Kyle Anderson's improvement is flabbergasting Timberwolves fans
By Will Eudy
The Minnesota Timberwolves are now looking at a very different roster than the one they put on the floor last season. Julius Randle already looks promising, Donte DiVincenzo has provided some wonderful offensive gravity (not to mention some fiery trash talk as well) and the Wolves are shaping up to be a top-level contender once again, despite losing some big names from their Western Conference Finals team.
As we look at this brand new Timberwolves team, it can almost be easy to forget that the roster did remain mostly the same as last season for the majority of the summer. In fact, the only big-minutes rotation player that Minnesota bid farewell to before September was Kyle Anderson. Losing him stung to a degree, as he was a big contributor off the bench and operated as a useful connector on offense while bringing strong defensive chops as well.
Now, he has joined the Golden State Warriors and will be helping Stephen Curry attempt to earn his fifth championship ring. Seeing Kyle play for a big in-conference rival of the Timberwolves was already tough to do for the fanbase, but now a new wrinkle has compounded the situation: Anderson's jump shot looks completely re-worked.
We know that Kyle's nickname is not Slo-Mo for nothing. His steady and methodical pace of play has always been fascinating to watch, albeit sometimes frustrating as well. That is why Timberwolves fans are beside themselves in watching Anderson move with such purpose on his new team.
Kyle Anderson's shooting form has completely changed
Videos have surfaced on social media showing Kyle's jump shot while in Minnesota compared to some in-game attempts he has taken so far with Golden State. Putting the videos side-by-side, it really is striking to see what a big difference there is in fluidity. What looked like a slow and clunky jump shot before has now been worked into one that comes off looking much more seamless.
Of course, Anderson did lead the Timberwolves in three-point percentage during his first season with the team in 2022-23. He shot 41% from outside that season and made Tim Connelly look like an even bigger genius for signing him. He obviously regressed this past year, which presumably led to the Warriors' staff take a look at working on fixing his form.
Typically, a veteran like Kyle would not bother changing their shot form at this point in their career, no matter how dysfunctional it may look. But taking that bold leap and actually attempting to make a change has clearly paid off for him so far, much to the dismay of fans in Minnesota.
The Timberwolves fanbase is of course wondering why Anderson could not have made this tweak last season. Had he done so, perhaps it would have given Minnesota the edge they needed to get past Dallas in the conference finals. In any event, it will be interesting to see if Slo-Mo can keep this up, or if it is simply a streak of preseason hot shooting for him.