Minnesota Timberwolves: 3 most commonly-used lineups in 2019-20

The third-most commonly-used Wolves lineup

Shabazz Napier, Jarrett Culver, Andrew Wiggins, Robert Covington, Gorgui Dieng

The third-most commonly-used lineup features many of the same players as the previous lineup except for one notable difference at center.

The lineup of Shabazz Napier, Jarrett Culver, Andrew Wiggins, Robert Covington, and Gorgui Dieng played 101 minutes together and was arguably the team’s most effective lineup, boasting a net rating of +5.4. While the improved net rating without Karl-Anthony Towns may be surprising to many, it in fact serves as a perfect blueprint for the team’s ideal style of play.

The majority of this lineup’s minutes came during a stretch where Towns was out with a right knee injury. This time period also coincided with a hot stretch of play from both Shabazz Napier and Gorgui Dieng. The five-man lineup as a whole shot 40 percent from beyond the arc and showcased a serviceable defensive rating of 106.

The Minnesota front office will look to this lineup as inspiration for the 2019-20 season. In an ideal scenario, D’Angelo Russell and Karl-Anthony Towns will offer the multidimensional scoring that Napier and Dieng showcased during their hot stretch of play. Meanwhile, Josh Okogie and Malik Beasley should be able to provide a similar level of scoring and perimeter defense when playing alongside Jarrett Culver that the team saw pay dividends with Wiggins and Covington.

That lineup would admittedly be very small, but that is the way Minnesota wants to play and the net rating of +5.4 suggests that future success could be just over the horizon.

While many of the aforementioned players are no longer in the fold, these lineups can at least help us paint a picture of how Gersson Rosas and Ryan Saunders want to play come the 2020-21 campaign.