Minnesota Timberwolves: How might a new shot clock rule affect the Wolves?

The NBA is considering implementing a new shot clock rule. How might this rule change impact the Minnesota Timberwolves’ style of play?

In case you missed it, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported late in the week that the NBA’s Competition Committee is considering a rule change when it comes to the shot clock.

The 24-second shot clock currently resets all the way to 24 seconds after an offensive rebound. A rule change would dictate that the shot clock would only reset to 14 seconds, which would match a rule that has been in place in international competition for some time.

At first glance, it’s understandable to assume that this rule may have a substantial impact on play; it’s not uncommon for a game to have 10 or more offensive rebounds over the course of the 48 minutes.

But our friends over at FanSided’s own Nylon Calculus did the work for everyone else, and you may be surprised at the results.

Daniel Massop found out how many possessions per game may be impacted by this rule in 2018-19 (click through the link to find the chart referenced in the quote below):

"Over 30 percent of offensive rebounds result in putbacks (the 0 Duration value on the graph) and 75 percent of offensive rebounds result in a possession that is five seconds or less. Only 6 percent of all offensive rebounds resulted in possessions that are 14 seconds or greater last year. Given that the league average for offensive rebounds was the lowest ever this past season at 9.7 per game, this rule would apply to roughly half a rebound per team per game last year."

Oh. Well in that case … half a rebound per team per game, or one total per game, isn’t much after all.

One could assume that teams that play with the slowest pace and grab the most offensive rebounds could be affected the most. Enter the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The Wolves played with the seventh-slowest pace in the league last year and grabbed the seventh-most offensive rebounds, according to Basketball-Reference.com. Of the six slower-paced teams and six teams that grabbed more offensive rebounds per game, only the San Antonio Spurs appear on both lists.

Also notable: the Wolves were fourth in the league in offensive rebound percentage, which is a better way to measure effectiveness on the offensive glass than totals or per-game numbers. The Spurs were sixth.

Overall, it’s not a super clean way to measure this, of course. It would be impossible to truly measure the impact without watching all 848 offensive rebounds the Wolves grabbed last year. The Wolves did finish sixth in second-chance points, after all, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they were ultra-efficient given the number of offensive rebounds they grabbed.

But fans who watched the majority of last year’s games can attest to the number of times that the offense started late due to an abundance of dribbling at the top of the arc from Jeff Teague, Andrew Wiggins, or Jimmy Butler. And such a phenomenon was not limited to trips down the floor with just one possession.

At any rate, Nylon Calculus’ estimation that this rule change will only impact approximately one rebound per game tells us that this shouldn’t have a major impact overall.