Breaking down Noah Vonleh’s role with the Minnesota Timberwolves

2. Despite his big step forward last season, Noah Vonleh still has major improvement areas

While Noah Vonleh will certainly provide much-needed relief on both ends of the floor at the 4 spot next season for the Wolves, he comes with some flaws.

While he’s 6-foot-9, 250 pounds, Vonleh struggled when matched up with bigger, physical bigs last season. Knicks starting center Mitchell Robinson is 7-foot-1 but weighs just 225 pounds, which often resulted in Vonleh switching onto opposing centers and struggling in the process.

In defensive post up situations in the 2018-19 campaign, Vonleh gave up 1.2 points per possession and allowed bigs to shoot 53.8 percent and score 55 percent of the time down on the block, good for the 22nd percentile in the NBA.

Although Vonleh will likely see himself playing alongside Towns in the starting frontcourt and get matched up less with bigger and stronger players, he should be a better post defender given his brick-house frame, as well as shot-blocking and leaping abilities.

On offense, Vonleh wasn’t very efficient in the pick and roll, which is going to a huge focal point of the Wolves’ offense this season. He turned in an effective field goal percentage (eFG%) of just 51.7 percent in the pick-and-roll and scored on just 41.9 percent of his opportunities in those sets, ranking him near the bottom (34th percentile) among bigs.

If he can raise those numbers up over 60 percent and 50 percent, respectively, he’ll be a much more effective player in the Minnesota offensive system.

For as solid of a shooter he was a year ago, his eFG% of 50.4 in spot ups must improve if he wants to help elevate the Wolves’ scoring attack. He was right at the league average of 0.98 points per possession spotting up, but he can be better than that.

He’s got great shooting form and touch for a guy his size and converted on many wide-open situations like these during his time in New York.

Given his good understanding of floor spacing, Vonleh should be able to find himself in easy catch-and-shoot opportunities from 3, on which he shot 35.8 percent last season.

Along the same vein, Vonleh’s free throw shooting numbers aren’t anything to inspire a ton of confidence in me. He shot just 71.2 percent from the line, but has a fluid free throw motion and good form.

He and Andrew Wiggins (69.9 percent) will find themselves at the line plenty as a result of increased driving opportunities in Saunders’ motion offense and must commit themselves to becoming more reliable from the charity stripe in order to make defenses pay for putting them on the line.

Given these his strengths and weaknesses, let’s evaluate what his role will be next season.