Breaking down Noah Vonleh’s role with the Minnesota Timberwolves

3. “Starting at a forward, an Indiana Hoosier, number 32, Noah Vonleh!”

Simply put, Noah Vonleh does too many things well to come off the bench for the Wolves this upcoming season.

As I outlined in his strengths slide, a starting lineup including Wiggins, Covington, Vonleh, and Towns would be an athletic powder keg ready to explode for an epic night on either end of the floor. All four are at least 6-foot-8, boast 7-foot-plus wingspans, and can create all sorts of havoc when working together on both ends.

Given his upward defensive trend, Wiggins stands to have a career year on D under the tutelage of David Vanterpool. The former Portland assistant coach has all the length and athleticism he could dream of at his disposal, which is why I’m very confident this young Wolves team takes a big leap on defense in 2019-20.

I would love to see Vanterpool deploy a defense that includes more switching than his structure-based Portland defenses did, which were aimed at making up for the short-comings both Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum had on defense.

Especially when the Wolves are playing explosive wings like Giannis, Oladipo (below), Paul George, LeBron James, Devin Booker, or James Harden, I’d love to see Vonleh switch onto ball-handlers given his strength of defending and blocking shots without fouling.

Here, Vonleh does an excellent job of maintaining space between him and fellow Hoosier Victor Oladipo so he doesn’t foul, while staying in a low stance, which enables him to quickly move his feet and elevate for a perfect block at the rim. Expect to see plenty of this from Noah this year.

In a motion offense that forces switches frequently, Vonleh will be able to attack switching centers very well, because he’s often utilized as a screener and has the athleticism to get by bigger defenders.

Here, Ivica Zubac expects Noah will run a handoff action and screen, so he stands up out of his stance more. Vonleh realizes this and puts his head down and scores.

I would love for Saunders to put Vonleh in handoff actions because of the triple threat he poses to 1) keep it and drive for scores, 2) effectively screen defenders trying to trail who he’s handing off two, and 3) pop out to the 3-point line for looks from deep.

As I previously mentioned, Vonleh understands spacing on the floor and that he’s a threat as a 3-point shooter. In handoff actions where KAT screens at the top of the key, Noah should play just as he does here – maintaining maximum spacing while his defender respects the threat of Towns as a rolling big in order to get easy looks from deep.

Even when defenders close out on him from the corner, he’s quick enough and has a good enough handle that he can attack close outs and finish in the paint.

My guy Jake Layman makes a smart business decision here and gets out of his future teammate’s way as he throws down a nice dunk.

Overall, Noah Vonleh will be a huge contributor on both ends of the floor because he’s a versatile weapon at the disposal of a terrific coaching staff that will use him in a multitude of ways. He’ll find himself a part of tons of lineup combinations because he can act as a small-ball 5 at times, and is quick enough laterally to play the 3 for short periods of time if RoCo needs to be eased into the season.

STAT PROJECTION:  14.2 points, 9.7 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 51.3 FG%, 75.0 FT%, 2.1 blocks, 1.2 steals in 36.4 minutes per game.