Isaiah Evans couldn’t play in the Minnesota Timberwolves’ first summer league outing. That’s because he needed to wait for the four-team trade to become official, a trade that involved Minnesota acquiring the 33rd overall pick—where Evans was selected—and Julius Randle heading to the Brooklyn Nets.
Evans did play in the last four summer games. It didn’t go all that well for the 20-year-old. While not encouraging, there’s a good chance that Evans will perform better in an NBA setting.
Evans’ poor summer league performance shouldn’t be much of a concern
The final numbers from Evans’ first summer league may make you want to turn your head away. While he averaged 10.5 points, he did so on just 27.3 percent shooting from the field and 20.5 percent from 3-point range. Not exactly a great first impression.
But he ended on a higher note, scoring 36 points in the last two games while shooting at least somewhat better splits of 40.6 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from three-point range. Evans played a large role in helping the Timberwolves nearly overcome a 27-point deficit in their final summer league contest.
It couldn’t have been easy to sit around and wait for the trade to become official, and it took just a few summer league games for him to get more comfortable.
Put him in a more structured NBA setting with better players surrounding him (including an elite playmaker in LaMelo Ball), and Evans will get the opportunity to find open shots to his liking. The 6-foot-6 guard proved to be a sharpshooter in college while playing for the elite Duke Blue Devils, netting 38 percent of his 3-point attempts in two years.
Evans isn’t wearing No. 33 because he has watched highlights of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Patrick Ewing, Scottie Pippen, or Larry Bird. He chose that number as a reminder of where he was drafted, as Evans was the last player waiting in the green room during the draft, and he was projected by most mock drafts to go in the first round. He clearly wants to prove the teams that passed on him wrong.
As seen in summer league, Evans can make quick decisions with the ball. That has to be refreshing to Wolves fans who witnessed their team go through periods of little movement and ball-stopping.
Evans probably isn’t ready to be part of the rotation right away, particularly on a team with high expectations. That’s okay. His No. 33 will get called upon at some point, and Chris Finch should be able to come up with offensive schemes to help Evans get acclimated quickly.
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