Dunking With Wolves
Fansided

Potential trades the Timberwolves should (or shouldn’t) pursue

By Justin Pinotti

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - NOVEMBER 24: The Minnesota Timberwolves make their way back on court as they play against the Miami Heat on November 24, 2017 at Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Jordan Johnson/NBAE via Getty Images)
MINNEAPOLIS, MN - NOVEMBER 24: The Minnesota Timberwolves make their way back on court as they play against the Miami Heat on November 24, 2017 at Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Jordan Johnson/NBAE via Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
3 of 7
Next
MINNEAPOLIS, MN – NOVEMBER 28: Gorgui Dieng #5 of the Minnesota Timberwolves looks on during the game against the Washington Wizards on November 28, 2017 at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)
MINNEAPOLIS, MN – NOVEMBER 28: Gorgui Dieng #5 of the Minnesota Timberwolves looks on during the game against the Washington Wizards on November 28, 2017 at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images) /

4) Gorgui Dieng for Wes Matthews and Nerlens Noel

Why should the Wolves do it?

I love Gorgui, but no doubt the Wolves have somewhat of a tricky situation to navigate with their post corp.

The Wolves are doing something that feels somewhat impossible to do, which is often playing with two traditional big men, and still managing to not being great as a team on defense.

I am of the opinion that much of this can be traced to Karl-Anthony Towns and his mostly horrendous defense at the center position. He reads defenses poorly and has bad instincts. He’s often guilty of not giving great effort, either. (Although, to his credit, his effort has been better lately).

Taj Gibson was brought in to be kind of a hedge. The Wolves, like everyone, seem to want Towns to be a center, because Towns playing center just opens up so much on offense due to the mismatches he presents, but you simply cannot punt on defense to the extent that playing Towns at center leaves you vulnerable. So, Taj works as an attempt to have both.

I think it’s worked out alright, actually. I know the Wolves’ overall defense hasn’t been great (25th in defensive rating, which is actually an improvement in recent weeks), but I do think when they get locked-in, they can be reasonably effective, or at least effective enough to not completely let down their offense. But, I think there are still big questions the organization needs to continue to investigate, such as what is the best way to use Towns.

More from Dunking with Wolves

Gorgui is both a solution and a problem, depending on how you look at it.

He’s a solution because he can actually give you good defensive minutes at center while not completely sacrificing spacing and ball movement on offense. Much like Taj, Gorgui is shockingly good for a big man at shooting, passing and setting picks, and those things help to mitigate spacing issues that can result in playing with two big men. (Also, G has gotten really comfortable with his 3-point shot, to the point where he just shoots now without hesitation and that’s greatly opened his game up).

However, I do think Gorgui could be somewhat of “a problem” in the sense that he’s not so good on defense that he can really anchor our team like a traditional center. He’s more of “just a good guy on defense” vs “this guy is so good he can single handled carry a good defense”, which if you’re going to lean heavily on two traditional big men, and neither of your centers are the “can carry a decent defense on their own” type … you end up the 25th ranked defense.

What are the Timberwolves getting in return?

Wes Matthews: Wes Matthews used to be an awesome player, but now, his career has been ravaged by injuries. His defense, once a calling-card, is now terrible (-2.17 in DRPM), and the Mavericks are going in a direction away from cagey veterans who eat up a ton of salary.

So he’s mostly in this trade as a way to get Noel for Gorgui and have salaries work. But as a salary filler, he’s somewhat interesting. He once was a good defensive player, so maybe, just maybe he has a career resurgence, he is a cagey vet-type that Thibs likes to go for…and while his defense may be falling off, he’s still a great 3-point shooter (41 percent so far this year).

The Wolves certainly wouldn’t be getting Wes Matthews of old, but he could help (and would be better than Bazz off the bench, which is a recurring theme here). Moving money around so our “bad contracts” actually help fill holes, is an okay outcome of making trades too.

Nerlens Noel: I’ve always found Noel to be an interesting case study. By analytics-heavy basketball observes he’s often been seen as somewhat of a defensive messiah in waiting. He’s always had crazy per-100 numbers (2.7 steals, 2.9 blocks, and 13 rebounds per 100 possessions for his career), but he’s 0-for-2 in organizations truly trusting him. It’s possible both the Sixers and Mavericks could have been independently wrong about him, but both of them is more tough to believe than just one of them.

I’m not one to give up on young players, especially if the price is as low as it appears the price for Noel is getting. So I’d definitely be open to seeing if he can be the defensive white whale his stats say he could be.

But on top of that, what Noel could be is very valuable to the Wolves. An impact defensive center, someone who can take the pressure off Towns on defense. I just think if you hit on Noel, it would really open everything else up for us. It’s a gamble that I think i worth it. And if he’s really a problem, kick him to the curb in the offseason and take the salary relief.

Half-assed justification for why the Mavericks do this:

They could definitely use a real center who can space the floor a bit, Noel is a head case and Matthews is dead money. Maybe the Wolves need to add Bjelica to this or a second-round pick, I don’t know and I’m not going to waste too much time trying to make a fake trade perfect.

Would I do it?

Sure.

It would hurt my heart a bit, as it’s been fun to watch Gorgui grow during his time with the Wolves into a legitimately good and versatile player (and by all accounts is a good dude, too), but I don’t really see a real downside to this trade.

If Noel is really just the worst teammate ever and Matthews really is just straight cooked, Matthews’ contract still ends in a year, giving us either an expiring contract to trade, or more salary flexibility (as mentioned earlier, being able to keep getting mid-level exceptions would have value to a team with three max contract players).

The upside to trades like this is Noel ends up fixing the Wolves defense and saving Towns from having to play power forward while Matthews has a mini-defensive resurgence coming off the bench, while providing much-needed shooting.