24 games and counting. That is how many consecutive contests that Terrence Shannon Jr. has been out of action. The second-year player has missed all that time with a left foot abductor hallucis strain.
While Shannon Jr. hasn’t played for the Timberwolves since Christmas Day, he did get his first taste of a basketball game in about a month and a half. It came with the Iowa Wolves on Tuesday. For someone who should be much better than the majority of the G League, Shannon Jr. didn’t really leave much of a mark in Tuesday’s outing.
Shannon Jr. has middling performance in G League on Tuesday
The Iowa Wolves faced off with the Austin Spurs on Tuesday, falling by the score of 130-124. The 25-year-old was a part of the starting lineup and played 20 minutes.
In the contest, TSJ finished with 11 points, three rebounds, and six assists (to four turnovers). It wasn’t the most efficient night for the second-year player as he went 4-for-11 from the field, 1-for-5 from 3-point range, and 1-for-3 from the foul line.
The 27th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, Shannon Jr. should be dominating the G League. TSJ spent most of last season with Minnesota, but he did appear in four regular season/Tip-Off Tournament games for Iowa. In those, he totaled 146 points (36.5 points per contest) and shot 54.7% from the field.
Look, it was TSJ’s first game in about 6.5 weeks. It probably would have been unfair to expect this G League game to go like his previous ones (especially since he only played 20 minutes).
It’s unclear if he will play in the second of a back-to-back on Wednesday (once again against Austin), but if he looks more like he is expected to against competition that he is frankly better than, I’ll likely write about the bounce-back performance.
He may come back to Timberwolves without a spot in the rotaton
After a strong end to last year’s conference finals, Shannon Jr. was expected to take a large leap forward in his second NBA season. Even prior to getting hurt, that hasn’t been the case, with an average of just 4.5 points on 39.5% shooting from the field.
With the recent addition of Ayo Dosunmu, it’s unclear if TSJ will have a spot in the rotation once he returns to the Timberwolves.
Chris Finch will certainly want to see better performances in the G League before having the confidence to utilize him for meaningful minutes. Regardless, Finch has played TSJ in each game that he's been active this season.