Minnesota Timberwolves: Grading the 2018 offseason

Free Agency

The Timberwolves had virtually zero cap space heading into the summer, only entering free agency armed with the mid-level and bi-annual exceptions — about $12 million in total money to spend. (Unless they managed to dump existing salary, which they obviously were not able to do.)

My lists of players for them to consider at forward and on the wing included 10 options in each spot. The Wolves came away with No. 4 on my forward list in Anthony Tolliver — a solid showing.

They also thought outside the box and picked up Euroleague sharpshooter James Nunnally, who only recently started to pick up real traction as a bench option for NBA teams.

First, on Tolliver. He’s a savvy pickup as a player that is solid in a number of areas but really only excels at long-range shooting. Shortly after the addition was announced, here was my take on what I believe to be an upgrade to the Wolves’ bench:

"Tolliver will carry a lower turnover rate to Bjelica, as his role will essentially be that of a spot-up shooter, while the Serbian handled the ball and was featured as a cutter more often in the Timberwolves offense. In fact, 77.3 percent of Tolliver’s shot attempts last year in Detroit were from beyond the arc. … In terms of sheer numbers, Tolliver drew 18 charges last season, which is only one more than Karl-Anthony Towns. But Tolliver was a bench player, of course, and only Ersan Ilyasova, Quincy Acy, and Marreese Speights played fewer minutes and drew more charges than Tolly. It’s clearly a skill, and the Wolves will be glad to have it next season. Tolliver is an upgrade over Bjelica largely because he won’t need the ball in his hands as often to be successful; despite shooting over 41 percent on threes, only 49.3 percent of Bjelica’s shot attempts came from outside the arc. Tolliver knows his role, and that’s largely to shoot threes."

As for Nunnally, well … the guy shot an absolutely insane 55.4 percent on 3-point attempts last year for Fenerbahce and has hit on 50.6 percent over the past two years in the Euroleague.

He should slot in immediately as another floor-spacer off the bench to spell Andrew Wiggins and Jimmy Butler, and along with Tolliver adds a much-needed dimension of truly lethal outside shooting.

The team also said goodbye to Jamal Crawford (opted out of the second year of his contract) and Bjelica (signed with Sacramento), so they lost a little bit of outside shooting as well, although the additions of both Tolliver and Nunnally should more than make up for Bjelly’s career year last year and Crawford’s trigger-happiness and 33.1 percent 3-point shooting.

Tolliver, along with second-round pick Bates-Diop, fit underneath the mid-level exception, leaving the Wolves with a hair over $2 million to use, as well as the $3.38 million bi-annual exception. Nunnally was signed to a veteran minimum deal.

Also signing a veteran’s minimum deal was Derrick Rose, who was added to the team late last season and appeared in nine regular season games and all five playoff contests.

For as bad as Rose was in the regular season, he was impressive and largely effective in the first round of the playoffs against Houston. It was apparently enough to land him another veteran’s minimum contract to come back for the 2018-19 campaign, despite the Wolves employing one of the better backup point guards in the league in Tyus Jones and selecting wing Josh Okogie in the first round of the draft.

Re-signing Rose was certainly questionable, although we’ll have to wait and see what his role looks like and who he’s taking minutes away from. At the end of the day, however, he drags down the overall free agency grade just a bit.

Grade: B+