As we go through the off-season, in between celebrating hires of Tom Thibodeau and GM Scott Layden and the finally-announced, unanimous Rookie of the Year award for Karl-Anthony Towns, and speculating who the Timberwolves might draft, there isn’t much going on around the NBA.
Oh, that’s right, we’re in the midst of the NBA Playoffs, featuring three powerhouse teams including one of the best match-ups in terms of combined power in NBA history between the Golden State Warriors and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Rather than following these match-ups passively or, god forbid, ignoring them entirely, I urge you to follow the two remaining series, paying close attention to a few select players who have skill-sets that will remind you of the quality players the Timberwolves have put together and build excitement for what this team can soon become.
Ricky Rubio
The top five assist-men remaining in the NBA playoffs are, in order, Russell Westbrook, Draymond Green, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Kyle Lowry — that’s five out of the ten players who received consideration for MVP.
After Goran Dragic was eliminated from the playoffs along with the Miami Heat on Sunday, my lone remaining accurate comparison to Ricky Rubio is no longer remaining.
There are only few players in the league that can do what Rubio can do on the basketball court. He trailed only Chris Paul in assist-to-turnover ratio, was fourth behind Rajon Rondo, Russell Westbrook, and Paul in assists per 48 minutes, and averaged fewer turnovers than anyone else in the top-10 in assists per game.
If you’re holding me hostage and forcing me to choose a player who exhibits similar qualities to Ricky Rubio, watch the way LeBron James gets his teammates involved when he is on the court.
LeBron is a scoring threat unlike most we’ve ever seen in the NBA, but this skill is complemented by his ability to see the court like a floor general.
I’ve advocated in the past for the Cavaliers to have him operate as the point guard – he currently shares ball-handling duties with Kyrie Irving in the starting lineup, but that is another article for another day; the point is, LeBron James has the capacity to run an offense in a similar way that Ricky Rubio is able to.
When you are watching the match-up between the Cavs and the Raps, make sure to pay special attention to the opportunities where LeBron could score the basketball but instead opts to get his teammates involved in the game, increasing the efficiency of the Cavalier offense.
Next: Zach LaVine And A Thunder Star
Zach LaVine
Similarly to Ricky, Zach is a unique player. At this point, the most similar player to Zach LaVine remaining in the playoffs is Russell Westbrook.
Like the previous comparison between Ricky Rubio & LeBron James, this isn’t to say that Zach LaVine is an MVP candidate or should be considered a top-five player in the league, but watching the two players definitely yields similarities.
Of all the things that both of them do well, the skills overlap for the most part. When Zach sees an open lane to the hoop, he is going to jump at the opportunity and drive the rim.
The same is true for Westbrook.
Both Zach & Russ are extremely aggressive basketball players with the ball in their hands always looking to score for their team. Comparing the numbers that each player put up in their second year in the league (this season for LaVine and 2009-10 for Westbrook), some similarities jump out. LaVine shot a little better, 45.2 percent to 41.8 percent, but their scoring numbers were similar with LaVine scoring 14 points per game and Westbook putting up 16.2 points per contest.
The two places where the differences are really glaring are in three-point percentage and assists.
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Despite how badly Flip Saunders and Sam Mitchell wanted LaVine to be a point guard, he is clearly better suited to be off the ball as demonstrated by his pre/post all-star splits. He made his threes at a 38.9 percent clip this past season compared to Westbrook’s 22.1 percent in his sophomore season.
Zach also struggled distributing the ball, posting 3.1 assists per game to go with a 1.6 AST/TO ratio, while Russ posted eight assists per game with a much more respectable 2.4 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Zach LaVine is clearly a shooting guard while Russell Westbrook is a point guard with the scoring mindset that fits along with the new breed of point guards around the NBA. The two players have slightly different skill-sets, but the both possess the Mamba mentality.
The Golden State Warriors-Oklahoma City Thunder match-up should require no more incentive to watch, but observing the way that Russell Westbrook drives the rim and scores at will should remind you of a similar electric, bounce-out-of-the-gym athlete that the Timberwolves have on their roster.
Next: Andrew Wiggins And His Countryman
Andrew Wiggins
The best comparison for Andrew Wiggins comes from the team up North (even though Toronto technically lies south of Minneapolis) in Demar DeRozan. Although Wiggins has much further to go down the road in terms of performance – DeRozan is five years his senior – he plays a similar style and puts up numbers approaching those of DeRozan.
Comparing each of their second seasons yields even more similarities. Wiggins has the edge in points per game (20.7 to 17.2) and nearly equals DeRozan in other stats (3.6 to 3.8 in rebounds per game and 2.0 to 1.8 in assists per contest).
One major knock on Wiggins up until this point in his career is his inability to knock down the three-point shot. Compared to DeRozan in his second season, Wiggins is way ahead (30.0 percent to 9.6 percent!), but now trails, 30 to 33.8 percent.
The Wiggins-DeRozan comparison is probably the most easy one to see of the whole group. Similar in size (6′-7″, 220-pound DeRozan vs. the 6′-8″ 200-pound Wiggins) and playing style, the Timberwolves look forward to having Wiggins as an All-Star just like DeRozan.
Despite the fact that most people think the Cleveland Cavaliers are going to march right past the Raptors to the NBA Finals, this match-up is worth tuning into to see DeMar DeRozan, an Andrew Wiggins prototype, going at it in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Next: Kevin Garnett And A Jack-Of-All-Trades
Kevin Garnett
Kevin Garnett was a starter for much of the first half of the season and would have remained in this position, getting the young starters off to a good start in first quarters, had it not been for nagging injuries that left him on the bench in sweaters and sport coats for much of the season.
Because of these and other nagging injuries, KG is nothing more than a defensive specialist at this point in his career. He posted career lows in nearly every statistical category, but was excellent on pick and roll defense, and his lone dunk of the season was a highlight poster against Blake Griffin. Looking back to the Garnett most of us love to remember, the comparison is fellow jack-of-all-trades and defensive stalwart Draymond Green.
If we were to have the two standing next to each other, the similarities would not be evident. Green often plays as an undersized center in Golden States lineup of death at a diminutive 6′-7″ while Garnett mans the four-position at a self-proclaimed “six-foot-thirteen.” But it isn’t their stature but their playing style that draws the most similarities.
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Garnett remains one of the best passing big-men in the game despite his decrease in usage. He was also a nightly point-rebound double-double guy for the majority of his career. Like Garnett, Green excels in putting up double-digit totals in each of these categories; he finished second in the league with thirteen double-doubles this season.
Side note: I could have made a comparison using Gorgui Dieng who ended up starting for most of the season at the PF position, but this will probably be my one and only opportunity to include Kevin Garnett in this piece, assuming he retires before this time 12 months from now. It’s also fun to hope that the most similar players to Timberwolves starters in the playoffs next season are actual Timberwolves starters.
Be sure to tune into the Golden State Warriors games to watch how well Draymond Green meshes with his teammates, sharing the ball, defending the pick and roll, and putting up stats in the box score.
Next: Karl-Anthony Towns And A Former MVP
Karl-Anthony Towns
The main theme that developed over the course of the regular season was that Karl-Anthony Towns is a special breed of player unconcerned with comparisons, even passing the potential of Anthony Davis, the most similar player, over the course of the season.
Maybe, just maybe, the most similar player remaining in the NBA Playoffs is none other than the guy Towns interviewed way back when he was still in high school: Kevin Durant. Okay, hear me out.
“A player of his size should not be able to have the skillset that he has.”
Durant is known as one of just a handful of guys capable of scoring the basketball whenever he wants. As we witnessed during a string of games to close out the season, Towns showed that same ability to close out a couple of games including knocking down a game-winner against the Portland Trail Blazers.
Karl-Anthony Towns showed abilities that a player his size should not be able to possess. He was able to put the ball on the floor, drive the lane for massive dunks, and demonstrated his range, hitting 34.1 percent of his shots from beyond the arc but really showed his talents from 16 feet to the three-point arc, knocking down 50.1 percent of his shots from that spot on the floor.
Where have we heard that before? “A player of his size should not be able to have the skillset that he has,” Ahh, that’s right. It’s been used to in awe towards 6’11” Kevin Durant (or, as far as the NBA is concerned, 6’9″ Kevin Durant or, as the far as the ladies are concerned, 7′ Kevin Durant).
Despite the similarities in having guard like skills in a big-mans body, Karl-Anthony Towns plays much bigger than Durant. He officially towers over Durant 7′ to 6’9″ and outweighs him 244 pounds to 240, but you’ve got to believe the height difference is much smaller and the weight difference is much larger. The Timberwolves have wisely kept Towns operating in the post whereas the Thunder have done the same in keeping Durant as a deadly perimeter threat.
While the two players operate differently in their respective offenses, both Towns possess dominant scoring ability as well as skills normally seen in players much smaller. Timberwolves fans everywhere are anxious for Towns to launch into the stratosphere of super-stardom where Durant currently resides.
Don’t miss the match-up between the Warriors and the Thunder, featuring Kevin Durant, an over-sized ball-handling mismatch, draining more threes than Karl-Anthony Towns but providing similar scoring prowess and drawing similar awe from the masses.
If you are at all interested in the NBA, which you probably are if you took the time to read this article, you need to be following both of the Conference Finals match-ups.
If the games themselves don’t interest you (the Warriors-Thunder match-up should be enough to wake even the slightest sports fan), at least pay attention to the select group of players outlined above, observe the skill-sets they exhibit that include skills similar to Timberwolves roster players, and get excited about the future of this young, maturing, and Rising Wolves team.