Minnesota Timberwolves Draft Profile: Rui Hachimura

Rui Hachimura was one of the best college basketball players in the country this season, but is he the right fit for the Minnesota Timberwolves’ first-round pick?

The 2019 NBA Draft is just four days away, and that means it’s crunch time for the front office of the Minnesota Timberwolves to decide who will be the No. 11 pick.

While their are still plenty of possible players to choose from, one name has been linked to the Wolves throughout the entire run-up to the draft: Rui Hachimura.

The forward from Gonzaga steadily rose up draft boards during his junior season while becoming a consensus first-team All-American. Hachimura led Gonzaga to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and a trip to the Elite Eight, and he did it with a well-rounded, all-around game.

Hachimura averaged 19.7 points and 6.5 rebounds per game while shooting 59.1 percent from the field and 41.7 percent from 3-point range this season.

We don’t have the full rundown of measurements from Hachimura as he skipped the NBA Draft Combine, but he is listed at 6-foot-8 and is quick and athletic like a small forward with the strength of a power forward.

With the possibility of Minnesota losing veteran power forward Taj Gibson to free agency this summer, Hachimura could step right in and replace him in the front court. Hachimura is a similar size to Gibson, as well as plays with tenacity on both ends of the court and brings more to the table in terms of shooting range.

Defensively, Hachimura should be able to guard multiple positions. He’s small and quick enough to stay in front of smaller wing players, but hefty enough to body big men down low.

The Wolves may be wary of choosing a tweener so high in the draft as it has burned them a few times before. In 2011 Minnesota was gifted the No. 2 pick in the draft and used it on a high-flying forward from Arizona named Derrick Williams.

Williams dominated smaller players in college, but once he got to the pros he didn’t quite fit into any one position. He couldn’t keep up with small forwards, but didn’t have the post skills to score in the paint. Williams never panned out and is still one of the biggest misses in Timberwolves draft history.

Then again, times have changed and “tweener” isn’t quite the dirty word that it used to be. Instead, flexibility reigns and players that can play multiple positions are coveted.

Hachimura doesn’t have the hype that Williams did back then, either, but a similar player could force the Wolves’ front office to steer clear on draft night.

Hachimura also put up great numbers in college against lesser competition in the West Coast Conference where he upped his scoring to 20 points per game and pulled down 6.9 boards a game. That said, Hacimura never shied away from the big games, scoring 20 points against consensus top pick Zion Williamson and Duke in a win last November.

Hachimura would be a nice fit in the alongside Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins, and Robert Covington. Theoretically, the rookie could take scoring pressure off of Towns and Wiggins and some defensive pressure off of Covington, too.

His versatility is what should intrigue Wolves fans the most as the draft nears. If that versatility can transfer to a well-rounded NBA game and he blossoms into a more athletic, better version of Taj Gibson, then Hachimura might be the safest pick the Wolves can make in the first round this Thursday.