Deep Dive: Shake Milton Bridges The Timberwolves' Bench Gaps

Minnesota's newest signing isn't the flashiest, but he fits multiple roles.

Tim Nwachukwu | Credit: Getty Images

Short of an earth-shattering trade that seemed more like a pipe dream than anything rooted in reality, the Minnesota Timberwolves were never going to make a big splash when the free agency gates flung open. When the countdown hit zero, they allowed the rabid masses to scuttle past them to the bigger targets while they worked meticulously around the margins.

The franchise seems destined to continue sprinting into the unknown meadows of running it back, but there are ways to do that without replicating the exact shitshow that last season often was. That starts with roster upgrades and smart tinkerings. President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly and his scouting squad ticked the first surface-level boxes on draft night, and then they went bargain hunting while the bigger sharks splashed their cash in the free agency feeding frenzy.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker returns, bringing his infectious defense and still-bubbling offensive potential back with him. Troy Brown Jr. arrives as a cheaper and younger facsimile of the departing Taurean Prince. Those two moves on their own felt a smidge underwhelming, but when Shake Milton committed to a two-year, $10 million deal and plugged the gaping hole at backup point guard, it all tied together in a neat little bow.

Again, those names aren’t glitzy, Melton himself certainly isn’t the type of player who transforms a team’s identity, fabric or style. However, it’s undeniable that the Wolves make more sense on paper than they did last season. Big name or no, Milton could glue together all of the loose strands that flared at the edges of Minnesota’s roster last season.

The bar really isn’t that high, either, Minnesota’s guard play last season was a sledgehammer that smashed momentum and consistency apart in far too many games. Among the 25 worst five-man lineups that played at least five minutes together, only two of them didn’t contain some combination of D’Angelo Russell, Bryn Forbes, Jaylen Nowell, Austin Rivers or Jordan McLaughlin. Of those 25 lineups, the best net rating was minus-36 points per 100 possessions, the worst was minus-123.1.

Until Mike Conley came and took the reins and Alexander-Walker provided a capable foil to Kyle Anderson’s point forward prowess, the Wolves were a grim world where point guard play went to perish violently.

On the season, the Wolves were 10.4 points per 100 possessions worse with Forbes on the floor, 9.2 points per 100 possessions worse with Rivers on the floor, and 5.1 points per 100 possessions worse with Russell on the floor, per Cleaning The Glass. They were actually 2.4 points per 100 better with McLaughlin on the floor, but, after a hot start, that number plummeted as injury and form slumps took their stranglehold on J-Mac’s season.

Until the trade period, Minnesota had a gaggle of ineffective, inefficient, and highly hurtful guards littering their rotation. And, even after Conley and Alexander-Walker arrived, they were clearly still missing a finger on their five-man bench fist.

The Philadelphia 76ers, on the other hand, were actually 0.8 points better per 100 possessions when Milton was on the floor — all while racking up 12 more wins than the Timberwolves for the season. Milton’s most frequented lineup, a non-Embiid and non-Harden lineup that featured Tyrese Maxey, Matisse Thybulle, Georges Niang and Montrezl Harrell, held a sizzling +7.7 net rating.

For the Wolves, Milton’s impact could be even greater. He won’t have the same level of talent around him as he did in Philadelphia, but he will fill more gaps and ooze more value within the Wolves’ roster construction. Where his Timberwolves predecessors limped, he has ample opportunity to sprint.

It starts with shooting. Outside of Russell, who theoretically should be compared with Mike Conley and not the backup brigade, the Wolves couldn’t buy a long-range bucket from their reserve guards last season. In the end, that felt like the guillotine that dangled above the hapless necks of McLaughlin, Nowell and Rivers.

Milton, on the other hand, proved he can play alongside usage-vortexes like Embiid and Harden while providing a reliable shooting outlet. Milton isn’t a high-frequency bomber — only 26 percent of his total field goal attempts came from 3-point range — but he was an efficient one, converting on 37.8 percent of his treys.

Strangely, Milton shot just 31.6 percent from the corners (after shooting 40.5% in the last three seasons combined) and he isn’t a pull-up shooting threat when defenders duck under ball screens or out of isolation situations, but he can knock down catch-and-shoot looks (40.5%) and that’s a gleaming sapphire compared to the ugly mud chunks the Wolves were working with last season.

There’s little fanciness woven within Melton’s shooting chops. He doesn’t possess a deep bag of tricks to get his shot off. However, if he can continue knocking down spot-up jumpers, he is going to provide immense value to Minnesota’s bench.

With jumbo-sized ball-handlers like Kyle Anderson, Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns sure to share the floor with the former Sixer, looks like this are going to come around a lot. Looks that Minnesota’s incumbents built shabby brick shacks upon last season.

With Anderson inevitably running the bench unit for long stretches, it’s imperative Connelly and Co. found a reserve guard who can chameleon into different roles. They will still need a player with the ability to assemble the framework of an offense, but they also need someone comfortable with moonlighting as the shooting release valve within that same offensive scheme.

They also need him to be able to get his own at the rim. McLaughlin was fettered and publicly exposed as a complete non-scorer last season, while Rivers was purely a middling-at-best corner shooter. On the unreliable occasions that Nowell was firing, he was slithering into the paint and putting pressure on opposing rim-protectors, and the team looked a more flammable outfit when he did.

Heading into free agency, it was a must that the Wolves replaced Nowell’s inside scoring and cut the cancerous tissue of McLaughlin and Rivers’ away with one fell swoop. Melton isn’t the most dynamic rim-scoring player, but he should be able to supplant his counterparts and that should prove extremely valuable for the second unit.

Last season, he attempted 136 more shots from within four feet than McLaughlin and 112 more than Rivers, shooting better than both according to Cleaning The Glass. He didn’t have Nowell covered from a volume standpoint (169 attempts compared to Nowell’s 182), but his 63 percent conversion rate trumped Nowell’s 60 percent.

Milton has a burst of speed when he comes around a ball screen, enabling him to burn his chasing defender, and at 6-foot-5 with a wiry frame, he is able to finish through or around contact.

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