Minnesota Timberwolves: What to expect from a seventh overall pick
As we all know, the Minnesota Timberwolves hold the seventh overall pick in this year’s draft. What we don’t know, yet, is what kind of production is typical from the seventh pick.
The Minnesota Timberwolves find themselves in a precarious position in this year’s NBA draft. Their biggest decision will be whether or not they can justify trading their pick and getting enough assets in return. Or if they should keep the pick and select another young player they hope to add to their already youthful core.
The biggest reason why Tom Thibodeau and the Minnesota Timberwolves want to trade their seventh pick is that they do not believe that they can find an immediate contributor at that spot in the draft.
With Zach LaVine, Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins all 22 years of age or younger, the last thing the Timberwolves want to do is add more youth to their equation.
In a recent interview with Charlie Walters of The Pioneer Press, Minnesota Timberwolves’ owner Glen Taylor had this to say about trading the pick:
"“I think once we get there, there’s always a possibility to do a trade or move up or down — probably down,. You’d trade No. 6 for No. 15 or something like that and get a player that could help us."
That was immediately before the Draft Lottery when the Timberwolves projected slot was the sixth pick, however, the sentiment still rings true.
Walters goes on to point out that the Timberwolves average age is 25.7 years young and that will play a contributing factor in their decision to keep or trade the pick.
Given that the Timberwolves are in the mindset that they will not be able to find a player who can help them right away, let’s take a look to see if that is true or not. What can we really expect from the seventh overall pick, both in the short-term and in the long-term as well?
For this exercise, I will only look at the seventh overall picks from the lottery era, which is defined as 1985 and later.
Before I dive into talk about Win Shares I would like to give you a point of reference to work from while reading the rest of this article.
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Wiggins produced 4.2 Win Shares this past season and has 10.4 for his career.
Towns produced 12.7 this past season and already has 20.9 on his career.
Ricky Rubio earned 6.1 Win Shares and has 23.2 in his seasons of NBA action.
Alright, now we can start, let’s look at the two times in Timberwolves’ franchise history that they drafted seventh; 2007 when they selected Corey Brewer, and 1991 when they grabbed Luc Longley.
Instead of me regurgitating and spewing stats at you, it will be much simpler if I insert their stats from Basketball-Reference. So, that’s what I’ll do.
| Rk | Player | G | PER | TS% | TRB% | AST% | STL% | BLK% | TOV% | OWS | DWS | WS | OBPM | DBPM | BPM | VORP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Corey Brewer | 79 | 8.3 | .429 | 9.4 | 9.1 | 2.2 | 1.1 | 14.3 | -1.4 | 1.2 | -0.2 | -3.9 | 0.8 | -3.2 | -0.5 |
| 2 | Luc Longley | 66 | 10.1 | .494 | 14.3 | 7.3 | 1.8 | 3.9 | 22.6 | -0.9 | 1.1 | 0.2 | -5.1 | 1.7 | -3.4 | -0.3 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Neither player was effective during their first season with the Timberwolves. The league average PER is 15 and both Brewer and Longley were way below that their first season.
While Brewer posted a slightly negative Win Shares, Longley barely contributed positively to his team. Either way, you can’t say that either player made a positive contribution during their first season with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
So maybe these two guys were slow starters. Maybe they picked it up the rest of their careers.
| Rk | Player | PER | TS% | TRB% | AST% | STL% | BLK% | TOV% | OWS | DWS | WS | OBPM | DBPM | BPM | VORP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Corey Brewer | 11.9 | .499 | 6.7 | 10.4 | 2.7 | 0.9 | 11.8 | 4.5 | 14.7 | 19.2 | -1.1 | 0.1 | -1.0 | 4.1 |
| 2 | Luc Longley | 11.8 | .503 | 13.4 | 10.7 | 1.2 | 3.2 | 18.8 | -0.4 | 17.9 | 17.5 | -3.2 | 1.7 | -1.5 | 1.5 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Then again, maybe not. While both players were serviceable and adequate, neither made an overwhelming contribution to their team one way or another.
Brewer’s career PER of 11.9 and Longley’s of 11.8 put them as slightly below average players. However, when we look at their Value Over a Replacement Player, both guys come out as just slightly above average.
In regards to Win Shares, they were each able to contribute a decent amount but nothing overwhelmingly spectacular.
When it comes to Brewer and Longley, it appears that Taylor was right about not being able to find a player who can contribute right away.
Now let’s dive deeper into other players who have been selected at the seventh spot. I hope you appreciate how much math and manual labor is about to show up in this post. Well, at least it’s a lot of math for me. It’s all relative.
On average, the seventh overall pick is going to give you 32.6 Win Shares throughout the life of his career. Chris Mullin produced the most win shares during his career with 93.1. Stephen Curry, who is still in the prime of his career, will surely pass him as he has 84.2.
On the opposite end of the spectrum sits Emmanuel Mudiay and Bobby Hurley. Both men have negative Win Shares, the only players to do so from the seventh pick.
Even during Curry and Mullin’s first season in the league, they weren’t extremely effective when compared generally to other players.
| Rk | Player | PER | TS% | TRB% | AST% | STL% | BLK% | TOV% | OWS | DWS | WS | OBPM | DBPM | BPM | VORP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stephen Curry | 16.3 | .568 | 6.8 | 24.6 | 2.5 | 0.5 | 16.5 | 3.0 | 1.6 | 4.7 | 1.8 | -0.7 | 1.0 | 2.2 |
| 2 | Chris Mullin* | 16.0 | .539 | 4.5 | 10.5 | 2.3 | 0.9 | 9.5 | 2.3 | 0.6 | 2.9 | 0.7 | -1.6 | -0.9 | 0.4 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Both players did rate above average in PER, which signifies that they made solid contributions to the Golden State Warriors.
They each posted good Win Shares as Curry record 4.7 and Mullin recorded 2.9.
In looking at recent history, the last five picks from the seventh spot has been a mixed bag of results. In descending order they have been: Jamal Murray, Emanual Mudiay, Julius Randle, Ben McLemore and Harrison Barnes.
As would be expected, Barnes has the highest Win Shares with 22.3 over the span of his career. Randle has the next highest with 5.1 but none of the other three guys have over four Win Shares in their career.
Overall, it looks like the seventh pick can be a semi-productive player throughout their career but only the truly great players make an impact right away.
Therefore, if the Minnesota Timberwolves are looking for a player to contribute immediately, they are better off trading the pick for a proven veteran who compliments their current core.
Next: Ultimate Minnesota Timberwolves draft guide
Imagine that, a man who gets paid millions of dollars to know the NBA actually knows what he’s talking about. To that, I applaud you Mr. Thibodeau.