Is the Minnesota Timberwolves’ second unit too inexperienced?

The Minnesota Timberwolves have welcomed two new players in the NBA Draft, and coupled with last year’s rookie Justin Patton, the Wolves appear to have a youthful second unit coming together.

The Timberwolves had quite a successful draft, nabbing two players with consensus first-round grades while only using one first-round pick.

With the 20th pick, the Timberwolves selected shooting guard Josh Okogie. Okogie played two years for Georgia Tech, averaging 18.2 points, 6.3 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.8 steals and 1 block in 36 minutes per game in his final season. Here was our initial reaction to the selection, plus Ben Beecken’s prospect comparison of Okogie to Jimmy Butler.

At 6-foot5, Okogie is shorter than both Andrew Wiggins and Butler, and his listed 207 pounds sits him in between the two players. ESPN’s pre-draft analysis lists Okogie’s projected ‘3-and-D’ player, which, thankfully for the Timberwolves, is something they could certainly use off the bench.

With the 48th pick in the draft, the Timberwolves managed to grab Keita Bates-Diop, who I’d previously written about as a prospect for the 20th pick.

Bates-Diop completed four seasons at Ohio State, and although his third was ruined by injury, his final season was by far his most productive. I’ve noticed a number of people on twitter since the draft projecting Bates-Diop to garner more playing time than Okogie in the regular season, due to his ability to stretch between a 3-or-4 player, which could see him sliding into the starting lineup, but more on that later.

The Timberwolves also have last year’s 17th pick in the draft, Justin Patton, on the roster, who unfortunately due to injury was limited to just one four-minute appearance at the NBA level in his rookie season, and will be entering this regular season essentially as a rookie.

This is where things may get complicated for the Timberwolves. The Wolves starting lineup from  last season remains intact thus far and under contract for the upcoming season. The Timberwolves’ bench has a number of players whose contracts are up, ranging from players as important as Nemanja Bjelica and Jamal Crawford, to players Tom Thibodeau was happy to use sparingly, such as Aaron Brooks and Marcus Georges-Hunt.

If Tom Thibodeau was to continue using the starting lineup in the same manner he did last season, it would likely leave a second unit consisting of Tyus Jones, Josh Okogie, Keita Bates-Diop, Justin Patton, and Gorgui Dieng.

Now there’s certainly talent in that lineup, however having all five of these players on the court at once could easily leave the Wolves susceptible to a number of blown leads or periods of struggle.

Okogie and Bates-Diop are yet to play a single minute of NBA action, while Patton has just four minutes of experience and will miss the first portion of the season due to another foot surgery. Jones. as we’ve learned is certainly capable of running the Wolves’ offense and holding his own in defense, but commanding what is essentially three rookies may not be such an easy task, and Jones’ offensive contributions tend to lean more on playmaking than scoring himself.

Jones will be entering his fourth season in the league, and relying on a player who is still so young to run the Timberwolves’ second unit could be risky without much of a veteran presence, which brings us to Dieng.

Dieng would, of course, have to be the veteran presence of this theoretical second unit, and that doesn’t instill a lot of faith in me.

With five years experience with the Timberwolves, Dieng is the longest-serving Wolf. Entering his sixth NBA season, Dieng has averaged 8.3 points and 6.7 rebounds, starting 185 of 376 appearances for the team. These numbers aren’t particularly bad, and in fact are relatively comparable to Taj Gibson’s 9.7 points and 6.4 rebounds, however it was clear last season who Thibodeau preferred on the court, and Gibson’s extra five years of age and experience make him more capable of being such a presence.

The idea here is that removing Gibson from the starting lineup to inject the second unit with a veterean presence, adding more stability, strength and power, could tighten up the bench. Such a move would open the gap in the starting lineup for either Gorgui Dieng, Justin Patton or Keita Bates-Diop to fill in, from which I personally would be leaning towards the latter.

This option would leave a starting lineup of Teague, Butler, Wiggins, Bates-Diop and Towns on the court, while the second unit would consist of Jones and Okogie, with Gibson, Dieng and Patton all options for the top two spots. This would of course leave a gap at small forward, which the Timberwolves should be able to fill if made a priority in free agency, or perhaps via the summer league or a two-way contract, one of which they’ve already used on shooting guard Jared Terrell.

The use of different lineups would also be able to fill this gap, as it’s obviously not just a “first unit, second uni” strategy used by Thibodeau. Of course, swapping Gibson and Dieng would likely suppress the second unit’s scoring punch even more.

Butler and Wiggins playing alongside Jones would be interesting to watch, while of course Thibodeau will be tossing up plenty of potential lineups in his head, and perhaps trying them out during the preseason.

We still have the upcoming free agency period to stay tuned for to witness how our roster will be shaping up, but as things currently stand, the Timberwolves seem to have a solid roster with a number of options for different lineups.

Next: Timberwolves Sign Jared Terrell to a Two-Way Contract

I, as many Wolves fans, will be watching the Timberwolves free agency period closely, as Tom Thibodeau and the Wolves front office look to complete the roster that will take the court next season despite limited cap space.