Timberwolves Notes: Brandon Rush, other free agency notes

NBA free agency is nearly a week old, and the Timberwolves have still only made one signing, although another player or two could be on the horizon.

While the opening few days of free agency were largely unsatisfying for Timberwolves fans, there are really only a couple of glaring needs for the opening night rotation.

The first signing of the summer for the Wolves was Minnesota native Cole Aldrich, filling the backup center spot in light of Kevin Garnett‘s continuing limbo and the gigantic (literally) question mark that is Nikola Pekovic.

The point guard spot is set, with Ricky Rubio, first-round selection Kris Dunn, and Tyus Jones all in the fold. The rest of the starting lineup will surely consist of Zach LaVine, Andrew Wiggins, and Gorgui Dieng. The current backups that will be in the rotation are Shabazz Muhammad and Nemanja Bjelica, plus Aldrich.

That’s an eight-man rotation, not including Jones as the third-string point guard, or Garnett, or Pekovic. The one thing missing is long-range shooting, as only LaVine and Bjelica are likely to shoot above league-average from beyond the arc, although Wiggins, Rubio, and Towns have all shown the ability to hover around the mid-30’s, percentage-wise.

Another reliable backup big man would be another nice piece to have, but shooting is the biggest overall skill that the roster is lacking.

KSTP’s Darren Wolfson was, once again, the first to mention the name of a player that the Wolves appear to be pursuing.

Brandon Rush was a bench contributor for the Golden State Warriors last season, averaging 14.7 minutes per game over 72 contests and shooting 41.4 percent from beyond the arc.

He’s somewhat of a tragic tail, as he was one of the more prolific three-point shooters in the league over the first four seasons of his career that began in 2008, spending his first three years with Indiana before joining the Warriors in 2011.

Rush shot 41.3 percent over the four years while playing nearly 27 minutes per game before blowing out his knee in the second game of the 2012-13 campaign.

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Rush will still just be in his age-31 season in 2015-16, so there shouldn’t be much of a decline from a very good role player.

And even more encouraging, Wolfson’s Tuesday evening podcast confirmed that the Timberwolves would be looking at Rush on a one-year deal with a potential option on a second year. At 15 minutes per game, the Wolves could do a lot worse than Rush.

Other free agency notes from Wolfson’s Scoops podcast include:

• The Timberwolves made official offers on Luol Deng, Pau Gasol, and Courtney Lee, but weren’t particularly close on any of the three players. Deng was only offered three years and nothing close to the money that he received from the Lakers. Also, Lee was close on money but not the four years he landed from the Knicks, and the Wolves were willing to go north of a two-year, $36 million offer for Gasol but were turned down.
• The Wolves were interested in Al Horford but his wife was not interested in even considering the possibility.
• Wolfson also mentioned a host of players that the Wolves either a) talked to but not offer, or b) had no interest in at all.

Please head over to the ESPN 1500 site and check out Scoops. There’s also a fun interview with newly-re-signed Clippers sixth-man Jamal Crawford during the first portion of the podcast.

Next: Timberwolves Announce Summer League Roster

We’ll have some additional free agency analysis soon regarding the remaining free agents on the market that the Timberwolves should be strongly considering, so stay tuned for that.