Feb 11, 2015; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves guard Ricky Rubio (9) dribbles the ball down the court in the second half against the Golden State Warriors at Target Center. The Warriors won 94-91. Mandatory Credit: Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports
State of the Roster
The state of the Wolves roster is, as always, ever-changing.
Kevin Garnett is in his mind-boggling 20th NBA season. Kevin Martin is in his 11th. Beyond that, little-used Chase Budinger is in his sixth year in the league, Gary Neal and Nikola Pekovic are in their fifth, and Ricky Rubio is in his fourth season.
That means that nine players on the Wolves’ current roster are either rookies or second-year players. That is absolutely, unbelievably insane.
It’s not a bad thing, nor is it a good thing. It means there are a lot of lottery tickets sitting on the bench, really. Andrew Wiggins, Gorgui Dieng, and Shabazz Muhammad all appear to have bright futures to some degree. The question is, how bright?
Zach LaVine has shown flashes but has realistically been one of the very worst players in the entire NBA this season. But he’s still nineteen years-old. The jury is also still out on newly-acquired rookie Adreian Payne, although he’s already 24 years of age.
There’s some flexibility with this roster, although the only money coming off the books this summer in the form of unrestricted free agents is the just over $15 million owed to Garnett and Neal. They’re still very much reliant on the draft, and they’ll have to make a sound decision regarding Anthony Bennett over the summer as the team option on his contract is worth $7.3 million in 2016.
The team is in a better spot today than I could have imagined after last spring’s Kevin Love saga, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. Building around Wiggins and Rubio is the correct only path to take, and Saunders and his coaching staff will need to do a good job developing talent around them over the next couple of seasons if this team is to end up in the playoffs again someday.
If things go according to plan, however, ‘someday’ could be very soon.
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