Minnesota Timberwolves: The curious case of the backup point guard
Through three games so far this Minnesota Timberwolves season, Ricky Rubio has over and over again shown how much he means to the team. The Wolves have looked pretty darn good when Rubio is on the floor and not so well when he isn’t.
The interesting thing is that the Wolves have three point guards on the roster, but they are only playing one. Rubio is the only true point guard to get minutes with veteran Andre Miller never getting off the bench and rookie Tyus Jones never being part of the active roster yet this season.
This has put all of the backup minutes onto Zach LaVine again this season. A lot of Timberwolves observers have yelled from the proverbial mountaintops to say that LaVine isn’t a point guard and he’s not. LaVine is an athlete and he has talent, but his talent is going to be going to the hoop and scoring and not running an offense.
With no point guard, the second line of the Timberwolves can be beyond flat sometimes. The wishy-washy performance from the second line almost came back to bite the Wolves in the opener against the Los Angeles Lakers and it was a contributing factor, along with Damian Lillard, to the Wolves first loss of the season on Monday night.
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Minnesota needs to have an actual point guard running that second unit and they have to actual point guards that they are not using. Andre Miller is sitting on the bench, let him take a stab at it. The team is giving minutes to Tayshaun Prince and they should be giving those to Miller.
Prince isn’t playing a whole lot, but still divide even more of his minutes up and given the remainder to LaVine, Andrew Wiggins and Shabazz Muhammad while letting Miller run the point.
It’s only three games into the season, but it’s already clear that the Wolves are at least a little bit better than what most thought they were going to be this season. Don’t throw away games because of the lack of a second point guard when you have one you are not playing on the bench.
Next: The importance of Ricky Rubio
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