How can the Minnesota Timberwolves stay afloat without Karl-Anthony Towns?
Although Towns and the Timberwolves avoided the worst-case scenario of an Achilles rupture that would have ended his season, Tuesday's diagnosis of a calf strain still is expected to sideline Towns four to six weeks according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
The extended absence for Towns comes with Minnesota on a three-game losing streak to drop to 10-11, hardly what the Timberwolves expected when they traded four future first-round picks and two starters to the Utah Jazz to pair fellow All-Star Rudy Gobert with Towns in the frontcourt.
As much as the Gobert-Towns pairing hasn't worked as Minnesota hoped thus far, the team has also disappointed with Gobert as the lone All-Star big man on the court. For the Timberwolves to stay in the hunt for a top-six seed without Towns, they'll need to find a better formula for success around Gobert.
That, in turn, could help Minnesota be more successful when Towns returns to the court. So how can the Timberwolves do more to unlock Gobert? Let's take a look.
Why Gobert-only lineups have struggled
Of the three potential combinations of Gobert and Towns, so far Minnesota has been least effective with Gobert on the court and Towns on the bench. In 204 minutes, the Timberwolves have been outscored by 7.1 points per 100 possessions according to analysis of lineup data from NBA Advanced Stats.
To some extent, that's a product of fluky poor shooting beyond the arc. Minnesota hasn't shot well from 3 overall, hitting 33% thus far to rank 27th in the NBA, but that's dropped to 28% with Gobert as the lone All-Star big on the court. Taking Towns off the court hurts the Timberwolves' shooting, but they're still capable of doing better than that.
According to Second Spectrum's quantified shot probability measure, which incorporates the location and type of shot, distance to nearby defenders and ability of the shooter, Minnesota should have been expected to hit 34.5% of 3-point attempts with those lineups -- a dramatic improvement, if still worse than league average.
The more shooting Timberwolves coach Chris Finch can put around Gobert, the better. After all, that's the formula the Utah Jazz rode to the league's best offensive rating last season. That might be a reason to start Taurean Prince at power forward in place of Towns.
Prince has been Minnesota's best 3-point shooter this season, making 39% on 5.5 attempts per 36 minutes. Kyle Anderson, who started at power forward with Towns when Gobert missed two games in the NBA's health & safety protocols, has hit 41% but attempted a paltry 1.9 triples per 36 minutes, posing less of a threat.
Better floor spacing could make pick-and-rolls involving Gobert more potent. With Towns on the bench, Gobert has set 56.4 ball screens per 100 possessions according to Second Spectrum tracking, a rate that would rank fourth among high-minutes players. However, those pick-and-rolls have generated just .81 points when they result in a shot by either player involved in the screen or on a direct kickout. That's far weaker than the 1.04 points per play the Jazz averaged on Gobert ball screens last season.
At the same time, going small with Prince would ask more of Gobert defensively, particularly on the glass. Minnesota has been an above-average defensive rebounding team with Towns and Gobert, securing 76% of available missed shots. But when Gobert plays with any other power forward, that drops to 72.5%, including just 71% in 33 minutes with Prince -- a rate that would rank last in the NBA.
Those figures are shocking considering Utah was the NBA's fourth-best defensive rebounding team last season at 78% overall, with Gobert leading the league in defensive rebound percentage.
Lost opportunity for Gobert-Towns integration
As much as the next four to six weeks can help the Timberwolves hone their ability to feature Gobert, they represent a setback when it comes to Gobert and Towns playing together. For Minnesota to achieve its goals, both this season and beyond, will require Gobert-Towns lineups to be more effective than they have been.
In 400-plus minutes with Gobert and Towns together, the Timberwolves have been outscored by six points, including a minus-17 plus-minus during the three-game losing streak that followed a season-long five game winning streak where Minnesota seemed to be righting the ship.
The Timberwolves can hope for better shooting luck when both their stars play together going forward. Minnesota has hit just 30% of 3-point attempts with both Gobert and Towns, as compared to 37% when Towns plays without Gobert, while opponents have hit an unsustainably strong 37% from beyond the arc.
Shooting alone won't turn this frontcourt into the dominant combo the Timberwolves envisioned when they added Gobert. For that, Minnesota will have to find better answers for how to handle opponents with dangerous stretch bigs (Kristaps Porzingis torched them for a career-high 47 points in Monday's loss at Washington) and how to avoid losing the turnover battle so badly.
According to Cleaning the Glass lineup data, Timberwolves lineups with both All-Star bigs rank in the sixth percentile league-wide when it comes to their own turnovers (18% of possessions) while forcing turnovers on just 13% of opponent possessions, which ranks in the 11th percentile.
Since Minnesota won't get the benefit of more minutes for Gobert and Towns together until after Christmas at the earliest, the hope has to be that Gobert will get more comfortable during this stretch and that will benefit him when Towns returns. We'll see whether the Timberwolves can find enough answers to remain within shouting distance of .500 by the time that happens.