Sports Illustrated has released their annual top 100 players list, and, in a mild surprise, all five Minnesota Timberwolves starters are represented.
In case you hadn’t noticed, the talent level on the Minnesota Timberwolves’ roster has risen considerably over the past couple of years.
It wasn’t too long ago that getting one or two consensus top-100 players on any of the various player rankings that come down in September and October of each year would have been a huge victory.
In the Tom Thibodeau era, however, there has been a talent infusion on the roster, and all five starters from last year’s playoff squad have made the list.
We’ll take a look through each of their rankings on SI’s Top 100 Players of 2019 list, as well as who in their position group was ranked either directly above or beneath them, and whether or not we think the ranking is fair.
Let’s get into it by taking a look at the No. 83 player on the list…
No. 83 – Taj Gibson
Taj Gibson had somewhat of a career year last year at the ripe old age of 32, notching the second-highest point-per-game total in his career and a career-best in rebounds per game. He also played a career-high in minutes and shot a career-best 57.7 percent from the field.
He remains an outstanding team defender and is passable when covering the pick-and-roll in today’s NBA. Gibson is tough to move in the post and rebounds his position well for a 6-foot-9 (at best) power forward. In a way, Gibson is Tom Thibodeau’s safety blanket.
Gibson is ranked ahead of the likes of Brook Lopez (No. 99), Pau Gasol (No. 98), Dirk Nowitzki (No. 96), Kelly Olynyk (No. 93), Nikola Vucevic (No. 90), and Lauri Markannen (No. 84) as far as big men go, and just behind Domantas Sabonis (No. 79) and Serge Ibaka (No. 78).
There isn’t much to quibble about with this ranking; it seems about right for an always-solid, 33-year-old role player who can really only play one position.
Now, on to some more controversial picks…
No. 74 – Andrew Wiggins
In a vacuum, Andrew Wiggins is not as effective of a player as Taj Gibson, and it isn’t particularly close.
But we aren’t in a vacuum, and Wiggins still has otherworldly athletic ability and an impressive ceiling — remember, he’s still just 23 years old — as well as incremental improvement on the defensive end of the floor.
Here’s an excerpt from Ben Golliver’s ranking on SI.com:
"The major advanced stats agree that his max rookie extension and his reputation as a high-flying scorer both far exceed his on-court value, as he ranked outside the top 200 in PER and Win Shares, outside the top 300 in Real Plus-Minus, and outside the top 500 in WARP. As each season passes, Wiggins’s lack of follow-through becomes more aggravating. He’s attempting more threes, but he hasn’t yet established himself as a knockdown shooter. He has the body and athletic tools to be a premier defender, but his awareness lags and he’s often passive. He can sky for posters, but he shrinks on the glass."
Indeed, we’ve details many of these frustrations frequently at Dunking With Wolves over the last several years, and Wiggins has made progress in correcting very few of the issues.
In terms of his standing on this ranking, he’s just ahead of productive veteran Trevor Ariza (No. 77) and up-and-coming Laker and former No. 2-overall pick Brandon Ingram (No. 75). Wiggins is behind Nicolas Batum (No. 74), Josh Richardson (No. 71), and Will Barton (No. 70).
It would be difficult to suggest that Wiggins is better than any of the players who were ranked higher. As noted by Golliver, Wiggins fails to crack the top 200 in Win Shares and the top 300 in Real Plus-Minus — fairly damning evidence of his ineffectiveness.
All that said, there’s some hope related to a second year playing between defensive stalwarts Jimmy Butler and Taj Gibson, and a third year with Tom Thibodeau at the helm. But who knows … it sure feels like we’ve made similar excuses for Wiggins each of the last few offseasons.
No. 58 – Jeff Teague
When the Timberwolves signed Jeff Teague in free agency last summer, yours truly was at the forefront of the take that went something like…
“Teague is equally as effective as Rubio, and given his superior outside shooting ability he may be the slightest of upgrades given the Wolves’ style of play, although he isn’t worth the $58 million they paid him in free agency.”
In other words, both are fairly average point guards who move the needle in different ways from one another. And sure enough, they both ended up smack-dab in the middle of this list, with Teague at No. 58 and Rubio, now of the Utah Jazz, at No. 57.
Here’s Golliver on Teague:
"The Timberwolves boasted the NBA’s fourth-best offense last season, as Teague spread the ball around to his star teammates and filled in the gaps with his own scoring when needed. But he hit a familiar hard ceiling in the playoffs, outmatched and, at times, embarrassed by Houston’s premier backcourt."
Indeed, Teague is a perfectly average player in so many ways, prone to huge games at exactly the right time and stretches in which he disappears completely.
His true value was noticed in his absence last year due to a couple of fairly minor ailments. Teague missed 12 games, and while Tyus Jones is one of the better backup point guards in the league, he struggled at times as a starter. The bigger issue, however, was that Aaron Brooks had to play backup minutes.
Both Jones and Brooks were forced to expand beyond their typical roles, and it proved just how valuable Teague’s average-ness can be.
Somewhat surprisingly, Teague beat out No. 61 Lou Williams. He ranked just behind Rubio at No. 57, as well as Jamal Murray (No. 55), Eric Bledsoe (No. 53), and Goran Dragic (No. 45).
No. 19 – Karl-Anthony Towns
Once again, Karl-Anthony Towns finds himself ranked just behind Denver’s Nikola Jokic, who landed at No. 18.
The two big men are the same age and were both rookies in the same season and are often compared to one another; Towns was recently ranked just behind the Nuggets’ big man on FanSided’s 25-under-25 list.
Despite a dip in some of the counting numbers last year, Towns shot a career-best from the field, the 3-point line, and the free throw line and continued to show incremental defensive improvement. He still leaves a lot to be desired on that end of the floor, of course, but so does Jokic.
The one area in which Jokic has an edge is his court vision and passing ability, and that’s ultimately what got him the nod over KAT on this list.
Here’s an explanation from Jokic’s profile on the list:
"If we assume that every player on our list is surrounded by fairly average teammates as a sort of vacuum test, Jokic is among the most likely to elevate them. A middling role player will rarely look so good as when Jokic is force-feeding them points. This was a key point of separation between Jokic and Karl-Anthony Towns in the determination of their rankings. Both rebound well, space the floor, and score at similar rates. Neither is much of a defender. Jokic, though, averaged more assists per game than any other center in the three-point era, and has the receipts to prove his passing’s effect."
Remember, the Wolves beat the Nuggets in regular season No. 82 to clinch the No. 8 playoff seed last year, and Towns was an All-Star while Jokic has yet to make the team; such traditional but far-from-perfect measuring sticks may swing the consensus of the casual fan/general public towards Towns.
Notably, the Wolves’ superstar bested Ben Simmons (No. 26), John Wall (No. 24), Klay Thompson (No. 22), and LaMarcus Aldridge (No. 21). He was behind Jokic, Al Horford (No. 16), Rudy Gobert (No. 14), Draymond Green (No. 13), and Joel Embiid (No. 9).
It’s hard to argue this ranking too much. It still places him comfortably in All-Star territory, and a clear improvement on defense this season should easily vault him into the top 15 players.
No. 10 – Jimmy Butler
This ranking feels about spot-on.
Butler has often been described as a top 10 to 12 player in the league, and sitting right at No. 10 is probably the exact right spot for Jimmy G.
Here’s what SI.com’s Ben Golliver had to say about Butler, in part:
"In terms of measurable impact, few superstars have rivaled Butler in recent years: he ranked fourth in Real Plus-Minus, he played a leading role in lifting Minnesota’s offensive rating to fourth in the NBA, his presence on the court swung Minnesota’s net rating by a whopping 12.8 points, and his team nearly fell to pieces when he missed more than a month with a late-season knee injury. … His methods work—to a point. With Butler on the court, the Timberwolves were tracking to the West’s No. 3 seed, going 37-22 (a 51-win clip). Without him, they went 10-13 (a 36-win pace) and certainly would have been lottery-bound."
Golliver goes on to note that Butler’s borderline-reckless style of play is partly responsible for the injuries that cause him to miss a handful of games each season, and that his no-holds-barred method of leadership is abrasive to some teammates and coaches alike.
But Butler wins, and it’s undeniable that the Wolves were better with him in 2017-18 than they were without him in 2016-17 — 16 games better, in fact.
With Butler set to hit free agency in the summer of 2019 and a max contract extension on the table for Karl-Anthony Towns, it will be intriguing to see how the next few months play out. Will Towns sign and Butler leave? Will the pair of All-Stars come to an understanding and re-sign together, ready to lead the Wolves into true championship contention.
At any rate, Butler was ranked one spot ahead of OKC’s Paul George at No. 11, and two ahead of Kawhi Leonard (No. 12). He was just behind the aforementioned Emiid at No. 9, Chris Paul at No. 8, Russell Westbrook (No. 7), and Giannis Antetokounmpo (No. 6).
All things considered, these rankings seemed fair. Gibson could have been a bit higher, Wiggins a bit lower, and Towns probably should have been a spot or two ahead of Jokic.
But the range on Teague, Towns, and Butler was accurate, and at the end of the day, having all five starters land in the top 83 players in the NBA should all but guarantee a playoff spot.