Written By Tom Schreier
As soon as we come together, I think we could be a force to be reckoned with.
— Karl-Anthony Towns after being drafted No. 1 overall by the Timberwolves
Flip Saunders spent all last year talking about vision.
“We have a vision of what we want to do, from the beginning,” he said at a practice in January, “and the vision changed a little bit with some of the injuries, but it didn’t change how we went about doing things.”
“When I came back the vision was that we were gonna try to get this team back as quick as possible,” he said in February after acquiring Kevin Garnett in a trade with the Brooklyn Nets.
“When you’re in management you know that the important thing is you have to see the full picture,” Saunders echoed in his final interview, addressing his role as both head coach and president of basketball operations for the Minnesota Timberwolves. “And it made it much easier, being in dual roles, in order to do that and show patience, because you ultimately know the vision that you want to be.”
It’s easy to identify when management has a vision, a plan, and it is being executed. In years past the Wolves were a hodgepodge of underperforming acquisitions (Michael Beasley and Darko Milicic) and unproductive draft picks (Jonny Flynn, Wesley Johnson, Derrick Williams), resulting in poor performances on the court as well as disgruntled superstars (Kevin Love) in the locker room.
Fan interest waned, and Minnesota began looking like a frozen tundra that no free agent would want to visit. The Target Center is a decaying building, hardly a recruiting tool, that only looked worse with shiny new Target Field in its backyard. Renovating the arena has been in discussion for quite some time, and progress has slowed recently, but at the very least the product inside should be worth watching for years to come.
Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns was the obvious choice and the right fit for the Wolves. With fast, electric players like Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine and Shabazz Muhammad expected to carry the offense, and floor wizard Ricky Rubio distributing the ball, Minnesota needed a player that could keep pace. Jahlil Okafor is an old-school, back to the basket presence, and while he may be an offensive force for years to come, his game may have brought Saunders — who was criticized for not adapting to a more three-point friendly league last year — permanently back to a 1990’s coaching style.
Towns is a perfect fit for how basketball is played now. By adding him, the Wolves will have a versatile roster that is capable of matching up against the myriad lineups and strategies employed by other teams as they attempt to maneuver through the Western Conference minefield in seasons to come. Not only is this team looking to make the playoffs for the first time since the (first) Garnett era, but they are also looking to contend for a championship in the near future. The core is young and talented, and adding Towns, who is an adept defender as well as an offensive presence, addresses a need with a gifted player worthy of a No. 1 overall selection.
Years from now people may wonder why Minnesota didn’t take D’Angelo Russell, who as Marcus Fuller of the Pioneer Press points out, could become the better player. Okafor could turn out alright too, as could Kristaps Porzingis or Emmanuel Mudiay, but that shouldn’t matter to Wolves fans. As long as Flip and Co. do their job and mold their talent into a productive unit, nobody should be complaining so long as Minnesota finally has winning basketball again.
Selecting Towns was a decision made in the don’t mess this up vein, while trading for Tyus Jones was just confirmation that Saunders is on top of his game right now. It touches on the homegrown cord, of course, as Jones is an Apple Valley product who won a national championship and graced the cover of Sports Illustrated. But more importantly, he’s a point guard who could be molded into a nice alternative to Rubio.
This isn’t dismissing the Spanish point guard, who has become maligned recently for his injury history and inability to shoot at an NBA level, but rather to suggest that Jones is a complementary player. Russell would have replaced him, fair or unfair, because a player drafted No. 1 overall is expected to be an instant impact player, and the Wolves would have to trade Rubio to address the lack of size on the team. Conversely Jones won’t take Rubio’s spot in the starting lineup away this season because he will likely be a work in progress this season, and will be developed to be a complement rather than a replacement for him.
Essentially, Jones will be yet another barometer of Saunders’ performance as president of basketball operations. It’s a different test, not one of Flip’s wheeling-and-dealing abilities, but rather his ability to develop superstars. He’s done well with Wiggins, LaVine and Muhammad, and adding a scoring point guard fills a need. Much of Saunders’ vision is fulfilled by drafted-and-developed players — the correct strategy in a city that’s difficult to recruit free agents to — and now the pressure is on to continue the trend of molding one-and-done players into bona fide NBA stars.
Without the vision he had when he took over for David Kahn, however, this never would have been possible. Disorganized teams whiff on high draft picks — “Knicks it” as my friend in New York says — and aren’t able to bring home a high-profile player like Jones for a relatively reasonable cost (three second-round picks).
If the Wolves had kept Cedi Osman and Rakeem Christmas, drafted with the No. 31 and 36 selections respectively, nobody outside of the die-hard fans would have noticed. Jones caught people’s attention. And if he has a strong rookie year, nobody is gonna notice that Minnesota doesn’t have a second-round selection in 2019.
Make no mistake, this isn’t all about publicity — Minnesota could use a reliable scoring point guard — but it is a way to draw attention to the team. In years past, that would be a bad thing, but now that the Wolves finally have something going on, it’s a positive that people locally and nationally are starting to take notice.
Tom Schreier writes for 105 The Ticket’s Cold Omaha. Tune in to The Wake Up Call every Sunday at 8:00 am to hear the crew break down the week in Minnesota sports.