The splash heard around the land of 10,000 lakes

Staying alive out there Wolves fans? Good, because we’re inching closer to having some real basketball again. As we wade through the waters of the NBA dead period, fanbases tend to cling onto various workout videos and news breadcrumbs scattered throughout the Twitter landscape and Google search history.

On the Timberwolves front, something intriguing surfaced a couple of days ago during one of my evening Timberwolves seeking doom scrolls through Twitter. Rudy Gobert launching up three-point shots in practice… and making them?

While I couldn’t contain my initial excitement, reason quickly took back control. Telling myself “It’s only warm-ups, doing it in live action is a whole different animal.”

Two days later, the French National Basketball team suited up against Montenegro in a FIBA exhibition match. While you may not find the Montenegro National Basketball team at the top of many FIBA rankings, they do sport some NBA talent featuring the Bulls All-Star center Nikola Vucevic.

Sure enough, I stand corrected yet again. On an inbound play below the net, Rudy faded off a screen at the top of the key and called for the ball. The hulking 7-foot-1 center gathered the ball, set his feet, and let the ball fly from deep and… Splash.

Talk about the splash heard around the land of 10,000 lakes.

While it is important to preface this excitement with the acknowledgment that making a three in a FIBA exhibition game against Montenegro is far from canning one from deep on the Target Center hardwood during live NBA action. What you cannot deny is that he did display good shooting form.

While good form on a single attempt does not magically morph someone into a shooter, it does provide an encouraging outlook that something once thought to be impossible could now potentially be entering into the realm of reality.

So how would Rudy making defenses even have to think about him on the perimeter impact the Wolves’ offense? I’m glad you asked! Let’s dive in.