Minnesota Timberwolves: Gersson Rosas and Ryan Saunders’ Long Game

The Minnesota Timberwolves may not have had much success this season, but new management is focused on playing the long game.

When Gersson Rosas took over as the Minnesota Timberwolves‘ President of Basketball Operations last May, he committed to being aggressive while also staying patient. Rosas talked a lot about building a “sustainable winning model,” avoiding win-now moves that would hurt the franchise later on, and developing a culture of growth and improvement.

When Ryan Saunders was hired as the Wolves’ full-time head coach weeks later, he preached about playing a modern NBA game around Karl-Anthony Towns. That meant more focus on shots at the rim, free throws, and threes; and even though the Wolves struggled from the three-point line to start the year, Saunders remained committed to all parts of his philosophy.

It’s not easy to win games when your team shoots the third-most threes in the league at the very worst percentage. Outside of Jeff Teague, no non-center was shooting over 35 percent from three. But the Wolves continued to shoot, and the losses continued to pile up.

Then February 6th came, and that transitional era of the new-look Timberwolves came to its merciful end as they overturned most of the roster.

Rosas followed through on his commitment to be aggressive, sensing the need to get players that would better fit in Saunders’ system. Since giving a full upheaval of the entire roster at the trade deadline, Minnesota has jumped from 32.5 percent on threes (last in the league) to 38.2 (seventh). In turn, the team’s points per 100 possessions have jumped from 106.4 (twenty-third in the league) to 113.7 (ninth).

That spike in offense has come without a training camp to integrate all of the new players and missing their best offensive player in Karl-Anthony Towns for all but two games.

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Although Ryan Saunders’ offense has really been flowing all season long, only recently has it begun to see real results. Prior to the trade deadline, the Wolves ranked third in the league in total passes and ninth in potential assists, but just nineteenth in actual assists. They ranked fifth in shots at the rim, but just twenty-first in field goal percentage at the rim. Fifth in free throw attempts, just twenty-second in percentage.

The Wolves have been doing all the things that great offenses do. Now they finally have the players to do it effectively, and the results have been very encouraging.

Rosas sure seems to have “hit” on all three of the shooters he targeted and acquired at the deadline in D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley, and Juancho Hernangomez. As the sample size increases, their production from beyond the arc continues to become more impressive. Here’s how the Wolves’ new starters have been shooting over the last 12 games:

• D’Angelo Russell: 36.3% on 9.1 attempts per game
• Malik Beasley: 42.7% on 8.6 attempts per game
• Juancho Hernangomez: 43.1% on 4.8 attempts per game

The new guys have been lighting it up, but some of Minnesota’s system players have been equally as impressive in other ways.

Josh Okogie has quietly been one the Wolves’ best players since the beginning of February. He makes all the right cuts, all the right passes, takes all the right shots, defends at a high level, and is shooting 52 percent from the field and 83 percent on free throws since the deadline.

The Timberwolves’ two undrafted rookies have been outstanding as well offensively. Jordan McLaughlin is producing a per-36 stat line of 17.2 points, 9.0 assists and 2.4 steals on 57.3 percent shooting and 48.5 percent from three. Center Naz Reid has a positive plus-minus and is putting up 18.5 points and 10.5 rebounds per 36 minutes since the deadline while also hitting 38 percent from three.

Jarrett Culver‘s scoring has been respectable, his defense has been scrappy and, as has been a common theme for the Wolves, his three-point shooting has jumped to 42.1 percent since the deadline.

That’s a pretty solid group of rookies and sophomores to build around, and Saunders and the coaching staff deserve a lot of credit for their work in player development in year one.

For all the offensive and developmental success the Wolves have been achieving, they are far from a finished product. The current iteration of the Timberwolves is not a team built to defend, as evidenced by their poor showing Friday night against Orlando. If Rosas were truly in win-now mode, he would have gone for older and more defensive-minded players at the deadline.

Minnesota still lacks those big, long defenders that can make an impact alongside their scorers. Fortunately for Wolves fans, we already know that Gersson Rosas will do everything he can to get those players at some point in time.

For now, the team will ride this wave of offense, build chemistry, work on their defensive schemes, and move forward from there. It’s all part of the process.