Two Timberwolves appear in Part One of SI’s Top 100 NBA Players

For the fifth straight year, SI.com is releasing it’s Top 100 NBA Players. Numbers 51 through 100 have been announced, and there are two Timberwolves players that have been revealed thus far.

Part One of SI.com’s Top 100 NBA Players series is out, and there are two Timberwolves — and one prominent ex-Wolf — ranked between 51 and 100. Numbers 31-50 will be announced on Tuesday.

New Timberwolves forward Taj Gibson squeaked in at #95. He edged out Oklahoma City’s replacement for him, Patrick Patterson (#98), and another power forward on a Western Conference contender in Houston’s Ryan Anderson (#97).

Gibson spent the first seven-plus years of his NBA career with the Chicago Bulls before being shipped to OKC at the trade deadline last year. As the SI.com synopsis covers, Gibson’s primary value is on the defensive end of the floor and in the toughness and hustle he provides. Plus, the locker room component seems to be significant with Taj.

In terms of other big men, he was barely edged out Julius Randle (#94), Nikola Vucevic (#89), Marvin Williams (#88), Nerlens Noel (#86), Robin Lopez (#85). This seems about right; Randle is perhaps the only one that isn’t a better all-around player as of today, but the youth and ceiling of Randle is enough to give him the one-spot edge over Gibson.

The other Timberwolf between #51-100 is yet another new Wolf: point guard Jeff Teague. He comes in at #55, edging out old friend Ricky Rubio at #61 and New Orleans’ Jrue Holiday at #60.

Here’s an excerpt from SI.com’s write-up:

"Sizing up Teague feels an awful lot like hearing an urban legend. He has made an All-Star team and appeared in the playoffs for eight straight years, and yet the most memorable moment of his career might have been when he was spotted clutching a pizza box all by himself after being left behind by the team bus…An adept pick-and-roll initiator with three-point range and the ability to get to the line, Teague will give the post-Ricky Rubio Timberwolves a natural scoring threat at the one. Although he’s nothing to write home about as a defender, Teague gets by well enough to make Minnesota’s three-year, $57 million contract look like a reasonable, if slightly generous, investment…"

Indeed, Teague is a fairly non-descript one-time All-Star. He’s also appeared in the playoffs every single season as a professional, and will add a different element to the Wolves’ offense than Rubio did over the past few years.

We’ve covered all of the things that Teague can and can’t do at length here at Dunking With Wolves. His ranking of slightly beating out Rubio and Holiday. Avery Bradley of the Celtics was the only other guard ranked between #51 and #54, so we’ll know more about whom he edged out upon the release of Part Two on Tuesday.

As for Rubio’s ranking…it seems about right. Again, we’ll know more when there’s a complete list so we can see his ranking in the context of the rest of the point guards league-wide. But in a vacuum, an upgrade from Teague to Rubio is probably a slight upgrade, and that is reflected in these rankings.

Next: Best and Worst-Case Scenarios For Jeff Teague

We’ll pass along numbers 31-50 once they’re released on Tuesday, along with commentary.