How should Flip Saunders distribute minutes for the 2014-15 Wolves?

Apr 8, 2014; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves guard Ricky Rubio (9) passes behind his head at Target Center. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

There is plenty of time to do a thorough breakdown regarding the current roster for the 2014-15 Wolves. Not much is likely to change between now and the start of training camp in a few weeks, so we may as well start sifting through what the distribution of minutes should look like.

Let’s start by looking at who is currently on the roster. I’ll split the grouping into roughly three positions: guards, forwards, and centers. Obviously, this roster has a bunch of crossover and significant flexibility between positions, so we’ll roll with this format for the sake of getting all 16 names on paper:

Guards: Ricky Rubio, Kevin Martin, Zach Lavine, Mo Williams, J.J. Barea

Forwards: Thaddeus Young, Andrew Wiggins, Chase Budinger, Corey Brewer, Anthony Bennett, Robbie Hummel, Shabazz Muhammad, Glenn Robinson III

Centers: Nikola Pekovic, Gorgui Dieng, Ronny Turiaf

As has been touched on many times before, there is little chance that Barea is still around by the time that players report to Mankato for training camp. Williams was brought to town to fill the Barea role, and hopefully do a much, much better job. Nobody wants a non-playing Barea around, so Saunders is surely trying to get something (anything) for him in a trade, and/or negotiating a buyout with his agent.

We’ll pretend as though he is no longer on the roster, and we’ll also make the assumption that Robinson is able to secure the 15th roster spot. He’ll likely spend much of the year in the D-League, but keeping him around makes a lot more sense than picking up another veteran, end-of-the-bench player (like they did with A.J. Price last year) or an un-drafted free agent like Brady Heslip, who has received a non-guaranteed training camp invite.

The Starting Lineup

Four of the five starters are set in stone: Ricky Rubio, Kevin Martin, Thaddeus Young, and Nikola Pekovic.

The opening will likely be at the small forward position, where Wiggins, Budinger, and Brewer are all options. There’s also the outside-the-box (please don’t do this, Flip) option of sliding Young to the three-spot and starting Dieng at power forward. Saunders has made it clear that he’s interested in experimenting with a Dieng-Pekovic front line in preseason, but it seems unlikely that it will gain much traction once the games start to count.

Brewer was the starter last year, although it seemed likely that former coach Rick Adelman would have gone with Budinger in the starting lineup until his knee injury cropped back up prior to training camp. The synergistic fit between Brewer and Kevin Love was fun, but Brewer’s true value as an NBA player is an energetic, disruptive bench player that can give 12-20 crazy minutes per game, depending on how crazy the minutes end up being on any given night. He’s simply not a starter.

Budinger was a starting-caliber player in his final season in Houston, before knee problems beset his first two seasons in Minnesota. He’s been a below-average player upon returning from knee injuries in both 2012-13 and 2013-14, but if he stays healthy through training camp, there’s no reason to think he can’t be an above-average rotational player for the entirety of the 2014-15 campaign.

With Wiggins, it’s tough to say what direction Saunders will take. Kevin Garnett did not start a game in his rookie year until January. Then again, Saunders was not the coach until Game 21. Flip coached 11 games before Garnett made one spot-start, although he only played 22 minutes in that game. After another six games of coming off the bench, Saunders inserted KG into the lineup for good, and the rest was history. Garnett never came off the bench for the rest of his career (so far).

Odds are, Saunders has not made up his mind yet, and will take training camp and the preseason to evaluate whether or not he thinks Wiggins can handle the responsibility and pressure of starting in the NBA from the get-go. If I had to bet on it, I would say that Budinger or Brewer starts for the first few weeks, but that Wiggins will be a starter before New Year’s Day.

Either way, Wiggins will see heavy minutes, and along with Budinger and Brewer, all three players could see some time at the two-guard depending on Zach LaVine’s development. Wiggins can also play the four-spot in a small lineup, so there will be plenty of opportunities to his limitless talent on the court.

The Rotation

It’s tough to envision what Saunders’ actual, 8-10 player rotation will look like.

Let’s say that Wiggins starts, along with Rubio, Martin, Young, and Pekovic. Williams, Budinger, Brewer, and Dieng are your next four players, and many teams mainly play a nine-man rotation.

The problem with that top-nine grouping is the lack of big men. Bennett is the next man up, and beyond that, Hummel and Muhammad can each play some small-ball power forward.

And that’s twelve players. You’ll notice that LaVine, Turiaf, and Robinson were left out. Obviously, Flip will want to give LaVine more than zero minutes per game, so that will bump Muhammad or Hummel off of the 12-man active roster. Turiaf deserves minutes, too, and it would be good to see him moved to a team that needs an above-average backup center. While it would be sad to see Ronny leave town, he fits better on a team that needs him to play.

So if Robinson is in the D-League and Turiaf and Barea are moved, we’re left with 13 players. If it were my roster, Muhammad would be the odd man out and would either be inactive or play heavy minutes in the D-League. Here’s the rotation:

PG: Rubio (34 mpg), Williams (20 mpg), (LaVine)

SG: Martin (30 mpg), Budinger (16 mpg), (LaVine)

SF: Wiggins (32 mpg), Brewer (14 mpg), (Hummel)

PF: Young (34 mpg), Bennett (14 mpg), (Hummel)

C: Pekovic (26 mpg), Dieng (22 mpg)

LaVine will certainly find his way into the rotation, likely alongside Williams in the back court with either Budinger or Brewer at the small forward. You’ll notice that the per-position minute numbers don’t add up cleanly, but I’m factoring in around at least a quarter of Williams minutes coming at the two-guard. The question is whether it’s Brewer, Budinger, or Bennett that gets squeezed out of the rotation in favor of LaVine.

As of right now, this is how the awkward, veteran-y but super young and raw roster breaks down. An injury or two would change everything drastically, which is why depth is a great problem to have.

The issue is more with the idea that first-round draft picks (Wiggins, LaVine, Bennett, Dieng) need minutes. And Brewer, Budinger, Martin, and Williams were brought on board to receive starter’s minutes, along with Pekovic, Young, and Rubio. There isn’t a player on the roster, other than maybe Hummel, that isn’t going to think that they deserve 20+ minutes per game.

It will be extremely intriguing to see how Saunders breaks down the minutes throughout the preseason and into the regular season. It will be a work in progress, and it leads me to believe that there could be at least one trade before the end of the calender year. There are simply too much players smashed into the 2 through 4 positions, and something will have to give.