who starts there could be matchup-dependent. But even if the Wolves go into the season without much depth at that position, expect them to keep trying to find the right fit at that spot.<\/p>\n
It might take until the February trade deadline for the desired player to come in on a deal. In the meantime, the Wolves could use their remaining roster space to bring in another power forward.<\/p>\n
The state of that position will likely look different come April 2027.<\/p>\n
What if Ball\u2019s injury history continues?<\/p>\n
He played in 72 games last season after playing in 105 the previous three seasons combined.<\/p>\n
This is the biggest question with the trade.<\/p>\n
The other? Will Ball hold up to the demanding physicality of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see what LaMelo does when he\u2019s healthy,\u201d Wolves President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly said, before turning to Ball. \u201cAnd even with the health, it\u2019s been these random, wonky injuries, right? You\u2019ll play more than 72 a year, for sure?\u201d<\/p>\n
Last season, Charlotte limited Ball\u2019s minutes to 28 per game. That sounds good on paper. But consider this. San Antonio, similarly, did that with Victor Wembanyama during the regular season at 29.2 per game. But in the playoffs, when the Spurs ramped up Wembanyama\u2019s minutes, fatigue likely had an impact on his late-game production, especially in the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n
If the goal for the Wolves is to optimize their success in the playoffs, they have to have Ball not only healthy in April, but the best version of himself. Is limiting his minutes in the regular season the right path to doing so? Can they risk not doing so?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t dug into it just yet,\u201d Finch said. \u201cThose conversations will be had as we go through the summer. \u2026 We\u2019ll have a plan, and we\u2019ll try to stick to that plan as best as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The news conference the Timberwolves had Tuesday to introduce LaMelo Ball and Josh Green felt like the bow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,2704,14102,2698,459,2701,82],"class_list":["post-808742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-men","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-national-basketball-association","tag-nba","tag-nba-teams","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}