While The Draft is the only thing other than The Finals going on in the NBA. How many guys in the draft or free agency are going to get the Wolves this:

There have been 20 seasons in NBA history in which a big man averaged at least 16 points, 8.7 rebounds, 3.7 offensive rebounds and made at least 74% of his free throw attempts. Moses Malone did it 10 times. David Robinson, Bill Laimbeer, and Bon McAdoo each did it twice. Hakeem Olajuwon, Dave Cowens, and Roy Tarpley all did it once. And last season, Nikola Pekovic did it. It was something that hadn’t been done since 1995-96 when the Admiral did it for the second time.

Pek has inspired a ton of hand-wringing (not quite as much as the MPR beer drinkers over Low being Low and not their station’s version of Low) and other Chicken Little behaviors all season because he’s a folk hero. A cuddly, yet crushing center, who will be monetized by someone other than the Wolves this summer and Glen Taylor will have to give the nod to Flip to keep him — because who on Earth do you think is going to replace him? Dream? The Admiral? Moses? He’s Pek. He’s the Wolves starting center.

Zach Harper has a nice rundown of why he’s the perfect 5 for Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio — and whatever slew of shooters the Wolves can cobble around them.

April 10, 2013; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves center Nikola Pekovic (14) dunks to score a basket against the Los Angeles Clippers during the first half at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

The key to maximizing the presence of Pek down the road, assuming the Wolves retain him, is to complement him with a steady, healthy roster. Initially, this could come off as me saying you build around Pek; that’s not what I mean. For your core players, you have to know how to get them to complement each other and having players complement your center is incredibly necessary. It’s a great start to have Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio as the two leaders of this team. With Love, you have a big man that can play inside out with Pek. You can give Pek the ball at the elbow, like we see so often in the offense, and have him hand it off to Rubio coming around a curl toward the top of the key. From that action, it allows Love to post up from the weak side or fade out to the perimeter where we expect his shot to get back to its normal accuracy next season.

Or you can do the same action with Love at the elbow and either have him hand it off to Rubio as Pek posts up inside, square up for the jumper that freezes the defense, or dump it into Pek right away for an easy score. The key to Rick Adelman’s offense is having guys that play well off each other and in theory, these three do work really well together. But that’s not enough for this team. Shooters have to space the floor for them to have the proper room to operate and with Love and Pek together inside, you need to have quality perimeter defenders to slow down dribble penetration.

These two can end possessions with their rebounding prowess and Pek’s pick-and-roll defense was the best on the team last season. But we can’t pretend they’re going to be David West and Roy Hibbert out there. There will never be the real threat of shot-blocking coming from those two, but that’s not a requirement for a good defensive unit. You just need them to be in position defensively to close off driving lanes when the perimeter defense does break down and then rebound as a team.

And this is where I believe Pek’s full value can be measured as a teammate, even though he’ll end up being a payroll value. It’s so easy to complement Pekovic’s particular playing style. He’s an old school center that fits into today’s ever-evolving game. You can surround him with the 3-point shooting prowess (I mean… it has to get better at some point, right?) of today’s NBA and still maximize his abilities in the low block because the shooting creates the necessary space for Pek to grind meat, in theory. We saw him do it all season long without the proper spacing on the floor and he was still really good.

From awolfamongwolves.com

Ben Polk writes…

Apr 13, 2013; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves point guard Ricky Rubio (9) controls the ball against the Phoenix Suns in the third quarter at the Target Center. Timberwolves won 105-93. Mandatory Credit: Greg Smith-USA TODAY Sports

There was that magical first game of his comeback, against Dallas, when he seemed to just be floating on a pink cloud, dishing assists as if he’d never missed a game. There was the triple-double against San Antonio. There was that incredible string of seven games in February and March in which he averaged nearly 4.5 steals per and defended with a total mania that was both stunning to behold and also plainly unsustainable. There was the home game against Miami during that same stretch, in which Rubio attempted to stem the tide of that inevitable, game-clinching Heat run wave by personally preventing LeBron from dribbling the ball up the floor. It was an impossible, doomed, beautiful effort–but for an amazing moment it seemed like he just might single-handedly derail both the Heat’s offense and the greatest player in the world.

Of course he couldn’t sustain that energy. Especially as the season wound down, as fatigue and disappointment set in, that all-encompassing effort began to look more like simple gambling. And many of those failed gambles resulted in impossible situations for the Wolves’ bigs, outmanned, forced to defend an un-contained ballhandler in the paint. Rubio’s gifts allowed him to do the glorious thing–disrupting the entire offense by hawking the point guard–but he often failed at doing the simple, fundamental thing, like staying in front of the ballhandler, or conscientiously pursuing him around a screen. Many of those six-steal nights were also six-turnover nights. He suffered through horrendous shooting slumps, forcing jumpers and looking terrible doing it. The quality of his effort began to be contingent on the inconsistencies of his emotions. When he was not fanatic, he seemed despondent and drained.

Right now, Rubio’s game and his temperament produce ecstatic moments, moments that seem touched from the beyond. Sometimes these moments last for just an instant; sometimes they last for a quarter or even an entire game. But think, now, of the great ballhandlers and perimeter scorers we’ve watched in the late rounds of the last few playoffs: Tony Parker; LeBron and Wade; Westbrook and Durant. These players have learned–or are learning–to produce, not just transcendent moments, but longform narratives. Their brilliance is written across multiple possessions, multiple games, entire seasons.

When we are young, we cling to our youth. We may believe that those visceral, ecstatic surges are the only truly authentic things we know; and so we dread their passing away, dread sinking into a flat, dull, uninflected existence. And those surges are beautiful, no doubt. But life–and the NBA season–is too long and exhausting for us to subsist on them alone. Great players know that in order to be what their teams need them to be, their greatness must stem not simply from massive upwellings of emotion, but from habit and process. Its a subtler, broader kind of ecstasy, harder to spot and to appreciate maybe, but also more nuanced and more sustainable. Ricky Rubio is not there yet, but he’ll get there; and when he does, it will be a real sight to behold.