Deep Dive: The Timberwolves Need Their Engine Back
If Minnesota want to make the most of the run-in to the playoffs, they need Jarred Vanderbilt firing on all cylinders.
Jarred Vanderbilt is the Minnesota Timberwolves’ engine. The rumbling bolt of lightning that allows every other part of the vehicle to continue working the way it has throughout this largely successful season. He doesn’t steer the whole thing like Karl-Anthony Towns or push the accelerator and control the g-force like Anthony Edwards. He isn’t the nitrous oxide injection that Patrick Beverley provides or the four tires keeping everybody going straight like D’Angelo Russell. He’s the engine.
Since Vanderbilt suffered a mid-foot sprain on January 27 against the Golden State Warriors, Minnesota’s engine has lost a good chunk of its roaring horsepower. Obviously, there are different diagnoses, symptoms and severities to every injury, but consider that the Los Angeles Lakers announced that Anthony Davis will be re-evaluated in four weeks after suffering a mid-foot sprain and you start to get a clearer picture of the type of thing Vanderbilt, who hasn’t missed a single game with his knock, is going through.
That aforementioned horsepower continued to be chipped away further and further as he procured the many bumps and bruises doled out to a player who bounds through every moment of a game like a sugar-rushing child. By the time the All-Star break had finally arrived, Minnesota’s engine was barely idle as he waddled down the court trying desperately to find enough of that uniquely brilliant thing he provides to help his team.
In the end, it felt like the load he was bearing was too monstrous to continue lugging. Since the injury, his minutes are down to 25.2 a night (from 29.8 in the 20 games prior) and, even in the minutes he was able to battle through, his special sauce was starting to curdle and sour. Adjusting to per 100 possession numbers for equality, the statistics doodle a drawing that line up with Minnesota’s overall drop-off heading into their rest and relaxation period.
In those 20 games leading up to the foot issues, Vanderbilt had hoovered up 16.1 total rebounds and 5.1 offensive rebounds per 100 possessions — far and away leading every other regular rotation member — while contributing 13.6 points, 3.0 steals and a block, per NBA Stats. As Vanderbilt’s nagging niggles gnawed away at him, his effectiveness tailed off, and he averaged just 11.1 points, 13.1 rebounds (3.1 offensive) with a steal and a block per 100 possessions in Minnesota’s final five games before the break.
Numbers are never going to be everything, especially not for a player who lives, breathes and thrives in the cold spaces where flashier players dare not venture, but you can still paint a fairly reasonable canvas with those numbers: he is a rebounding machine who makes his scratch keeping balls alive on the offensive glass, he is a willing cutter and ever-improving finisher around the rim, and, most importantly, he is a defensive hellhound capable of throwing the shackles on anyone but the true heavyweight centers of the league.
The final point there is the most important because there is no replacing it. The Wolves have found a new gear and then a few more offensively since Vanderbilt has been banged up because they were always going to get some progression to the mean with their shooters and head coach Chris Finch has steadily and consistently prodded the right buttons at the right times with blended lineups, player positioning — particularly Karl-Anthony Towns — and set plays.
At its peak, Vanderbilt’s skillset has become an important factor to Minnesota’s offense, but they have so many other weapons in their arsenal that he is a replaceable one. He can’t be replaced defensively, however. You can have your steering wheel and gas pedal and turbochargers, but you can’t speed away without the engine.
According to NBA Stats, the Timberwolves have ranked 16th in points allowed per 100 possessions (112.4) in the 10 games since Vanderbilt’s initial injury, down from 14th (109.4) in the 49 games leading up to it. The rankings aren’t too dissimilar, but three points per 100 possessions can be the difference between a menacing defense and a middling one. On the season, that gap is around the difference between the sixth-ranked Miami Heat defense (107.4 points allowed per 100 possessions) and the 18th-ranked San Antonio Spurs (110.8).
For Finch, the versatility that his big bundle of energy provides is sorely missing. The voracious Vanderbilt is the glue that binds up whatever hole is beginning to gape, the hose that extinguishes whatever fire is starting to ignite and the hammer that smashes every nail into position. For that to work and work on a nightly basis, he needs to be at or near 100 percent health. There is no way he can glue and extinguish and hammer at half-strength.
It’s things like these clips that make him special. Things like these clips that make a healthy him a legitimate All-Defense candidate. The 6-foot-9 multi-positional maniac can, in a single game or spanning across them all, pendulum between playing as the rotating low-man who stonewalls lumbering roll-men…
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