What will the depth chart look like for the 2018-19 Minnesota Timberwolves? Who will head coach Tom Thibodeau rely on off the bench?
The Minnesota Timberwolves had the least-used and lowest-scoring bench unit in the league last season.
Tell you something you don’t know, right?
Okay. The Minnesota Timberwolves’ bench will be much improved in 2018-19. Now, the question is reduced to whether or not head coach Tom Thibodeau will utilize his improved reserve unit or not.
First, let’s acknowledge that the Wolves’ underutilized bench from last season was significantly underutilized compared to the No. 29 team. Minnesota’s bench played just 13.5 minutes per game in 2017-18. The next-closest team was Oklahoma City, at 16 minutes per game. And there were five teams that played their benches between 16 and 17 minutes per game.
That means that the Wolves were all by their lonesome when it came to running their starters into the ground.
It was a bit of a Catch-22, of course: Jamal Crawford was bad, Gorgui Dieng struggled, and Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns are All-Stars and carried the Wolves to a playoff berth. So, perhaps an improved bench would encourage Thibodeau to use it more often, thus spelling the starters and boosting the confidence of said improved bench unit.
Let’s take a look at the Wolves’ depth chart. First, the starters as a unit. Then, the reserves, one-by-one, in order of the number of minutes they should be getting on a nightly basis.
And then, we hope that Coach Thibs is paying attention and that the reserves get their fair share of run.