9 Players the Minnesota Timberwolves held onto for way too long

5. Doug West (1989-1998)

Selected by the Minnesota Timberwolves with the 38th overall pick in the 1989 NBA Draft, Doug West was an unlikely addition to Minnesota’s rotation in the 90s. With the ’89 draft being the first in Timberwolves history, West was part of the original Wolves roster.

He remained with the team until 1998, acting as the last player from the 1989-90 team still on the roster at that time. Through the years, West developed into a surprisingly serviceable player after being a second-round draft pick.

Doug West had one of the greatest third-year leaps in franchise history. He went from playing just 11 minutes per game in his second season to playing over 31 minutes per contest and increasing his scoring average by over 10 points in his third season.

Earning a spot in the team’s starting lineup, West remained a double-digit scorer and started the majority of Minnesota’s games for the next three seasons in a row. It was not until the 1995-96 season that his situation began to change.

That year, the Timberwolves drafted Kevin Garnett and West was forced to come off the bench. As such, his points per game average was cut in half from the previous year, and he started just 16 games in the regular season. When Isaiah Rider was traded in 1996, West returned to the starting lineup for the 1996-97 season, but his athletic decline had already begun.

In West’s final three years with the Wolves, he was a fraction of the player he used to be due to injuries, and Minnesota traded him to the Vancouver Grizzlies for Anthony Peeler. He was a fine role player off the bench in his later years, but he clearly should have been on his way out of town earlier.