I understand the yearly tradition is to overreact to preseason games, which is why I am encouraging Minnesota Timberwolves fans to not do that. This is an extremely new-look team, and preseason is the first time they'll step on a real court with each other. Needless to say, there will be some bumps.
While preseason as a whole will not tell you much about the regular season, certain trends are worth monitoring, especially for such a new team.
With that in mind here are three things that Wolves fans should be keeping an eye on during preseason.
LaMelo Ball vs. Anthony Edwards usage
Last season, Anthony Edwards was overtaxed on the offensive side of the ball, resulting in his defense not being up to the standard the Wolves are used to seeing. One of the primary reasons the Wolves sought out a talent like LaMelo Ball was to alleviate that offensive pressure.
Ball will undoubtedly take on the majority of playmaking duties, while freeing up Edwards more to make plays off the ball, whether that's catch-and-shoot-wise or cutting. It will be especially interesting to see how often Edwards is on the ball when Ball shares the court with him.
LaMelo has never really played off the ball in his career, and he's also never shared the court with someone as talented as Edwards, so seeing how the dynamic works between them will be especially fascinating.
How does Jonathan Kuminga look in the role he's been assigned to?
A lot of the chatter has been about "Kuminga doesn't know how to play a role", "Kuminga is nothing but empty stats", and "the only thing Kuminga wants is money; he doesn't care about winning." Some of those criticisms are understandable given how some of his past offseasons have been handled, but now it's on him to rewrite his narrative.
Going into this season with the Wolves, Kuminga knows what he has to excel at. He was brought here on the belief that he can be a perimeter stopper, an active cutter, and an elite positional defensive rebounder. We all know that he can do those things; the effort just needs to be consistent.
His role in preseason should add up to what the coaches have said about him, and it will be interesting to see how he slots in on both sides of the ball and whether a potential lack of touches/shots will be an issue.
Who will be getting the primary backup wing minutes?
The Wolves have a glut of backup combo guards. Ayo Dosunmu will be guaranteed a lot of minutes, and I presume Terrence Shannon Jr. will also play a fair amount. When healthy, Donte DiVincenzo will also get a healthy handful of minutes, but it's unclear when he'll return. Then you have Jaylen Clark and Bones Hyland, who are both kind of on the bubble, but the backup guards are filled with a lot of NBA-caliber players.
The wings, however, are much more of a mystery box. The only backup forwards on the roster currently are Trey Lyles, Cody Williams, and Isaiah Evans. Evans is a rookie and is likely last in the pecking order here, but Williams and Lyles each have questions of their own.
Williams hasn't had the best start to his NBA career, and while he showed some flashes late last season, he still has a way to go development-wise to be considered an everyday rotational player. Lyles was a solid rotational player for the Sacramento Kings a couple of seasons ago, but he played in Europe last season.
With how roster construction needs to work, one of these three guys might need to play real rotational minutes every day, and it will be interesting to see which of the three Chris Finch trusts the most early on.
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