Minnesota Timberwolves Roundup: Young talent showing out, Robson on Rosas

The Minnesota Timberwolves sit at 5-15, tie for the worst winning percentage in the entire NBA.

It’s a far cry from what was expected to be a campaign that featured Gersson Rosas’ Wolves competing for a play-in game in the expanded playoff system. Alas, injuries and illness and an inability to do the little things correctly have tanked any realistic hope of postseason basketball in the Twin Cities once again.

Still, in typical Wolves-y fashion, there are silver linings that can’t be entirely ignored.

Minnesota Timberwolves’ young talent is impressing, despite poor record

No. 1 overall draft pick Anthony Edwards was always going to have an opportunity to play on a regular basis. After a promising start and a roughly two-week-long swoon, Edwards has bounced back in a big way over the past few games.

But the impressive young talent isn’t limited to the rookie they call Ant-Man.

Instead, fellow first-round selection Jaden McDaniels has become a regular member of the rotation far ahead of schedule, and second-year guard Jaylen Nowell is suddenly the Wolves’ most dangerous scorer off the bench.

McDaniels saw his first none-garbage-time minutes following Juancho Hernangomez’s absence due to COVID-19 health and safety protocols. Coupled with Karl-Anthony Towns’ absence and a wrist injury that cost Naz Reid a pair of games, McDaniels has not only been pressed into duty but has performed well enough to compete for minutes moving forward.

Even if the offensive game is painfully raw, McDaniels has guarded extremely well on the defensive end of the floor. His ability to knock down open jumpers (34.3 percent on 35 3-point attempts so far) helps on offense and led to head coach Ryan Saunders rolling with the rookie over the struggling Josh Okogie down the stretch on Monday in Cleveland.

The Star Tribune’s Chris Hine wrote about McDaniels’ recent breakout, as well as the emergence of Nowell, the 2019 PAC-12 Player of the Year.

Indeed, Nowell has scored in double-figures off the bench in all four games since he was added to the regular rotation. He’s a natural scorer, and as yours truly noted last week after his solid performance at Golden State, the Wolves need his shooting ability as part of the reserve unit.

To this point, Nowell has struggled with efficiency and the non-scoring aspects of his game. He’s shooting just 40.5 percent for the field and 25 percent on 3-point attempts over the past four games; for his NBA career, he’s made only 9 of 48 long-range attempts, or 18.8 percent. As noted in last week’s piece, however, Nowell was north of 44 percent from deep in his sophomore year at Washington as well as last year in the G League, so the shooting ability is clearly there.

Even as the losses mount, there’s a real possibility that Nowell and McDaniels are members of this team’s rotation heading into the 2021-22 campaign, and the Wolves need to use the remaining 52 games in the current season to confirm that thought

The Athletic’s Britt Robson on Gersson Rosas’s time with the Timberwolves thus far

Britt Robson of The Athletic penned a thorough overview of Rosas’ time at the helm of the front office thus far (subscription required), prompted by the 82-game mark that the Wolves surpassed this week.

It’s a fair synopsis, breaking down what has gone well (front office hires and fringe, low-risk acquisitions), what hasn’t (the power forward position), and what the jury is still out on (lottery selections, coaching hire).

If you have a subscription to The Athletic, it’s a nice way to look at the Rosas regime from both a 10,000-foot view and a zoomed-in, detailed analysis. It’s the sort of dance that only Britt can play, really, and it’s an intriguing read.

Alas, there is much still up in the air when it comes to analyzing Rosas’ tenure, and given the rash of injuries and illnesses, we may not have a better sense for where things stand until much later in the current season.