Part 2 is much more interesting:
So let’s move on to your impressions of the team for this upcoming season. This is a vague opening question but what are the reasons for improvement, the primary reasons why you will be better?
There is a deep and genuine motivation by
Karl-Anthony Towns and
D’Angelo Russell to have their best offseason ever. And that’s really where it begins and ends, because if your best players aren’t all-in and ready, then you are not going to go very far.
They’ve seen their contemporaries having success.
Devin Booker’s in the Finals.
Nikola Jokic wins MVP. These are guys who they feel they are every bit as good as, if not better than — or at one point have been better than — in the league.
In 2016, NBA general managers said KAT would be the guy they would start a franchise with above all others.
100 percent. And he still is; he just has to get back to that, right? He has that and he knows that. DLo is healthy, feels good, believes in his team and his teammates. So those two guys.
Then the development of Ant and Jaden. Ant is, as we all have spoken about many times, incredibly gifted, has glimpses of being truly special. He has got to figure out routines. He has got to figure out what it means to be a professional with the right approach, and he is doing it. He cares. His competitive drive might be the highest on our team. But how do we harness that so it becomes productive for everybody, right?
And Jaden, as we talked about, has probably been our most diligent worker in the gym. He has the best foundation in terms of his basketball fundamentals, that is easy to stack skills on.
That’s the core four. Then our other pieces. We are really excited about Vando and really excited about J-Mac (
Jordan McLaughlin). We want to get these guys back in the fold. From an analytics point of view, they are checking some boxes that drive winning. And then the rest of our roster.
Malik Beasley gives you that outside shooting.
I coached Beasley for like four games last year. So I don’t even know what that looks like yet.
But you’ve seen the tape on his approach to defense: He takes terrible angles.
Yeah, for sure. Look, we still have to lean into who we are, and that is an offensive team. And that is one of my approaches that I think I learned in the G League, which is, you just have to embrace these guys for who they are. Because they are really good at what they do.
You had a quote the other day from my colleague Jon Krawczynski that you want to go heavy toward offense in terms of your starting personnel and then move to a more blended group. I know it is early and right now it is tough to know. But am I right in hearing that you are okay with opening with a group where four of the five starters are not known for playing quality defense? If you do that you probably do have to be top-eight or something on offense and then down below mediocre on defense, but not 28th (as the Wolves were under Finch last season).
Can’t be 28th, right. And we feel like we can solve our transition defense, which is somewhat related to shot selection and turnovers but also related to effort. We’ve got to get back. We can’t argue with the ref. We can’t stand when we miss a layup. There are so many little things that winning teams don’t do. Just little habits that we have to get out of. And if we can just rebound a little better, which is going to be a little limited: Rebounding isn’t something that you just coach. You either do or you don’t. And if we can solve those two things, I think we have a chance to be near middle-of-the-pack [on defense].
Looking at roster construction, backup point guard is an unknown, and you’ve got a committee at power forward that we don’t know yet how it will shake out. Obviously, Gersson (Rosas, president of basketball operations) is probably not done, but sometimes some things just don’t happen the way you want them to.
Let’s take point guard first. You successfully worked well with DLo off the ball, grooming him that way, knowing he could always play on the ball. He did work well with J-Mac but that can’t happen as often if J-Mac is going to be the primary backup at point guard. So do you think DLo will have to be on-ball more often as it shakes out?
I think now, but hopefully, we’ve got a few more tweaks we are going to make here. I think you are 100 percent accurate in that DLo, he is such a good shooter that you want to have him off the ball. When you have as much skill as we have, you can play a lot of different lineup combinations.
Editor’s note: As stated at the top, the Wolves have indeed tweaked and Beverley will provide more opportunities for Russell to work off the ball.
But in terms of initiation, can Beasley or Anthony Edwards initiate the offense do you think or would you be less comfortable with that?
They can both initiate. Because ultimately we are still going to play through KAT — get it to KAT early.
And what about handles bringing it up — okay as long as there is no pressure?
As long as there is no pressure, yeah. So that is something certainly that we are a little concerned about. We probably need a little more roster balance for ball skills; attacking and playmaking with the ball. We have skilled bigs, which really helps us, but we could use a few more skill players. The two guys we have playing in this (Summer) League,
McKinley Wright and
Isaiah Miller, they both have a chance.
I agree. Very different players. One is a bulldog, the other is a brain.
Yeah, and they both are a jump shot away from being definitely in the league.
And size. But you are right; they are both pretty solid pickups that you made on the margins.
That’s where we are as a franchise right now. We are still on the come and we have to keep going. It would be great if — I mean, Ricky (Rubio, traded to Cleveland) is going to be a big loss at the other guard, but we feel J-Mac is ready to be a backup.
Why did he have so many problems finishing last year?
Tough question to answer because I didn’t see the first year. But yeah, it was a funky year last season and nobody was really in great shape. That’s where it seemed like fitness can really come into play. It is not running out of breath of anything it is just that your touch isn’t really there because you are a little bit more tired than you think. So I don’t know, but I have every confidence in him. I mean we felt comfortable doing the Ricky trade because of how much we believe in J-Mac.
Is your scorer with the second unit more likely to be Beasley or DLo?
We don’t really know yet. It could be one or both or it could be Ant. It is tough to know yet. Until I know what we are looking like at the four (power forward), it is hard to answer that question. But I think when you look at a finishing lineup, we’re going to be able to put out a lot of firepower and hope to get more stops. Usually at the end of games guys are a little more locked-in defensively.
When you finish, I think Jaden McDaniels is a natural three. I think you do, too. But your finishing lineup now if you have firepower puts him at the four.
Yeah, it does. But the reason that that works is that most people go to similar lineups at the finish. They tend to play small as well.
And if they don’t, your big lineup might be in play, Naz and KAT is an intriguing lineup. But defensively …
We’ve got to figure it out.
In that pairing, KAT seems to be the roamer when you play that way.
Yeah. I mean, we have a couple of different options to go there. It is a priority for us for sure. You know, we had moments where I thought they were really good together. And I kept saying I wanted to do it more. And it was way more situational when we did it. We have to be way more proactive. It has got to be, this is what we’re doing.
Defensively we can either play zone or switch more or we’ve got to find some sort of coverage where those guys can help each other out. I don’t know what that looks like now. There are several things you can do, like play the way Milwaukee plays or go back to the old
Clippers, the way Blake and DeAndre played together there, like a two-man rotation. I don’t know what it is but it is up there as a priority in the preseason to figure it out. We have some ideas.
Naz hits the floor a lot and that hurts your on-ball defense. Is there something about his body that makes that happen?
A couple things. One is we’ve addressed it; I told him you have got to stop falling down. He was trying to play to the whistle and they are not giving that call to an undrafted second-unit, second-year big. And he got better at not doing that. But it is funny, we were just talking about this the other day. When you are a tall athlete in basketball growing up, you play the game, you lift, whatever, but the most important thing is your core strength. And a lot of taller guys just don’t have it because they have such a long torso.
Good point.
You watch volleyball players. That is all about core strength. They have to generate power in the air with no foundation. Everything comes from right here [outlines torso].
And that’s where Naz has nothing.
Exactly. So volleyball players are never not on their feet; they always come down on their feet. It is not a contact sport. So that has been a big point of emphasis for our guys this summer; trying to develop that core. But you see this issue in a lot of NBA athletes just because of their length.
If you don’t get a backup five, that will be a lineup you will rely on.
Naz is our backup five. But you are talking like a more traditional five.
A guy who pushes KAT more often to the four than he is right now.
Yeah, yeah. There is a point where you can go out and find a traditional five and he is so good that he can help with KAT’s weaknesses, like rebounding, defense, whatever. KAT’s so skilled offensively that it really works. But a niche five like that, now you risk cannibalizing what KAT does best. Because when he is playing at the four there are going to be matchups that don’t favor him offensively or defensively. Right now he can take big fives off the bounce. So it has got to be the right five next to him.
Bam Adebayo, Jarrett Allen, I can think of a couple like that.
Yeah! And no one is giving them up.
And then the committee at the four; Jaden obviously will get some time there. Vando if you sign him. Nate Knight, the two-way guy in Summer League seems to have a nose for how to play.
Very interesting. Really smart, rugged, athletic and I think he is fearless. He knows how to play, he slows the game down. In many ways he is like — the game has always been about bigs in some ways and now it is about smalls, but where is it going? Toward skilled bigs. Like the more skill you have now at the big positions the better it is. The better it is to stretch the floor, the better it is that they can pass to each other. If you want to play a fluid offense and the ball is going through your big at the top of the floor, you better be able to have guys who can pass and handle it.
And when I think about you wanting to run a pass-oriented offense, that’s where Vando hurts you.
Yeah, a little bit for sure.
Because he doesn’t have the hands. And you can’t teach hands.
He doesn’t have the ball skills. But what he does have is he is a great cutter and he spaces off of KAT really well.
Right, which gets back to what you were talking about before with two- and three-man combinations. And Jaden for whatever reason doesn’t seem to sync up with KAT, or didn’t last season. You would think they would be a lot better together.
I know. So Jaden is like, his offense is up and down because he is trying to figure it out. But he is actually a good cutter too, he just doesn’t have a feel for it yet. I have long felt that getting guys to cut and knowing when to cut is one of the hardest things in the NBA. Because most of the time when you cut you don’t get the ball. You are cutting for your teammates, you are cutting to create space. But when you do have skilled bigs like KAT, now you have guys who want to cut.
Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards (Hannah Foslien / Getty Images)
Jake Layman is probably the best cutter on the roster.
For sure, yeah. Juancho (now traded) is a good cutter. Vando is a good cutter. Jaden is actually a pretty good cutter. We have really good cutters. Ant: Every time he cuts you get a hand-back from KAT in the post if you wanted it.
And if he cuts from the baseline the whole floor tilts.
Exactly. So Jaden’s impact at the four is mostly to stretch the floor. He has proven he can catch and shoot.
If you do defend the three as well as defend the paint this season, that is a lot of closing out on shooters and you are also running a heavy motion offense. Are you worried a little bit about conditioning with your guys? Can you run a ten-man rotation?
Hope to. Certainly nine and if we have enough guys to play we might push it out to ten or eleven. I think this year people will be in better shape. I think last year started blah.
Can Karl-Anthony Towns claim his place as one of the NBA's best bigs? Chris Finch is high on that prospect.
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