Will the Timberwolves’ Frontcourt Rotation CHANGE? | Evaluating Naz Reid + Jaden McDaniels Roles

Will the Timberwolves’ Frontcourt Rotation CHANGE? | Evaluating Naz Reid + Jaden McDaniels Roles

Hello and welcome in to another episode of Lockdown Wolves. Today on the show, is there any chance that Nas Reed’s role changes this year in light of his new contract? We’ll evaluate that. Plus, Jaden McDaniels, what are his best lineups and what ultimately could the Wolves front court rotation look like? It’s all upcoming. Welcome in. You are locked on Wolves. You are Locked On Timberwolves, your daily Minnesota Timberwolves podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. Hello and welcome to the Locked On Wolves podcast. Part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. My name is Ben Beacon. I’m the host of Locked On Wolves. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can get $150 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. Happy Friday, everybody. Happy weekend. Hopefully, you’ve had a fantastic week so far. Uh, a few things to get to today. I want to talk a bit about the Tibber’s front court. Obviously, Nazer getting a contract extension this off seasonason. I want to talk about um could his role shift at all? What have the front court rotations looked like to date between Nas? We’ve seen a little bit more Nas at center and Jaden at the four, partly due to necessity last year when Rudy Goar and Julius Randle dealt with injuries. So, I want to evaluate what those lineups looked like and if they told us anything about what those lineups might look like this year, there’s any chance that the the when healthy rotation changes at all um that that Chris Finch makes any tweaks there. So, I want to break that down today in light of last year’s um lineup data really. And then I also want to talk a bit toward the end about the locked on NBA 100 top 100 players. I’m submitting my list today and I made a couple of tweaks since I talked about it a couple weeks ago on the show. So I want to talk about that on today’s show as well. Um before we get started though, big thank you for making Lockdown Wolves your first listen every single day. Of course, this show is free and available everywhere. That includes YouTube as well as all of your favorite audio platforms. Where we like to listen to podcasts, you can find Lockdown Wolves. You can also watch on the locked on Minnesota app on both Roku and Amazon Fire TV. Okay, let’s talk Nazari. So, the reason why this this was on my radar to really kind of dig into is I I recorded actually I think maybe publishing today. I recorded with Josh Lloyd of Lockdown Fantasy Basketball. Definitely the best fantasy basketball show uh in the world really. Uh Josh of course is in Australia and uh and the internet goes everywhere though. So really in the world regardless of where Josh is from, but it truly is an international podcast. Josh does a fantastic job. We recorded an entire show about the Timberwolves and we spent the first segment talking about Nasreed. We spent the second segment talking about Philly to kill Alexander Walker’s role which of course I’ve talked about a lot on this show. Um, and of course I told him I think ultimately TJ Shannon soaks up most of those minutes, but there’s a shot for Rob Dillingham if the Wolves end up wanting more of a ball handler. Um, and those are really the guys we talked about. And then he asked me about Jade McDaniels to close the show. And so that got me thinking a little bit more about the Timber’s front court. He asked me a couple of interesting questions about the minutes fluctuation for both Nas and Jaden that was tied to that period of time in February, March where some combination of Rudy Goar and Julius Reno was out basically that whole time. And they of course both saw their minutes go up dramatically. They both saw their production go up dramatically. Um but then when the team got healthy, we saw Jaden’s minutes come down and also his production come down. Nas’s minutes came down, but he wasn’t necessarily less effective. In fact, Josh brought up an interesting stat that Nazri had actually shoot shot the three ball much better off the bench than he did as a starter, which I think that’s more fluky than anything else. Maybe it has to do with the personnel he was on the floor with. Um, I’d be willing to bet he was shooting more off the dribble in or as a member of the starting lineup than he did off the bench. Um I think off the bench he he you know there was a little bit less pressure to create necessarily or or um I guess in that case and I mean now it’s still what I think he started 18 games last year. So um all that to say what I want to do is it got me thinking about the Wolves actual front court front court rotation in light of Nas’s deal. I mean he’s under contract now for 5 years. 21 million this year is a bargain, but it obviously goes up each year. And if you take out those starts, he wouldn’t have ended up playing necessarily any more last season than he did the year before. Um, he played in 80 games. He started 17 and he averaged 27 and a half minutes per game. So, his minutes per game was up 3.3 minutes. But Josh pointed out on the show that his minutes per game as a starter is like, I don’t know, 35, 36, 37, something like that. But off the bench, it was much more in the 22 to 24 range. I don’t remember what it was exactly, but I think it was actually less than his overall minutes per game the year prior when he started 14 games for the Wolves. Um, so I started trying to think through, he was basically asking me from a fantasy perspective, would Naz Reed, you know, get any more run? Is there any more upside there? And my answer was, I think slightly yes. And and the reason why is I I do think Minnesota is starting to think about obvious obviously they’ve been thinking about but from a coaching standpoint, not just the front office, they’re going to have to start to think about life beyond Rudy Gobear. Rudy’s still got two years in a player option. He’s very likely on this team for another three years, but I think we’ve started to see a little bit of aging with Rudy. Um and I think Minnesota drafting John Bing isn’t I mean so much can happen in three years. I don’t think that’s like directly the plan, but in a perfect world it is. Right. In a perfect world, when Baron is 21-22, he’s now your starting center. And before then, at some point, he becomes your main backup center. Uh but now you’ve also got Naz Reed in the fold. I think the Baron thing is is an acknowledgement of, hey, look, the league’s changing. We’re changing. We’re evolving. While he’s still a massive human, he’s not exactly the size of Rudy Gobear. He’s more, you know, in terms of strength. Um, he’s also more mobile than Rudy, obviously much younger. Could the Wolves look at changing up what they’re doing defensively, what that overall schematic looks like? Shout out JJ Reic. Uh, word schematic. Um, I I think yes. I I think that’s part of it. I think that they’re starting to look at that. And so I I also think there was some intriguing things about Nasreed playing the small ball five, which I do want to get into today. I think I’ll wait. I’ll save that for when I start talking a little bit more about Jaden because often Jaden was at the four when Nas was at the five. So, the first thing I want to point out is that Nas Reed was better at the four. He was better playing next to Rudigar at the four. Um, and so I’m going to I’m going to cite some of those numbers because I and a big piece of this is of course Rudy’s fantastic defensively, but overall Nas and Rudy on the floor together were a 96th percentile unit according to Cleaning the Glass. They were a plus 13 on the season. They were 99th percentile defensively. They were only 66 percentile offensively, but that’s still very good. And again, overall they were plus 13. Their top four most used lineups were all a plus 10 and a half or better. All a plus 10 and a half or better. They three of the four of them had Anthony Edwards. Three of the four of them had Dante Dvenenzo. Um and then actually their fifth their uh fifth mostused lineup was not very good, but then like four of the next five were all at least a plus 10 or better. So another way to say that would be eight of the 10 most used lineups with Naz and Rudy Goar on the fourth together were eight of the 10 were positive and all of those were plus 10 and a half or better which is pretty incredible. So of course when Julius Randle was out there was a version of that that was the starting lineup with Connley Edwards McDaniels Nas and Goar that by the way was a 95th percentile unit was a plus 29.4 four differential at 221 possessions which isn’t a massive amount but it’s also not nothing 221 possessions. So, I guess the short version again, Inas better with Goar. Um, he’s better at the four and I don’t want to get too deep into the the Julius thing today. I’m more talking about Nas and Goar and in Nas’s role, but I guess it’s worth citing the Julius number. So, I I’ll say this again. So, Rudy and Nas together were plus 13, a 96 percentile overall unit with the defense at 99th percentile. Rudy and Julius together were only a plus 4.7, 76th percentile unit. Still good defensively, 83rd percentile and just 58th percentile on offense. They were worse on both ends of the floor. And a lot of the Julius Randle onoff stuff isn’t great if you dig into that. Um, the Timberwolves were generally better with Julius Randle off the court than they were with him on the court, which is another thing to keep in mind when we’re talking about Nasreed’s role. I do not think the Timber’s extended both Julius Randle and Nas Reed to give Nas Julius’s role, but Julius Randle’s contract is is shorter. Julius Randle, the the the idea of them getting off of Julius Randle, I talked about this, I think on Wednesday’s show, the the flexibility and the optionality that was built into this roster. Randle only has one more guaranteed year after this coming year. So, they’ll undoubtedly play this year with Julius Randle. If things go completely haywire, they could deal him at the deadline. He’s only got one plus one left, one year in a player option after this. He’s still only 31. They if if they’re like five games below 500, god forbid, they could trade Julius Randle at the deadline and be like, “All right, Nas, you’re the starting four now.” And Nas and Rudy together are better than Julius Randle and Rudy and certainly better than Julius Randle and Nas because that those lineups were not very were not nearly as good defensively. Um, now so the Gobear’s contract is the same, but I think they would trade Julius Rain before Rudy Goar at this point. Um, and I know Rudy was in potential trade discussions for Kevin Durant and everything, but I think in a perfect world, they’d be they’d rather trade and and when you’re trading, you know, I I I mean perfect world, like the Wolves aren’t aren’t planning to trade these guys. They didn’t sign them to trade them, but they have the options in case they need to. Um, so I I think that that’s uh that’s something to keep in mind when it comes to the the Rudy Julius lineup and and the different pivots that Minnesota then could have. Um, what I want to dig into next is the idea of Nas playing small ball five and what that has looked like. So, what I’m going to do is I’m going to pull Rudy and Jaden together with no Rudy Goar, which then gives us Jaden at the four and um sorry, I said Rudy, Nas and Jaden on the floor together with Rudy off the floor, which gives us Nas at the five and Jaden at the four and Gobear off the floor. So, I want to dig into those numbers and and they weren’t great, but there’s also a couple of other kind of sublineups there that I want to look at and and try and decipher if this is something that Chris Finch is going to try and do this year. So, we’ll do all that here next. Today’s episode of Locky Wolves is brought to us by our friends at Open Phone. If you’re running a business, you know that even that every mis missed call is money left on the table. Think about the last time you had an urgent need, maybe for a plumber or service provider. If the first person didn’t answer, did you wait? Probably not. You moved on. And that’s why you need Open Phone. Open Phone is the number one business phone system built to streamline and scale your customer communications all from an app on your phone or computer. Open Phone lets you manage business calls and texts from a single app. The shared inbox feature is a gamecher. Your team can jump into any conversation instantly without missing a beat. Plus, their AI agent handles after hours calls, answers common questions, and captures leads so that you never miss a customer. Open Phone is offering my listeners 20% off your first 6 months at openphone.com/lockdownba. It’s open phone op ho ne.com/lockdownba. If you have existing numbers with another service, open phone will port them over at no extra charge. Open no missed calls, no missed customers. Okay, let’s talk about small ball nas. Small ball nas the five. Um, and also the side note here is Jaden himself is this year his minutes were better when he played the four and he did that for an extended period of time much more than he did the previous couple years. Tim Connelly, Chris Finch preferred to play bigger but out of necessity when they had injuries. Jaden played a lot more at the four. It also coincided with when his not only was he playing more of his minutes at the four, he was just playing more overall minutes because of the injuries and they had to rely on Jaden to do more and and that coincided with him playing really well. And that’s something else that Josh Lloyd and I talked about in lockdown fantasy is um is how well Jaden played when he was given the opportunity kind of in that middle portion of the season. It obviously went away a little bit down the stretch, but when he was given more opportunity, he played better. Now, Nas at the five, Jaden at the four themselves was palatable. It was nowhere near as good as the plus 16 or whatever it was that I I mentioned earlier when Nas was on the floor with Rudy. When Nas and Jaden were on the floor without Rudy, um it was a 69th percentile unit, which is still fine, but it was just a plus 3.2. Defensively, no Rudy on the floor was only a 54th percentile unit. So just better than the league median, 75th percentile on offense, so predictably very good on offense. And I also wanted to point out that some of these lineups have Julius Randle in them and some don’t. Like some are are, you know, not straight up Jaden at the at the four, but Jaden and Julius Randle. So technically Julius Randle’s playing the four, Jaden’s playing the three. But again, the point I want to get at is Nas at the five. So drilling down further, Nas at the five with Jaden at the three and Randall at the four. So, so leaving Randall in the equation, the three mostused lineups had Randall at the four and they were all negative lineups minus 8.9 minus 0.6 minus 8.3 and all three of those had Anthony Edwards and some combination of either Dante, Devenz, Mike Connley, and Nik Alexander Walker. But the front court of Jaden, Julius, and Nas was not good last year. And then you get into some of the lineups that didn’t include Julius Randle and truly did have Jaden at the four. And again, like I said a minute ago, Jay McDaniel’s numbers at the four were better last year. There was a lineup that was Ant, Nick Alexander Walker, Jaylen Clark, Jade McDaniels, Naz only 76 possessions, but it was a plus 20, plus 19.8 and it was good defensively, too. Uh, which isn’t surprising with Nikquille, Jaylen Clark, and Jade McDaniels all on the floor with Anthony Edwards, too. Um, but small ball nas I think you got to take it a layer further. So like if I add the filter on cleaning the glass and I take out Julius Randall and I say no Rudy, no Julius. This is truly Nas at the five and Jaded at the four. The numbers improve. It’s a much smaller sample. It’s only 579 possessions for the season. So none of those lineups in and of themselves had 100 more possessions. But in those 579 total possessions, they were in 81st percentile and 84th percentile on defense. just 110.6 points per 100 possessions. This is these are all lineups with no Rudy Gobear and they were good defensively. Nas at the five, Jaden at the four, and some combination of these guys at the one, two, and three. Those were good lineups. So, it’s not necessarily Nas at the five. And predictably, the biggest struggle with those lineups was rebounding. Defensive rebounding was actually okay. Offensive rebounding was basically non-existent with Julius and Rudy off the floor. Um, but the point that I want to make is Nas at the five and Jaden at the four together actually was pretty good. It was more the mixing and matching when Julius Randle got involved. And and I I’m not trying to spend the show dragging Julius Randle. The Wolves resigned him for a reason. They need his playmaking that, you know, just because the on-off isn’t good doesn’t mean he’s perpetually unplayable. It just means you got to pick your spots, right? You have to figure out what lineups are best for Julius Randle. Maybe that’s that’s a I should spend another show on that. But um because obviously the Wolves were a good team last year on both ends of the floor. They ended up going to the conference finals. But I also think early in the season, you know, it took until late the season before they did figure out how Julius Reno was best used with the ball in his hands. The injury didn’t help in terms of, you know, trying to figure stuff out on the fly. But Julius Randle’s still obviously an effective player if the Wolves could pick the lineups that he’s in that he’s part of. Nas next to Rudy was very effective. Nas and Jaden in the front court with Rudy and Julius on the floor was also effective. Um Julius is the one that that is is a little bit of the the wrench thrown in the plans. But the upside of what he can do from a playmaking standpoint and obviously we saw what he could do in the first two rounds of the playoffs when he really does get hot is is still there and it’s very real. But um I guess this brings me to could the front court rotation change at all? Um I told Josh Lloyd I thought there was a chance it could just because of what I said in the first segment today which is you know planning for life after Rudy trying to take some miles off Rudy which the Wolves have been very open about trying to do with Mike Connley but they didn’t try and do it with Rudy Goar last year. I mean, like Rudy did not play significantly less last season. They’ve got to start to think about what that looks like for Rudy Gobear over the next two to three years. Uh Rudy played 33 minutes a game, down slightly. 33.2 to be exact, down from 34.1 the year before. So 0.9 less minutes per game. I think we continue to see that slight trend. I think it goes to 32 31 minutes a game, which is by the way what he was playing, what he played most years in Utah. I mean, his last year in Utah, he was 32 a game. Second to last year in Utah, he was 31 a game. Who’s 33 a game last year? That’s still a lot for a guy who’s 32. Rudy just turned 33 this summer, by the way, uh right at the end of June. So, he’s he’s 33. I I think you got to dial those minutes back to 31ish a game, which gives a little more opportunity for Nas to play at the five because again, they don’t have another center. They’re not going to give Burns. They’re obviously not going to give Roco Zakarsski, you know, front court minutes in the rotation. So th those are your bigs and and they may still add one big. I think they will. It’s something we’ve talked about a lot on the show. But if they’re going to protect Rudy at all, start to scale back those minutes and at the same time plan for life after Gobear, then that means Nas at the five, which was better than what I would have thought before I dug into the numbers. and specifically better with Jaden at the four in a smaller lineup which I think is even more palatable with TJ Shannon and and and the TJ Shannon at the three minutes with those two weren’t actually all that great but I think we saw Shannon get a lot better as the year went on obviously into the playoffs summer league looked good so I think there’s some upside there with Shannon at the three you maintain athleticism length um if he could do a reasonable faximile of Nik Alexander Walker defensively which I think is on the table then Nas at the five Jed at the for is a very interesting front court. Um and and I should say on the Shannon note, if there’s any if Minnesota wants to find minutes for TJ Shannon, that’s another way to do it is to play him with Jaden at the four. So that way J you’re not losing minutes for Jaden. You’re still spelling N or excuse me, spelling Rudy, you’re spelling you could also do that same lineup by the way with Rudy on the floor and Nas on the bench. I mean that’s something else you could do. I I think you know that would be a much more defensiveminded lineup um with with Rudy instead of Nas and then you’ve also got Jaden McDaniels and TJ Shannon. I mean last year lineups with Goar and McDaniels at the four were much it was only 307 possessions but it was not good. It was a minus 9.4 differential uh net rating which is which is 16th percentile. The top two most used lineups were were positive but basically all the rest of them were negative. So, um, Chris Fitch is obviously going to play a little bit, play around with it a little bit more, but in my mind, there’s a world in which you have this bench lineup that has the right combination of defense and offense. If you’ve got Jaden McDaniels and TJ Shannon and, you know, Ant or whatever on the floor, they should be pretty good defensively. Even with Nas at the five, you’re just going to switch a bunch of stuff and the rebounding may not be quite as good. Uh, maybe you put Jaylen Clark out there to help rebounding wise and then you got to worry a little bit about defense. So maybe it’s Clark and Ant in the back court. You have TJ Shannon at the three and and your playmaking is a combination of Ant and Shannon because Randle’s off the floor. So there’s a lot of optionality again uh for for Chris Finch. And I think it’s pretty intriguing to look at at some of these pairings. And I would expect the front court rotation to be just altered slightly to allow for more rest for Rudy, maybe a few a couple less minutes for Julius Randle and a little bit more opportunity at the five for Nas and at the four for Jada McDaniels as the Wolves start to prepare for life playing a little bit more. It’s not really small ball, but a little bit smaller than they do with Rudy Gober on on the floor. And again, Bernie is not a lot smaller, but the way he’s going to play is going to be different than Rudy Gober due to his his in his his um advantage in mo in terms of mobility. So, I think that does factor into the long range plan, which sounds a little crazy, but it’s something Minnesota has to consider. Um and I think it could impact the encore the actual rotation this year. All right, I want to close with a couple notes on my submission for the lockdown NBA top 100. We’ll do that here next. Today’s episode of Lockdown Wolves is brought to us by our title sponsors at FanDuel. Summer sports are in full swing. Maybe you’re all about baseball under the lights. I know I am. I love watching baseball. Golf on the green or highstake soccer action. FanDuel is the best way to make every game even more exciting. You’re already following the action. Why not make it a little more thrilling? With FanDuel, you can get in on the game while your friends are getting sunburned at the beach. I’ve been using FanDuel to track my favorite matchups. The app always keeps it fresh with new daily promotions and fun ways to bet. It is super easy to use, fast to pay out. It makes even regular season games feel like mustwatch events. Maybe you’re not a big baseball person or you like baseball, but it’s not that intriguing to sit and watch a full game. Not every game in 162 seems that important. So maybe just you have a same game parlay. You want to you want to follow it all through the game or maybe you just want to watch your bet ride into the ninth inning of an exciting baseball game. That makes it that much more intriguing. FanDuel will make it feel like you’re part of the action. If you’re new to FanDuel, new customers can bet just five bucks and get $150 in bonus bets if your first bet wins. Open the FanDuel app today or visit fanuel.com to get started. All right, so the lockown NBA top 100 list, I don’t actually know when it comes out. I talked about it maybe two weeks ago on the show, a week and a half ago. Um, I had thought my submissions were due that week. They’re actually due today. So, I have uh I had a bit of time to think through it. I also got a little bit more information. When I first went through this ranking, um, I did not include Jason Tatum or Tyres Halbertton at all. I misunderstood the assignment. I guess I thought they weren’t supposed to be on the list. Turns out we are ranking them, but it’s a tough thing to do because we’re basically ranking what we think they’ll be when they come back from their injury based on what we saw from them. obviously both having, you know, basically career years and bringing their teams to Tatum’s case to the conference finals before he got hurt. Hallelbertton’s case to the finals before he got hurt in the final game. Um, so it’s a it’s a tough thing to do and it’s a little bit of a guess much more so than anything else. I’m going to cruise through like the high points of my list because some of it is a little bit uh similar to what I did a week and a half ago. So if you if you missed it, this is all new. If you didn’t, I’m going to tell you where I put Tatum and Hallebertton. Um, and a couple of other small tweaks. I I do have to say I started this thing I thought there would be um six wolves on here. Actually thought there would be four wolves. There ended up being six and now I’m back down to five with the additions. I Dante Dvenenzo just got bumped off the list. I really struggled with this. I think I have him at 101. Um, and you know, I’m a really really like objective person. So, you know, I’m struggling with my not making myself just put him at 100 because hey, I cover the wolves, but too much integrity to do that. I have him at 101 on my list. Um, so I’ve got Jokic first, obviously. I’ve got SJA second, Giannis third, Luca fourth, I’ve got Ant five. I think if I was doing this list three months ago, I would have had Jason Tatum five. I just have a tough time doing that when the dude’s going to miss most of if not all of next year and he may not be himself for a couple of years and obviously like at this point in his career he’s got a better chance of coming back when like say Kevin Durant to Achilles or you know other guys like that but I just I struggle to put him at five when he’s not going to play probably the whole season. So I have Ant at five. I have Steph Curry at six. I have Jaylen Brunson at seven which is higher than I thought he would be on my list. Donovan Mitchell at eight. Anthony Davis nine. LeBron is at 10 still. Then I go Kawawaii, Jason Tatum, and Tyrese Hallebertton backtoback. I struggle with justifying separating them because I was mostly just guessing on where I think they’ll be. I have them slightly ahead of Kevin Durant, thinking through like, hey, if they came back, if they were to come back this year, could they be better than Kevin Durant? I mean, Tyrese obviously isn’t coming back this year. Jason Tatum maybe could toward the end of the year. Um, but so it’s a little bit of a two-year out projection for those two because like even though this list is for this season, I’m essentially saying, hey, when they get back on the floor, could they be better than Kevin Durant? Well, that’ll be two years from now and Kevin Durant will be really old. So, yeah, I think they could be. Then I’ve got Evan Mobley and obviously, you know, could Moy be better than Tatum Albertton? Yeah. WMBB is next. Yes. I’ve got Cat at 17 on the list. Um, no other notables, no other Timberwolves players until I get down to um, where do I have Julius? There he is. 39. I have Julius Randle at 39, which is, you know, um, before I submit it today, I may convince myself to slide him a little bit higher. I’ve got him at 39 currently. A spot ahead of Trey Young, a spot behind Draymond Green, which I go back and forth on since he ate Draymond’s lunch in the playoffs. A couple spots behind Tyrese Maxi, who of course dealt with his own injury issues. Um, uh, Jamal Murray, same deal. Like, it’s it’s a tough range to try and figure out where to put Julius. But to my point earlier, the off stuff, like, I mean, there’s still a lot of metrics and things that would suggest that Julius Randle’s actual impact isn’t as good as what it seems like it is. But then you turn around and see what he did in the playoffs and it’s like, all right, dude can carry a team a little bit. Um, so I I struggle. I don’t think there’s any way he shouldn’t be in the top 40. And I I’m sure some people will not have him in the top 40. Um, I’ve got Rudy Goar at 45. And by the way, this is this leads to another discussion that perhaps we’ll do on a future show this off seasonason, which is second and third best players on the best teams in the West and and the East. Where do Julius and Rudy stack up? I mean, like obviously SG, like I have Chad Homegrren at 31, so they’re, you know, and Jaylen Williams at 25. So the Thunder have three of the top 31 players on my list. Timber have one of the top 38. Like Julius isn’t on there till 39. Then Rudy’s at 45. So they’re both on there in the top 50. So three top 50 players is great, but a lot of teams on this list have three top 50 players. And you get a team like like Denver, I mean, which maybe isn’t surprising, but they’ve got Joic at one, they’ve got Murray at 36, and then I’ve got Aaron Gordon at 50. Um there’s plenty of teams that only have one guy. There’s some teams that have none in the top 50, right? Like, you know, Jaws at 30. Um I mean, I guess like that that’s an example. Or I guess I’ve got Jiren Jackson on here, too. Yeah. Okay. Well, that was a bad example, but Jared Jackson Junior’s at 32 also. Um, next Wolves player. I’ll skip down a little ways and maybe dig in this a bit more. Compare my list to the big list once it gets released. I’ve got Jaden at 61, a spot ahead of Lud Dort because I couldn’t help myself. Uh, two spots behind Amen Thompson who I’m sure people will have higher than 59. I just have I got to see it for more than a few weeks before he’s higher than 59. Um, other Timberwolves players, I’ve got Nas at 77 and he’s my last player on the list. And again, I had Dante at I think he was at 99 before I added those two guys. I bumped him down to 101. Also just missing the cut, PJ Washington, who had previously been on my list, but had to bump him off. So like, and I was like, all right, could I say Denzel’s better than Emanuel Quickley? I’m factoring in the fact Quickley played 33 games this year, but when he’s healthy, he’s really good. Like I think Emanuel Quickley is probably when he’s healthy like a top 50 60 player, but I have him at 99 because I just don’t know, you know, staying on the court matters too, which is like where do I have Zion on this list? Like Zion is much lower than he really should be? I have Zion at 46 and I struggle with that one because, you know, is is 50 games of Zion better than I don’t know um 75 games of Lori Markin? Like which is better for your team? Which is better in a vacuum? which is actually better on the court and how do you weigh that? I think it’s it’s super challenging and obviously Markin was was limited a bit by his situation last year being in Utah but um on their uh their motivation to win kind of went up and down a bit and mostly was down so his his uh minutes were affected by that. But um all that to say that’s how I have my list lined out. I do not know when the big list comes out so I probably won’t talk about it until then. But then I will compare my list to the big list. We’ll talk about where my fellow hosts got it right, where they got it wrong, and uh we’ll see if there’s a shot if five wolves actually five Wolves should be on this list. Outside shot at six. I think five will be on this list. So, we’ll make sure uh that that’s the case here once this list comes out. All right, that’s all I got for you today. Big thank you for making Lockdown Wolves your first listen every day. Of course, this show is free and available everywhere, no matter where you like to listen to podcasts. You can find Lockdown Wolves. You can also watch on the Lockdown Sports Minnesota app on Roku and Amazon Fire TV as well as YouTube of course. And uh you can also follow an X at Lockdown TWWOL and also at BB Beacon with two B’s to E CKN. And a reminder for your second listen this off seasonason, check out the Lockdown NBA show. Our guys Doug, Matt, and Hayes do a fantastic job keeping you up to date on everything all NBA this offseason. You can find Lockdown NBA on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Part of the lockdown podcast network. your team every day. Of course, Lockdown Wolves podcast is also part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Remember, the Lockdown Network is your local experts on all the biggest stories. Once again, I’m Ben Beacon. This is the Lockdown Wolves podcast. We’ll catch you next time.

Could the Minnesota Timberwolves’ frontcourt rotation change at all this year? In light of Naz Reid’s new contract and the need to eventually replace Rudy Gobert, Ben Beecken (@bbeecken) digs into what minutes with Naz at the 5 and Jaden McDaniels at the 4 looked like for the Wolves last year and if it might suggest any rotational adjustments from Chris Finch this season. Plus, a Locked On NBA Top 100 Players update…

Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…

🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/podcasts/locked-on-wolves/

Locked On NBA League-Wide: Every Team, Fantasy, Draft, WNBA & More
🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/leagues/nba

#MinnesotaTimberwolves #Timberwolves #NBA #AnthonyEdwards #JuliusRandle #NazReid #MikeConley #RudyGobert #Wolves

Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!

5-Hour ENERGY
Time to fuel up and turn it up with 5-hour ENERGY®️ Transfusion! Go to https://5hourenergy.com today and use my promo code LOCKEDONGOLF to receive 20% off your order.This offer is only valid until September 30th on one order and cannot be used with other promotions. The code is not good on subscription orders.

OpenPhone
Streamline and scale your customer communications with OpenPhone. Get 20% off your first 6 months at www.openphone.com/lockedonnba

Monarch Money
Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNBA at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnba for 50% off your first year

Gametime
Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.

FanDuel
Right now, new customers can get ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA.

FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)