Dunking With Wolves
Fansided

Wolves Season in Review: Justin Hamilton

By Ben Beecken

facebooktwitterreddit

This is Part Three of the Wolves Season in Review player capsules. We’ll be looking at every player that finished the season on the Wolves roster, excluding ten-day contract signees. We’re starting with the players that played the fewest minutes and working our way up the roster to those that logged the most playing time. Today’s featured player is Justin Hamilton.

The Wolves claimed Justin Hamilton off waivers from the New Orleans Pelicans on March 5. The seven-footer had been shipped to the Pels from the Miami Heat as part of the three-team trade that also sent Norris Cole and Shawne Williams to New Orleans and Goran Dragic to South Beach.

Hamilton had played in 24 games for the Heat, starting five contests and averaging 12 minutes per game. The Wolves have apparently liked him for awhile, dating back to his freshman year at Iowa State before transferring to play a season at LSU. After declaring for the NBA draft, Hamilton was picked 45th overall by the Philadelphia 76ers but immediately sent to the Heat.

He was cut before the season by the Heat and played in one game with Charlotte before going back to Miami and appearing in seven contests over the remainder of the 2013-14 season.

In 39 career games in the D-League, Hamilton has put up impressive numbers: 19.2 points and 9.3 rebounds per game as well as 37.8% shooting from beyond the arc. D-League dominance is a decent predictor of positive contributors at the NBA level, and 39 games borders on a decent sample size.

With the Wolves, Hamilton played 24.9 minutes per game while appearing in 17 contests, starting nine of them. He had some injury problems down the stretch, missing a few games due to severe headaches. When he was on the court, however, he contributed positively.

Live Feed

NBA Trade Rumors: 1 Player from each team most likely to be traded in-season
NBA Trade Rumors: 1 Player from each team most likely to be traded in-season /

Sir Charles In Charge

  • NBA Power Rankings: Tiering all 30 projected starting point guards for 2023-24Sir Charles In Charge
  • NBA rumors: Trae Young trade buzz, Andre Drummond is a comedian, Wemby and KAT team upFanSided
  • These NBA stars might switch teams sooner rather than laterAll U Can Heat
  • Is Karl-Anthony Towns entering his final season with Minnesota TimberwolvesSir Charles In Charge
  • Tigers Prospects: Paul Skenes vs Jace Jung had an unlikely winnerMotor City Bengals

    • He is not a very good defender, and despite blocking 1.5 shots per game and 2.1 blocks per 36 minutes, his size didn’t do much to deter opponents from scoring in the paint against the Wolves.

    After hoisting 2.4 three-point attempts per 36 minutes with Miami, Hamilton’s long-range attempts plummeted to just one per 36 minutes in Minnesota. He made 4 of 12 attempts with the Wolves, and seemed hesitant to shoot open jumpers when outside the arc. It’s only a guess, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Flip Saunders discouraged him from shooting threes. That would be absurd, of course, considering he knocked them down at a 37.8% clip in the D-League.

    At any rate, Hamilton was still relatively efficient offensively, drawing fouls at an impressive rate of .354 free throw attempts per field goal attempts. He also knocked down 83% of his free throws on the season.

    Hamilton could probably play a role as a fifth big man in the NBA. He isn’t good enough defensively to be a front line backup on a playoff contender, but there is absolutely a place in the NBA for a seven-footer that can knock down outside shots and get to the free throw line.

    The Wolves like him enough that he could be back in 2015-16. He will be a free agent and the Wolves will presumably have two healthy centers in Nikola Pekovic and Gorgui Dieng. That doesn’t include the high probability that the Wolves could end up with either Karl-Anthony Towns or Jahlil Okafor in this June’s NBA draft.

    But there’s always a chance that Pekovic or Dieng could be moved in the off-season. It’s tough to gauge how highly Wolves’ brass thinks of Dieng, but he no doubt holds significant trade value around the league. If there is a move to be made on draft night to pick up another first round pick and the Wolves pick either Towns or Okafor, then Dieng could be shipped out.

    Hamilton should be on an NBA roster this fall; it’s just a matter of if it will be back with the Wolves or elsewhere.

    More from Dunking with Wolves

    Home/Timberwolves News