What Does The Future Hold For The Timberwolves And Nikola Pekovic?

The Minnesota Timberwolves officially ruled their starting center, Nikola Pekovic, out for the rest of the season this past Tuesday.

The 6-foot-11, near 300-pound human barricade had been battling a lingering right ankle injury for the majority of the incumbent season, and is set to undergo surgery on right Achilles next Wednesday.

With the year winding down, and the team shifts its focus to player development and optimizing its upcoming draft pick, the decision to shut Pekovic down comes rather advisedly.

For such reasons, expect the same “rest them for the next season” strategy to be employed on Ricky Rubio’s nagging foot, Kevin Martin’s feeble hamstring, and Kevin Garnett’s ailing knee over the remaining week and a half of the 2014-15 NBA campaign.

Looking at the grand scheme of things, however, Pekovic’s reoccurring health issues and declining play this season — injury related or not — has to be a major cause for concern for coach/general manager, Flip Saunders, and the Timberwolves brass going forward, especially when you consider the Montenegrin behemoth is owed over $35.8 million over the next three years.

Alarmingly, Pekovic’s missed games total has exponentially risen for three consecutive seasons. In fact, he will play a career-low 31 games when the Wolves’ injury-riddled campaign finally comes to a merciful end on the 15th of this month.

And it’s not like Minnesota’s upper management haven’t exhausted alternative avenues to keep their burly big man healthy and spry. Prior to the start of the season, Saunders instructed Pek to Nike’s Oregon headquarters to get fitted for a better shoe that specifically suits the giant’s unique foot dimensions.

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Additionally, during the off-season, Pekovic spent the majority of his time seeing various doctors and foot specialists to devise an apropos training regimen for his crumbling lower extremities.

However, none of the aforementioned remedies worked for the Peksecutioner.

Perhaps, as the Wolves’ color commentator, Jim Peterson, astutely suggests, Pekovic simply needs to lose 15-20 pounds this summer. By all accounts, the human body is not made to withstand the rigors of the NBA game when carrying over 300-pounds of functional mass — see Yao Ming.

With that being said, and countermeasures aside, Pekovic’s niche expertise does not lend kingly to the modern day game. More explicitly, he is a relic of sorts — a throwback back-to-the-basket center. However, outside of using his brute strength and delicate touch on the block, Pekovic provides little of anything else.

While he has gradually evolved into a more alert passer out of the post, particularly when the defense hard digs and collapses, he has yet to show any remnants of a face up game or the ability to initiate out of the high post — two crucial prerequisites grounded big men must have to contribute to winning basketball in 2015.

In fact, approximately 88.7 percent of his shots derived from ten feet and in this year, and likewise, during the season prior, 93.6 percent of his field goal attempts came from the aforementioned spot, per NBA.com’s SportVU Data.

Moreover, his most potent strength, literally and figuratively, coming into the league, in his offensive rebounding, has deteriorated over the last several years as his laundry list of injuries stockpiles.

To make matters worse, playing a premium defensive position, Pekovic lacks the fundamental footspeed to effectively blow up pick-and-rolls or defend in space, as well as the innate length and explosiveness to adequately protect the rim. He is, however, usually quite judicious with his rotations, and often serves as a net positive on the defensive end — but hardly a game-changer on that end of the floor.

Surely, the Wolves can explore potential trade scenarios in an effort to start afresh and dump of his albatross of a contract.

However, his style of play and physical limitations pigeonholes his fit on many contending teams. To be more specific, the team acquiring Pekovic’s services would need a rim protecting four with stretch capabilities — ala Enes Kanter alongside Serge Ibaka.

Currently, of all the contenders and fringe playoffs teams within the NBA, only the New Orleans Pelicans, with Anthony Davis, can successfully optimize the effectiveness of Pek — as a Davis-Pekovic pairing would be a sensible partnership in theory.

The other alternative is to try to deal Pekovic to a franchise that houses a primitive coaching staff who insists on playing inside-out, like the Washington Wizards, Brooklyn Nets or the Los Angeles Lakers — barring an offseason coaching change.

For now, the Timberwolves will have to rely on Gorgui Dieng to man Minnesota’s turnstile defense and disordered offense.

As mentioned in a previous piece, while Dieng has made significant strides refining his post moves and becoming a threat in the pick-and-pop game, his defense has actually impertinently regressed from year one to year two. Most notably, the team’s ability to protect the rim hardly improves when replacing Pekovic, or Justin Hamilton, with the 6-foot-11 Senegalese native.

Considering his advanced age as a prospect, it is hard to envision Dieng being anything more than a fringe starter, or ideally, a third big on a contending team.

On a positive note, however, barring an unforeseen winning streak to close out the season, the Timberwolves are likely to receive a top-5 draft pick this June.

Undoubtedly, the team has holes in nearly every position, with the exception of whichever swingman spot Andrew Wiggins settles into going forward. Their mismatch of bandits in the frontcourt has to be sorted somehow, though.

And if the Wolves were to land a top-2 pick in the lottery, the obvious choice has to be Karl-Anthony Towns. Towns would immediately address Minnesota’s archaic issues at the center position.

Namely, the 7-foot Kentucky Wildcat combines a stifling, classical brand of interior defense, in conjunction with a contemporary, multifaceted style of attack on offense.

In addition, he would fit nicely alongside Wiggins and Rubio, as he can potentially compensate the spacing the Wolves sacrifice by playing a point guard without 3-point range, and a wing who prefers to work on the mid-block.

The offseason and draft period will be a pivotal, and exciting, time for the Timberwolves and their fans.

For the rest of the incumbent season, though, Wolves nation should avoid yearning over every unforced turnover or defensive breakdown; instead, enjoy the last handful of moments you get to experience a 20-year-old Wiggins soar through a maze of 7-footers, or a rookie Zach LaVine turn on his jetpacks in mid-transition to deliver a signature one-foot jaw-dropping finish.

Next: 5 Likely First Time NBA All-Stars Next Season

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