Ranking the 15 worst Timberwolves starters of the Kevin Garnett Era
By Bret Stuter
I: SG/SF Trenton Hassell (2006-07)
GS 68 | 29.3 MPG | 6.7 PPG | 24.0 3P% | 3.2 RPG | 2.7 APG | 0.3 SPG | 0.3 BPG
Topping the list of worst Timberwolves starters of the Kevin Garnett era is wingman Trenton Hassell. Hassell was a shooting guard who played nine seasons in the NBA. Four of his nine years of NBA play were with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Hassell was a 6-foot-5 200-pound shooting guard who was selected with the 30th overall pick of the 2001 NBA Draft. The Bulls waived him in October 2003, and the team acted quickly to sign him to the Timberwolves roster.
He showed signs of continued development, reaching an apex in the 2005-06 NBA season when he started 67 games and put up 9.2 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 2.6 APG, 0.6 SPG, and 0.4 BPG. While not an NBA All-Star level of production, it was a promising trend that would lead many to expect him to average better than 10 points per game in the 2006-07 season.
Instead, he regressed. While his 29.3 minutes per game ranked him as the fourth-most active player on the Timberwolves roster, his scoring of 6.7 points per game would rank him as the seventh-best scorer on the team. Worse than that, his perimeter shot accuracy of just 24.0 percent was no better than ninth-best on the team.
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He would be traded to the Dallas Mavericks at the end of this season for journeyman wing Greg Buckner. The Timberwolves had one of the greatest legends in NBA history in PF Kevin Garnett. It is so disappointing that, as this list shows, the team struggled mightily to build a complementary roster around him.