Minnesota Timberwolves roster? Call ’em Fire and Ice

Can you have too much of a good thing? Yes, particularly in the NBA where all offensive and defensive stats are recorded based on the sole limiting factor: One basketball.  That not only limits the number of shots taken, but the number of rebounds, the number of shots blocked, the number of assists, scoring and steals.

So can you have too much of a good thing? But you can never have too many good players, so long as their skill sets do not overlap. The argument against the Minnesota Timberwolves exploring running a roster with two bigs is the belief that the team has doubled up on what Karl-Anthony Towns delivers by bringing in Rudy Gobert. They are different players.

Let’s examine how the Houston Rockets ran their team with both Ralph Sampson and Hakeem Olajuwon? The marriage worked because Sampson opted to play at the four so that Olajuwon would be able to play in the NBA at his natural position. That selfless play cemented what became an NBA legendary frontcourt:

It’s simply a matter of adding complementary pieces. The Rockets were savvy enough to keep from clogging up the paint with both Sampson and Olajuwon simultaneously. And they had plenty of talent surrounding the pair as well.

So now, let’s flip the switch and visit what the Minnesota Timberwolves are constructing? For starters, he coached for the New Orleans Pelicans as the team tried to marry power forward Anthony Davis with an NBA center. The closest that the team came to that Twin Towers replication was the 2017-18 NBA season when they managed to match Davis with NBA center Demarcus “Boogie” Cousins. That team would go on to a 48-34 season and would finish as the sixth seed in the NBA Western Conference.

The Pelicans were solid offensively, ranking in the Top-3 NBA teams at putting points on the board. But the Pelicans had too much overlap, in that both Davis and Cousins were offensively-charged bigs. They did not have the perimeter shooting needed to space the floor. The team’s three-point shooting was 13th-ranked at just 36.2 percent, 10th ranked at rebounding with 44.3 RPG, and third-ranked with 26.8 assists per game.