Northwest by Northwest: Exploring Minnesota's New Frontcourt Frontier.

Oringinally Posted Here.

So here's what I'm guessing the plan is for Minnesota or the logic behind it at least.

First let's look at what they gave up:

• Malik Beasley: Expiring contract (team option next year) on a guy who is extremely redundant with D'Lo/Ant. Essentially paying a guy 15m a year to shoot a bunch of 3s off the bench and grab some dunks. Not a quality defender, not a good facilitator, not really the type of guy the Wolves need. Especially at that price.

• Patrick Beverley: Don't get me wrong it's clear that he did a ton for Minny's culture and young guys work ethic last year, but there are diminishing returns on the magic of PatBev. He's expiring and already "asked" for Miami to trade for him on ESPN, so for an organization trying to stabilize and compete for the first time in a long time, it's understandable to not extend such a wildcard of a dude. Plus for as much "dawg in him" that he brings a team, he also could foul out in 20-30 minutes every night. He did twice in the playoffs. KAT is enough fouling issues for one team.

• Walker Kessler: Incoming 1st round rookie this year. Great shot blocker in college, good in the short roll, good screener, solid defender, good effort dude. Shows signs of being able to be a real low-post scorer. Not a great athlete, not a great playmaker, a bit foul prone, has some issues with quicker dudes. All-in-all an asset for a team, no doubt, but he would have been solidly planted behind Naz Reid on the bench and is far from a lock to be a quality NBA player. Movable.

• Jarred Vanderbilt: By far the best and most important player leaving in this package. I'm positive that TC did everything in his power to find a way to keep him with the Wolves. 22 years old and is already one of the best rebounders in the league, an elite help defender, and getting much better as a man defender. A+ athlete. Has some playmaking chops, but probably never gonna be a quality scorer. He has all-defense written all over him so it sucks he had to be included.

• Leandro Balmero: I don't know a ton about him but not a major loss here.

• 4 1sts + a swap: Unprotected 23, 25, 27, swap in 26, and top 5 protected in 29. Here's the real meat of the trade. I mean that is half their future picks mortgaged for Gobert, and all the tradable ones. In a vacuum I have no problem with moving these picks. You're betting that you're going to continue to be a playoff team with Ant as he gets better and is under team control for a long time, with KAT who was a great offensive player last year, and who you brought in this year. Extra sure of that with Gobert coming in now. Assuming KAT plays out his contract, the only pick that is not directly influenced by the Wolves team as we know it would be that 29 top-5 protected. Which, if they blow it all up by 28, they can probably ensure they lose enough games to retain it. A gamble to be absolutely sure, but if you're gonna be a playoff team (read: not worse than last year) for the next 5 years then, well, maybe it's a gamble worth doing depending on the chips you could get back.

So now let's look at what those chips are by way of your questions:

What happens to the Timberwolves perimeter defense?

Realistically not a whole lot. Beasley wasn't a good defender. PatBev teeters between being a great perimeter defender for 20 minutes a night and putting other teams in bonus territory within minutes. You moved a rookie center in Kessler, a guy who wasn't playing in Balmero, and Vanderbilt who is more of a 4/small ball 5 than he is a 3. They will certainly miss Vanderbilt's defense, his activity in the passing lane, and his rebounding, but that isn't a total direct hit on the perimeter defense.

They signed Kyle "Slo-Mo" Anderson to a really nice contract yesterday and he becomes the Vando replacement along with McDaniels. He's super lanky guy who has a nose for the ball, is good in passing lanes, but is a better on-ball defender, and comes with 8 years of experience. Significantly more savvy on the offensive end of course and can be a legitimate playmaker, especially vs. the mismatches he creates with his size. He's a better perimeter defender than Vando right now which is a more pressing need with Gobert on the court.

The aforementioned McDaniels who showed signs of significant defensive growth last year, especially on the perimeter for a guy his size, and should continue to get better and better. He was a 12/6/2/1/1 guy per 36 last year, and has a shooting stroke that looks like it can be worked on and improved to make him a step-out-and-stretch guy as well.

Got Prince on a new contract, who I think can be a solid defender on the wing, and will get some more minutes here off the bench to solidify the defense there at the 2/3/4.

Now you have McLaughlin take over the meat of the back-up point guard minutes in Minnesota, which was already trending in that direction at the end of last year. He's 6ft on a good day but at his size is a quality defender and a good decision maker at the point. Pretty reliable all things considered. I could see the Wolves looking for a better back up/startable PG still, and they probably should, but JML is a better option at that spot than a number of teams have right now for what it's worth.

Ant has already shown that he can be a quality perimeter defender and takes that part of the game seriously, so you would expect him to continue to get even better in that regard. He certainly has all the physical tools to do it and does not seem to lack the capability to understand schemes or reads, and as a 20 year old that's a good sign because most guys struggle for a while with that.

Essentially the Wolves have options here to run legitimately good/great defensive line ups depending on game situation. Ant/Prince/McDaniels/Anderson/Gobert is an absolute nightmare for teams to score on. That's 4 guys who can switch pretty much everything and the best interior/rim protector in the league backing it up. You can even go small and pop both centers off the floor and run SlowMo or McDaniels at the 5 like Memphis did against center Draymond units in the playoffs.

But what does Minnesota get out of this?

They get the best defensive center in the league. Probably the best defensive center we have seen since Hakeem or Duncan. Maybe the best rim protector of all time. That's what they get for 2 expirings, a rookie, a guy who likely doesn't become an NBA player, and a great 22 year old defensive rebounder; and of course the 4 picks and a swap, which the thinking behind this is, "Maybe a guy we draft in the early 20s of the 1st round ends up being good, or maybe they end up not playing at all. Maybe a guy we draft in 2027 doesn't end up playing until 2030 when KAT is 34 years old. So what's the loss for us if we think we're gonna be good and know we need to win now?"

Which, they do. This is a win/improve now and in the next 3-4 years move. But why do that instead of continuing to draft and develop guys from outside of the lotto and pray they become what's needed?

Well let's look at the core. KAT is 26 and is entering his prime, one which may only be 4-5 years long. Who knows. He just signed the big 4 year contract and those 4 years may be the only 4 years he plays in Minnesota. Almost assuredly so if the Wolves DON'T end up getting better in that time.

D'Angelo Russell is 25, is coming off of a down year scoring, but made more efforts as a defender, got better with the ball and as a facilitator, and showed a bit more hustle than in years prior. Gobert should make everything better for him on both ends. He also expires after the season. That's 31m off the books which is a ton of space for the Wolves to bring in someone who they feel is better suited for this team going forward, rather than extending him and continue to draft, develop, and hope for the next 5 years.

Of course you have Ant who at 20 is already showing that he's capable of being the best guy on a playoff team. Last year in his first ever postseason series he dropped 25/4/3/1.2/1.2 on 46/40/82. You can see him getting better month by month. He is ready to start competing for deep playoff runs right now as if he was 25/26. You can push to win now with him, and establish a winning culture and team instead of doing the Devin Booker thing.

Your 3 best or highest paid players are all ready right now, your franchise guy in KAT is probably rounding into his athletic peak, and you're coming off a hard fought series against a great Memphis team which you probably should have won all things considered. The plan can't be to run it back considering how much better teams in the West will be next year. It won't work. You need to make a move.

You can't/shouldn't go out and get some start 2/3, that just stunts Ant's development. You can't go out and try to pry some PG away from a team and push D'Lo to the 2, nor are there any of them that make sense to pursue like that. Jrue isn't leaving. FVV isn't leaving. Lonzo isn't leaving + injury questions. Garland not leaving. Hali not leaving. Brunson is gone. Fox isn't going to improve anything. Lillard isn't leaving. Murray isn't leaving.

You could go try to find some killer 3/4 type glue guy, but does that really move the needle that much? Who would it even be, John Collins? That's not gonna help the defensive issues and becomes VERY redundant with KAT. Siakam? He's not moving. Ingram? Not a defensive upgrade and takes the ball away from Ant and KAT. Jerami Grant? Already made it clear he doesn't want to be a 3rd option on offense and he's already in Portland. Wiggins isn't coming back, KD isn't coming to Minny. You're SOL.

The only way Minny improves in a major way without really hurting Ant's development and taking the ball out of his hands, i.e. putting him at the 3 and bringing in a Beal, a Brooks, a GTJ, a Sexton, is by moving KAT or shifting him off to the 4 in a twin-towers joint.

How is the fit with KAT?

Well that's the (200) million dollar question.

Let me first start by highlighting what Gobert does for a team in general and then we can speculate about the x's and o's with KAT.

I'm gonna cite some individual Gobert stats here (mostly from a 538 article on him a year ago) so people understand just how impactful he can be as a defender. Keep in mind this is his impact while playing on a team that had some of the worst perimeter defense in the entire league for the past handful of years.

Per Cleaning the Glass, Rudy Gobert's 20-21 season is tied with Draymond's 15-16 season (on an all around defensive juggernaut) for the best defensive on-off split of the past 15 years at a -11.9. Essentially that's the difference in team points allowed per 100 possessions when that player was on and off the court.

That only says so much though because that's just a raw on/off number so we can take a look at some of the all-in-one metrics to see if they corroborate that number.

Generally speaking defensive catch-alls are iffy, as defense is something that is tragically difficult to pin down with a metric because unless you're using camera tracking data (which some of these do now), they have a tough time accounting for all the sneakier variables for what makes a good defender. Teammates +/- from your productivity, scheme/system (which is far more impactful and important to understanding defense than numbers can show right now), etc. Like a team may give up a ton of 3s by design (Bucks) but that might not mean an individual is a bad perimeter defender. It can lead to seeing guys high up on one metric but nowhere to be found on another, like Jokic last year.

However Gobert is basically the one player that every single one of these metrics agrees on. The Golden Foie Gras.

##538's D-RAPTOR going back to 1977

##ESPN's defensive RPM going back to 1996

##Dunks & Threes defensive EPM going back to 2004

##BballIndex D-LEBRON going back to 2009

Basically Rudy Gobert is an unparalleled defensive player over the course of a regular season. His rim protection, ability to cover up for perimeter players mistakes, ability to step out and guard smaller players despite being 10ft tall, ability to contest in drop coverage, help defense, ability to get back into plays, all of that is HOF level. Combined it suggests that he is probably one of, if not the greatest defensive specialist at the center position that we have seen since the merger. So that is what the Wolves are getting.

Gobert will be able to cover up for a lot of issues the Wolves faced. He turns the defensive disaster that was D'Lo/KAT defending a standard PNR into an above average defensive situation. He can now mitigate defensive miscues or lapses from D'Lo and Ant that KAT would have instead compounded. It means that teams can no longer just put KAT in the PNR and get him into egregious foul trouble and/or get free runs at the rim all game just because Gobert is involved in that action instead, or if they do involve KAT in that action then you have Gobert able to fire down to help on the roll and KAT can rotate to an off-ball player instead of playing the ball handler or roller in some situations.

That's really where we start to think about the fit with KAT, because it is going to be a bit of a funky one to figure out for Chris Finch and staff. One that they clearly have enough of an idea of how they think they'll make it work that they feel comfortable with this fire-all-the-cannons trade.

How I imagine it will work out schematically is like so:

Gobert will start at the 5 every night and KAT at the 4 in traditional terms. More realistically this will be an attempt to hide KAT on the 3/4/5 every night, whoever is least troublesome or likely to be involved in any sort of action with the ballhandlers. Maybe even non-scoring 2s like GP2.

Being able to do that is huge because let's face it, KAT is a problematic defender. He's an absolute clobbering foul machine at the 5 and smacks driving guards that burned by him on PNRs constantly, he plays way too physically and hamfisted against other centers and picks up a ton of fouls by playing them like it's 1-on-1 in practice. Especially against guys who have got it going offensively, as he has made it a ritual to try and get into duels with Jokic where KAT will end up just assaulting him after getting "too into the game", and then will be absolutely incredulous about how these things are called fouls. Now I don't know if he really doesn't understand that what he's doing is fouling or not, but it's very evident that if he doesn't get better with that (and he hasn't really) that he's far too much of a liability and you can't assume he'll be available late in playoff games. Memphis figured that out and attacked it and every other team will too.

But now you have a guy who the only reason he wouldn't be on the floor late game, as the most impactful defensive player on the floor, is if a team doesn't have a center on the floor at all and is running a super small line up to "expose Gobert on defense." Even that as I have written before (maybe I link this later maybe not) was, in the Clippers series for example, a much greater issue because of the Utah/Gobert offense than it was "Gobert was played off the floor defensively."

As an aside, I think it's important when we talk about the value of Gobert to this team to address that. That Clippers series that everyone points to and suggests Gobert can't play or can be exposed in the playoffs is rarely understood in full. The reason why teams don't run extended quarter long small-ball lineups against centers, let alone games, let alone entire series, is because going small also comes with huge drawbacks. Rebounding and rim protection being the two big ones. You can't just go small forever because you end up giving up either a ton of rebounds and/or the other team/big man will just frolic into the paint and dunk flowers on your grave.

For Utah, Conley was out for all but 1 game. He is the only player on that team who was capable of running a PNR with Gobert as the roller and lob threat, which would have sent Batum into the catacombs and forced Zubac back in eventually. Mitchell has, confusingly, not learned how to run a proper PNR yet, and Gobert (no excuses made here) wasn't very capable of iso scoring on Batum. Though to be fair, and as we saw this year, Utah seems regularly incapable of getting the ball to even a wide open Gobert by the rim. So the Clippers were like cool, they can't use Gobert on offense at all so let's just take him as far out of the paint as we can all game on defense and turn this into a track meet. That's partly on Gobert, but it's also on any single center who would find themselves in that position and doesn't have a good offensive game. Capela, Adams, Poeltl, Robinson, Noel, Dwight, McGee, the list goes on and on and on. There are plenty of guys who need to be set up to score, and all of them wouldn't have been able to play in that series.

So that brings us back to the Wolves, who can run pnr.

What happens if teams just go small against them and force KAT to guard some sort of playmaking 4, like if LeBron/AD are the 4/5? Or even AG or MPJ/Jokic?

Well, it's not ideal, but keep in mind a lot of playmaking 4s aren't guys who are consistently good distance shooters or aren't consistently good off the dribble. That means some kind of drop-and-contain can be played by KAT/Gobert if those two end up involved in a 2 man game. The Wolves will also be long and athletic enough to provide some help guys in that scenario and I'm willing to bet that the trap becomes one of their most effective tools. Trapping the ball handler with two of the longest guys in the league is going to make things really difficult for everything except the best 3/4 playmakers out there.

What about if teams just start picking out KAT and forcing mismatches?

Well, they're going to try to hide him on the guys who either don't dribble or don't shoot most nights. Guys who aren't going to be involved in a ton of switchy/pnr stuff so the Wolves can decide how they want to handle PNRs on a night-to-night basis. Some nights KAT might switch to the ball handler and DLo/Ant/Anderson/whoever will look to help off of whatever he was on and there will be a full rotation around once they help off the guy they got switched on. Again, I imagine lots of trapping. Some nights he will deny the switch and just go into full drop, others he will play up at the level of the screen and trying to disrupt. Rudy will be available for help defense/rebounding and they're going to have these long, bonkers, solid defensive dudes all over the place to recover to guys who end up open from this type of stuff. Options!

What about teams like Toronto, or Golden State, who at times might try to run something like a 5-out offense with a small-ball center and 4 pg/sg/sf types?

Well in that case I think you're going to see KAT or Gobert go to the bench. They'll roll with whatever guys gives them the best look in that given situation. Maybe it will be KAT sometimes because they'll want to punish the opposing team's small lineup on offense and the shooting threats aren't also off-the-dribble threats. Maybe it will be Gobert sometimes because they need that defense as a team is looking to drive more, or are in the bonus, or any number of things. They will both have to get used to and accept nights where they aren't going to close out a game. If both of them have those nights, and both of them have each other's back, and (most importantly) they're winning off of those decisions? Should be a-ok.

What do they actually get from putting KAT out of position and bringing in Gobert? What do the Wolves gain from this?

Well outside of the aforementioned defensive possibilities that the Wolves have now, and their ability to go to a defensive line-up late in games in the playoffs against teams running bigs (Lakers, Nuggets, Suns with Ayton, Portland, Memphis, NO, just to name a few that will not pull their big), you instantly turn into a top 5 rebounding team in the league. They were 16th last year and for a team that tends to miss as many shots as they do (looking at you D'Lo, and you too Ant but you're excused) getting the best rebounder in the league is huge. Add that to another solid rebounder at the 4, who obviously becomes the best rebounding 4 in the league (kinda, certainly the largest), and you are going to secure so many possessions defensively, and give yourself so many more opportunities on offense with OREBs as well. Which is fantastic for a team that's now gonna have two 7ft dudes crawling around the rim on those OREBs, and I do think KAT can do some cool flip-lob stuff to Gobert off OREBs.

More importantly this creates a gigantic mismatches on offense for KAT. There are very few teams who are going to be capable of dealing with him at the 4. He is going to murder most team's secondary big (which for a lot of squads is really just a big 3) by taking them into the paint, something he proved he could do last year against smaller guys, or by simply shooting over them which he has just become better and better at. It also allows the Wolves to run all sorts of funky Spain PNR actions where KAT and Gobert are both screening on the same possession and KAT can pop off and Gobert can roll to the rim, or they can both roll, or the ball handler gets an absolute red carpet to the rim. All sorts of super interesting, super unique, super fun stuff is going to be unlocked with these two on offense.

The Wolves are also going to be able to stagger these guys if they want to go that route, and make it so they're playing 1/3rd of the game together, 1/3rd of the game is a more offensive group with KAT at the 5, and 1/3rd of the game is a suffocating defensive unit with Gobert at the 5. That's really hard to gameplan for and match up with every night, and not easy for teams to come in and be prepared to defend 3 extremely different styles of play and puzzles to figure out in the same game.

If Finch and his staff can get creative and don't just try to force these guys to play next to each other for 30 minutes a night, the Wolves instantly become one of the most intriguing teams in the league with what they can do and how they can throw other teams off. This is of course helped by having wonky offensive players like Kyle Anderson lurking around and doing Pink Panther stuff throughout it all.

Another big bonus here is that now they have D'Lo (and to a lesser extent Ant but who knows going forward), who is a consistent PNR player. Conley the first 2 years with the Jazz had been great as a PNR facilitator for Gobert, but recently has become much less effective as his ability to get to the rim has all but died. Good defenses can just play up on him because they know that he won't be able to burn past them to the rim. Makes the lob really hard to find. D'Lo will always be a 3-level threat in the PNR, as well as a threat to pass, which will open up Gobert's ability to be used on offense significantly like it was the first year with Conley.

Having Gobert as your screen setter and then being able to kick out to Ant or KAT, and teams having to watch for cuts/crashes from any combo of guys, will make D'Lo's offense open up. He should be getting many more open looks as a shooter and will definitely be seeing the lane widen for him considerably as a finisher which could make a massive difference for his efficiency. Instead of hoping that D'Lo becomes an elite shooter all of a sudden, the Wolves now have found a way to generate much easier looks for him, and more options as a passer. That will make his decision making easier, it'll make his shot selection better just by virtue of being more open, and will allow for more stuff at the rim which, again, is invaluable for him.

So what if this kind of doesn't work out though? They just traded 4 1sts rounders for Gobert. If this fails what do the Wolves do?

Gonna have to tap into the inner workings of Tim Connelly's mind here. What does the contingency plan look like if this really doesn't work out? Well, lemme rub my crystal ball Sam Cassell style and dive in.

• First, D'Lo is expiring after next year. If he's not the guy, and he may very well not be the guy, that's 31m off the books and we can bring in a much more reliable point guard who can defend at a higher level and/or be a more consistent playmaker and shooter. We aren't locked into him or this iteration of the team whatsoever for more than a season, and we have more than a season to think about contention/get better with who we have. Note from ball rubber: I think D'Lo is gone next year no matter what.

• Second, KAT and Gobert aren't working? KAT is kind of the same dude, makes the same mistakes, great at scoring the way he does but not great enough of a scorer to be the #1 option for a title team, too hard to work him in as a #2 or #3? He is going to have value no matter what, just as he is. That is a completely tradable player to any number of teams in the league and we can recoup value via picks or via players, possibly in a way that makes more sense to pair with Ant/Gobert. Maybe the Heat want him and put Bam at the 4. Maybe we can get some picks out of the Knicks, or Brunson and Barrett aren't working and Brunson can kick over to the Wolves+salary matching. Feel free to fire up all your trade machine ideas but KAT will remain a high-value trade asset for years, and I, Tim Connelly's inner thoughts, will have zero issue moving off a max player who looks like they're not a true #1/#2 guy on a/this championship level team.

• Third and lastly, fans aren't going to be mad at this I don't think. Minny fans were more frustrated with KAT during last year's playoffs than Utah fans have been upset with Gobert pretty much ever. Unless he's touching mics. For the people who are going to watch Gobert next year they're going to see a guy who is much more consistent, much harder working on the court, much more engaged from tip off to the buzzer, than they see in KAT a lot of nights. That will help with point 2 because it will turn to, "What can we get for KAT? We can trade him now and just roll with Gobert at center and this team can be defensively incredible", and we can look to become a Western version of what the Celtics are now.

So will this actually work? Seriously?

In the regular season this is going to work. Teams aren't playing as hard or game planning as specifically as they do in the postseason. Wolves are going to kill the glass, they're going to have some of the best rim protection numbers in the league, and they're going to be a capable offense once they get comfortable with whatever new sets and schemes they're gonna try out. I don't see why the Wolves couldn't push for a 4 seed next year.

I don't know that the Mavs got better on paper, though Doncic could just get even better and negate that. Portland? Grant is a great addition but they're also gambling that they can somehow hold a defense together around Dame/Nurkic, not to mention Simons who is a fold-out chair, which they have tried to do in prior years and it has not worked out yet. Lakers are healthier than last year, in theory, but the roster is even worse. Memphis? Lost key contributors. Golden State? Lost key contributors and now need young guys to step up in a big way. Suns? CP3 a year older and Ayton could be gone. Nuggets? A sure-fire top-4 seed but still serious health concerns. Clippers? Could be the 1-seed, could be a play-in team. PG/Wall/Kawhi could be the new Kyrie/Harden/Durant. In a bad way. Pelicans? Gotta find out how to fit Zion in to a funky but fun play-in team. Utah? Not anymore. SAS? Tanking. OKC? Tanking. Rockets? Tanking. Kings? Kings.

This will come down to how well they can work these line-ups in the playoffs and the creativity of Finch & Co., as well as the flexibility of Towns/Gobert to adhere to that creativity, and I actually have some faith in this working out pretty well. Contender? No probably not in year 1. But I could see them getting over that 1st round hump if they draw the right squad.

Guess we'll see, but this does make a ton of sense for the Wolves across the board when you look at what kind of player could be brought in for them to improve, what their timeline/expectation is for improvement (read: we don't want to just be 1st round or play-in outs every year/ownership refuses it/we think it'll kill Ant), and suddenly makes KAT an expendable piece that they Wolves could move for someone who makes more sense like a John Collins.

Seriously keep an eye out for that KAT/Collins thing going forward.

The following was an added section a few days later.

Wanted to do one last part of this and throw up some stuff that I couldn't fit in here yesterday after responding to some of the very kind responses I got to this post. Seriously thank you to everyone who was nice enough to read and comment.

Anyway, Minnesota HC Chris Finch.

I'm really high on Finch as a coach. He's won 3 championships in England as a HC, one in the Belgian League, and one in the D-League (2010 prior to the G taking over) while winning COTY that year. I know he did good things in Houston, I loved everything I heard and saw from him with my Nuggets as the associate HC, and heard more good stuff with the Pels and Raptors.

All that winning overseas is also something that Nick Nurse did, who is a top-3 or top-5 coach in the league right now. He spoke on J.J. Redick's Old Man & The Three podcast about how being over there in England (and other places) would result in such funky rosters, weird player turnover, that would require a bunch of on-the-fly gameplan stuff, and created so many opportunities to think of unique ways to scheme and win games. By the time he got the Toronto HC job he ended up with a unique way of looking at things and the confidence to run with non-standard ideas and concepts. Something that more standard coaching paths may not have allowed for or nourished.

From what I know of Finch he has a similar bag of tricks and ability to scheme on the fly or get odds and ends to fit together in neat ways, maybe because he had a similar coaching path. I think he showed a bit of that in Minnesota last year and gave them their best season in quite a while (players improving helping that too of course), so that makes me a little more comfortable that he's going to be able to come up with some really neat things with Gobert heading there. More so than other coaches.

1/3, 1/3, 1/3 Platoons

As I said earlier I think what we'll see from the Wolves off the bat is a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 minutes distribution with KAT and Gobert. Meaning 1/3rd of the night they'll play together, 1/3rd of the night they'll run a Rudy line up, and 1/3rd of the night they'll run a KAT at the 5 line up.

This is going to allow them to get used to playing with both of them on the court at the same time for maybe 16-20 minutes a night, but then be able to go into more standard and reliable stuff with Rudy at the 5 when KAT sits, and KAT at the 5 when Rudy sits as well. That allows for them to do everything they need to do in figuring out and experimenting with what to do with those guys together, but also gives both of them a chance to run with what they're used to and stay in some sort of rhythm while they're figuring out this puzzle.

KAT's minutes without Gobert

I also anticipate that a lot of the KAT at the 5 lineups are going to be with McLaughlin at the point and Anderson at the 3/4. McLaughlin stepped in to close out some games in the playoffs this year instead of D'Lo because he (at the time) looked like a more reliable defender and was making better reads with the ball in his hand. Getting it to guys where and when they needed it. Pairing him with KAT allows for KAT to be the offensive focus of those lineups, instead of splitting touches 3 ways with D'Lo and Ant, and ensures he isn't giving up too much production.

He really struggled to demand the ball in the postseason last year and get his shot (7 FGAs in game 2, 4 FGAs in game 3, both losses) so playing with a guy who is looking to pass first, and another willing and able facilitator in Slo-Mo, against a mix of starters and backups, will not only give him more attempts inherently, but will give him reps in demanding the ball and going to work. That should be hugely beneficial for KAT's growth on top of getting him going with easier buckets. Can basically call it "KAT's greenlight lineup."

Gobert's minutes without KAT

On the opposite end they'll probably pair D'Lo with Gobert when KAT is off the floor to supplement the scoring drop off. D'Lo can be a better scorer than he is right now and Gobert should assist in that as I mentioned earlier. He is also much more of a threat to score than McG, which means Rudy will be a roll/lob threat in every action he runs with D'Lo. On top of that he's also going to be able to make up for some shaky D'Lo defense in classic Gobert fashion (though D'Lo has improved, don't come for me Wolves fans).

Now you've created two lineups that will play against other mix and match lineups that can maximize the effectiveness of D'Lo and KAT and ensure they're both getting their touches and opportunities.

Ant I assume will be playing a ton of minutes every night and will just find a way to succeed with whoever is out there. I am least worried about him and I think he can benefit in every one of these lineups. He might be the main scoring option when it's starters vs. starters for all I know, though I imagine the Wolves will be very egalitarian in their touches.

General Wolves Principles?

My guess is that Finch would like to treat this roster like a baseball team that has a lot of platoon hitters and defensive specialists.

For anyone who doesn't follow baseball a platoon, or platoon hitters, or a team that runs a platoon, man platoon is a weird word, is basically a concept where they'll sub guys in and out of the lineup game-to-game or even mid-game based on who is pitching. If a righty pitcher is in they're going to roll out the guys who hit best vs. right handed pitchers, if a lefty pitcher is in they're going to roll out the guys who hit best vs. lefties. Sometimes it's the same guy, sometimes there's a batter who never plays vs. lefties.

If a pitcher is a guy who forces a ton of grounders they might opt to sacrifice some hitting and roll with a better defensive infielder, if a guy gives up a lot of fly balls they may do the same but in the outfield.

I think Finch would like to take this approach with the Wolves and play around with the minutes of guys in a more specific and detailed way than normal. I think vs. some teams he'd like to only play KAT 25-28 minutes a night, but use those 25-28 minutes a night to put him in fantastic positions to score a bunch. Similarly I think there will be teams where he might want to only play Gobert that many minutes.

You already see this with teams like the Lakers who might not play Dwight (or whoever) more than 15-20 minutes a night while AD gets tons of time at the 5, or maybe they platoon their centers for 36 minutes a night. Or the Bucks, where Lopez has a big variance in his minutes. Or the Clippers with Zubac who regularly bounces from 18 minutes to 32 minutes any given night. The difference with the Wolves of course being that they're choosing between two All-NBA caliber guys.

Similarly I think we can see some D'Lo minutes variance this year as well, especially if they bring in another quality point guard/playmaker. I imagine there will be nights against teams with elite guard lineups that Finch will want to lean more towards defense and efficiency, which could result in some more time on the bench for D'Lo depending on how he looks on both of those fronts as the year progresses.

Anderson, Naz, Prince, McDaniels, and McG will be your 5 main rotational pieces outside of the 4 penciled in starters, and I don't think any of them will have issues with minute variance as they are all very much used to it even in a normal setting.

If they give Finch their trust to play around for a while and figure this out, and it improves as the year goes on and leads to them winning games, I have little reason to fear that playing with minutes like that will become a locker room problem. KAT is the guy I'd worry about with that more as he's younger, and he's a scorer with a scorer's ego, but I think he really wants to win and I think Finch will find ways to make sure KAT scores a bunch this year.

One of the biggest things with coaches is their ability to be clear, concise, and confident with what they're asking their guys to do. Richard Jefferson and Channing Frye talked about this with Ty Lue, another coach known for being adept at in-game and in-series changes, where he'd tell his guys "This is what we need to do and if we do and buy in, it'll work", push it, push it, push it, but then know when to back off of it if it wasn't working due to the idea itself and not the effort of the players. Finch will need to be able to do that here, he's going to have to be really diligent with his choices and stick with it, but know how to fire back to something else if need be. Every coach needs to do that of course, but with this puzzle it's going to be absolutely paramount given the amount of options, choices, and how it could impact his guys.

Problems will arise if he was doing these things and pulling guys out and messing with their minutes and still losing games. Or if he's going with a, "screw it, let's try this I guess" type of attitude. If you're losing games then there are going to be problems either way, but the worst way for the Wolves to lose games next season would be Finch overmanaging the players' needs/wants in a way that's detrimental to the success of the entire team. If he thinks he needs to bench someone and only play them 26 minutes one night to win a game, he needs to do that. If that leads to winning the game, he will have the ownership, the fans, and the team on his side, even if one guy might be salty about it. Ultimately I don't think that'll deter him from trying to do what he thinks is best and I have faith in him, and I think the players do too.