ESPN: Minnesota Timberwolves have fourth-best young team in NBA
By Ben Beecken
Aug 26, 2014; St. Paul, MN, USA; The newest Minnesota Timberwolves display their new jerseys (left to right) guard Andrew Wiggins, forward Anthony Bennett, forward Thaddeus Young, and guard Zach LaVine at Minnesota State Fair. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports
Over at ESPN.com (Insider subscription required), Amin Elhassan ranked all thirty NBA teams according to under-age-25 talent on their respective current rosters.
It’s an intriguing exercise, especially with your Minnesota Timberwolves in the midst of a talent-hogging, quasi-rebuild mode. Obviously, acquiring the most highly-regarded first overall draft pick since John Wall wouldn’t hurt the ranking, and adding the previous year’s number-one overall pick and their own 2014 first-round pick would help, too.
Sure enough, Elhassan had the Wolves ranked fairly highly. But probably not quite highly enough.
Since this particular piece is behind ESPN.com’s Insider paywall, I’m not about to post any quotes from the article. But I will say that the New Orleans Pelicans and Washington Wizards are ranked a very deserving one-two. Beyond that, things get a bit sticky.
New Orleans? Anthony Davis. ‘Nuff said. Jrue Holiday is really the only other player of consequence on the under-25 list, and he’s 24 years old. But Davis along is enough to push them to number one, since he could easily be one of the top-ten players in the NBA this year, and he’s just 21 years old.
Washington challenges the Pelicans for the top spot, with John Wall (still just 24 years old) and Bradley Beal (21) leading the way. This also makes a lot of sense, although the Wolves could move past them this year if Wiggins plays well, Ricky Rubio improves, and Anthony Bennett shows anything at all.
The Wolves are ranked fourth, with Rubio (23), Wiggins (19), Zach LaVine (19), and Gorgui Dieng (24) leading the way. Bennett (21) and Shabazz Muhammad (21) also make the list of 25-and-under, but don’t add a lot of value.
The fact that Rubio, one of the best defensive players in the entire NBA and already a better point guard than nearly two-thirds of the starting point guards in the NBA, is still just 23 and anchors this list for the Wolves boggles the mind. Except for Davis, it’s hard to find another under-25 player with the obscene combination of this much current value along with potential improvement and further production.
Wiggins is obviously another key for this ranking, as in some people’s mind he’s the best #1 overall pick since Blake Griffin in 2009. I’m much less sold on what he’ll provide as a rookie (or over the course of his career), but the perception is certainly that the Wolves have a stable of young talent. And there really isn’t any questioning his ceiling, which is what this list is ultimately about. It’s simply whether or not he reaches said ceiling, of course, and it’s impossible to have a read on that at this point.
The craziness is in the Milwaukee Bucks’ ranking: third in the NBA, ahead of the Wolves.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is fun to watch and has tantalizing ability. But, frankly, he was not very good as a rookie. Brandon Knight has not improved much since coming to the league, and Kendall Marshall isn’t good either, his stint with the Lakers notwithstanding.
Jabari Parker is the only legitimate, allegedly can’t-miss prospect or player on this list. He’ll need to turn into a surefire superstar if the Bucks are going to be better than the Wolves’ young nucleus moving forward.
But hey, the moral of the story is that the Wolves have a crop of potentially good and extremely young players. And that’s something to be excited about, even if people wrongfully believe the Bucks have a better stable of young talent.