Sports Illustrated published players No. 51 through No. 100 in their latest player ranking series. Three Minnesota Timberwolves appear in that range, with one name still to appear in the top 50.
Did SI.com get it right? Are any Wolves ranked too high or too low?
Minnesota Timberwolves: SI ranks three Wolves from No. 51 to No. 100
These lists are always chock-full of controversy. It’s far from an exact science, of course, with plenty of factors contributing to each individual player’s ranking.
Team context matters, of course, from the organization and coaching staff to the teammates surrounding a given player. How does the player impact winning? It’s more than individual stats, of course. And defense matters.
Additionally, injuries have to be taken into account. The fewer games that any given player has appeared in, the tougher it is to rank them. That rings true for rookies and second-year players, as well as established players who have recently battled injuries.
With Karl-Anthony Towns surely to come at some point in the top 50, let’s look at the three Wolves players who landed from Nos. 51 to 100.
SI.com ranks Minnesota Timberwolves’ Malik Beasley at No. 94
Malik Beasley cracks a top-100 list for the first time in his still-young career, landing at No. 94 on Sports Illustrated’s list.
Objectively, it makes sense that Beasley is in the top 100. He’s averaged 19.9 points per game over 51 games in a Timberwolves uniform and has shot 40.6 percent from deep on 8.5 3-point attempts per game over that same span.
Since the start of the 2019-20 season, when Beasley was a back-of-the-rotation contributor to the Denver Nuggets, Beasley has put up 14.6 points per game over 92 contests, including 50 starts.
The challenge in ranking Beasley is the lack of a significant record; he was a solid reserve for a couple of very good Nuggets teams but increased his scoring on bad Wolves teams before missing a good chunk of last season due to a hamstring injury and a suspension.
Additionally, he’s been a poor defender for much of his career, although he showed signs of incremental improvement pre-injury last season.
This ranking feels about right. It’s also important to point out that Beasley is still just 24 years old and in the second year of a four-year contract; don’t be surprised if Beasley rises on this list next year. Even if his shot attempts are down while sharing shot attempts with Towns, D’Angelo Russell, and Anthony Edwards, his efficiency could rise.
Also, if the Wolves improve this season as expected, the league-wide perception of Beasley will continue to change. As we’ve seen over the years, team success absolutely impacts individual player rankings on these lists.
Notable players who Beasley beat out include Utah’s Jordan Clarkson (No. 100), Sacramento’s Tyrese Haliburton (No. 97), Dallas’ Tim Hardaway Jr. (No. 96), and Orlando’s Jonathan Isaac (No. 95), who missed all of last season after tearing his ACL in the bubble back in 2020.
Beasley ranks behind San Antonio’s Derrick White at No. 93, New York’s Evan Fournier at No. 91, and former Wolf/current Knick Derrick Rose at No. 89. An argument could be made to slide Beasley up a few spots; he probably should be in front of Rose and possibly White, but Fournier’s ranking seems about right.
Next, let’s look at another Wolves player who is making a player ranking list for the first time…
SI.com ranks Minnesota Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards at No. 77
Anthony Edwards was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft and figured to get plenty of minutes for a Wolves team that was trying to find more on-ball scorers as they attempted to climb into the playoff conversation in the Western Conference.
Edwards began the year on the bench last year and struggled to find any semblance of a rhythm. Towns was injured in the second game of the season, and Edwards had to navigate the next few weeks without his star big man.
Eventually, Edwards ended up in the starting lineup alongside veteran point guard Ricky Rubio. Russell went out with an injury around the time that Towns returned, and Edwards was forced into on-the-job training when it came to initiating offense at the NBA level.
Head coach Ryan Saunders was fired before Russell returned, and by the time that D’Lo was back and new head coach Chris Finch had begun to install his offensive system, Edwards had become a force.
From March 1 through the end of the season, Edwards put up 23.6 points per game while shooting 45.1 percent from the floor, 34.1 from beyond the arc, and 76.5 percent from the free throw line. He added 5.3 rebounds, 3.4 assists, and 1.4 steals per game.
Compare that to his numbers from December, January, and February: 14.8 points per game on shooting splits of 37.2/31.2/80.0 with four rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 0.8 steals per game.
The SI.com list mentions Edwards’ 56.7 true shooting percentage post-All-Star break as a key indicator of improvement, up from 46.6 percent before the break.
Clearly, increased opportunity combined with real growth and understanding of the NBA game, and Edwards was dominant over the final weeks of the season. If the March/April/May version of Edwards comes to play for the entirety of the 2021-22 campaign, Edwards will easily be in the top 40 of this list, if not higher, come fall of 2022.
Edwards managed to beat out former Timberwolf Robert Covington (No. 80) as well as a series of handsomely-paid veterans: Philadelphia’s Seth Curry (No. 81), Sacramento’s Buddy Hield (No. 79), and Charlotte’s Terry Rozier (No. 78).
He was a slot behind Chicago’s Lonzo Ball, as well as Washington’s Spencer Dinwiddie (No. 75) and Atlanta’s Bojan Bogdanovic (No. 74). All three of those players probably could have been ranked even higher, pushing Brooklyn’s Joe Harris (No. 72) and Cleveland’s Collin Sexton (No. 71) back a bit.
While we can quibble with the exact rankings, putting Edwards in the No. 70-80 range makes sense. Remember, this list isn’t factoring contract or upside. If that was the case, he’d be much higher.
There’s one more Wolves player on this portion of the list, and he dropped significantly for the second consecutive year.
SI.com ranks Minnesota Timberwolves’ D’Angelo Russell at No. 61
The Wolves have two players on their roster who have been All-Stars in their career.
Towns will be ranked as such, almost certainly landing in the top 25 when the rest of the SI.com list comes out. D’Angelo Russell is the other All-Star, and he’s seen his star plummet on player rankings lists in each of the past two years.
That trend continues here, as Russell checks in at No. 61. Last year on this same list, Russell landed at No. 46. On last year’s ESPN list, Russell was No. 69. Ridiculously, ESPN had him ranked all the way up at No. 26 just two years ago.
Russell is one of the more polarizing players in the league. It stems mostly from his defensive issues, but his style of play on offense is also a factor.
While Russell has the ability to be one of the better passers in the league, he all too often gets locked in on being The Guy. It limits what his best-case role is on offense and coupled with his horrendous defense, puts a cap on the positives that Russell can provide.
In the Feb. 6 loss to the San Antonio Spurs, for instance, Russell used seven of eight possessions and scored twice while Edwards touched the ball zero times in the half-court offense over the course of the fourth quarter.
However, if Russell plays off the ball for extended periods of time and is allowed some leash to run the offense at certain times throughout the game, he can be a 20-point-per-game scorer with strong efficiency. Combined with passable defense, Russell could easily return to being a top-50 player.
After all, since his crazy-high ranking on ESPN prior to the 2019-20 season, Russell has averaged 21.1 points per game and made 37.5 percent of his 3-point attempts. He’s a solid, efficient scorer despite his warts.
But at this stage, coming off an up-and-down season that included knee surgery, it’s hard to argue against his No. 61 ranking.
A strong season from the Timberwolves and any semblance of defensive improvement should help Russell rise in these rankings. Until then, the Wolves have an overpaid — albeit fairly efficient — scorer on their team, and he’ll be placed as such in this year’s player ranking articles.
Soon, we’ll find out just how high Towns manages to be on the SI.com list. Stay tuned.