2018 NBA free agency grades: Timberwolves add James Nunnally

The Minnesota Timberwolves have reportedly agreed to sign James Nunnally to a two-year deal. Let’s give this offseason acquisition a grade.

Per Shams Charania of Yahoo! Sports, the Minnesota Timberwolves have agreed to sign EuroLeaguer James Nunnally to a two-year deal. This was a relatively small, yet nice move for the Timberwolves, who will likely enter the 2018-19 NBA season as a fringe playoff team.

Nunnally had a short NBA career in the 2013-14 season where he played in four games for the Atlanta Hawks and nine games for the Philadelphia 76ers. In those 13 games, Nunnally averaged 3.4 points, 1.5 rebounds and 0.6 assists per game. Of course, those stats don’t tell a very complete story considering he only attempted 3.5 field goals per game while appearing in a mere 12.7 minutes per game.

After his short stint in the NBA, Nunnally headed over to Europe, where he found more success.

In 2015-16, Nunnally was playing in the Lega Basket Serie A (LBA) where he averaged an outstanding 18.4 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game while shooting a cool 46.2 percent from the field and 39.3 percent from 3-point range.

After that season, Nunnally moved from the LBA to the EuroLeague, where he continued to find success but in a more limited role. In the 2017-18 season, he averaged 9.3 points, 2.1 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game while shooting an incredibly efficient 54.0 percent from the field and 55.4 percent from 3-point range. The 6’7″ guard is a bona fide sharpshooter — something the Timberwolves could definitely use coming off the bench.

He only played 20.6 minutes per game during the 2017-18 season, but that doesn’t jump out as a red flag to me. The Timberwolves aren’t looking for the next Luka Doncic from the EuroLeague. They’re looking to add some depth to a team that had virtually none last season (until they signed Derrick Rose). It’s likely that Nunnally could see around 15-20 minutes per game for the T-Wolves.

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The Wolves finished last season 29th in the league in bench points per game. It’s looking like that won’t be as big of a problem this year with guys like Tyus Jones, Derrick Rose, Josh Okogie, Keita Bates-Diop, Anthony Tolliver and now James Nunnally.

Of course, the biggest question mark surrounding the Wolves’ bench production is how much of an opportunity head coach Tom Thibodeau will give those guys. He’s not exactly known for trusting the guys on the bench. In fact, it’s nearing “fireable offense” territory how many minutes he gives his starters.

It’s at least an encouraging sign that the Wolves are going out and acquiring guys who can help the second unit succeed. Perhaps the improved bench roster will help Thibs change his coaching philosophy.

After all, the Western Conference is absolutely loaded and having a solid starting 5fivewon’t be enough to crack the playoffs in the 2018-19 season. It’s going to take depth, and lots of it. Each regular season game will matter, which means the Wolves can’t afford to lose guys like Jimmy Butler or Karl-Anthony Towns for long stretches. Who knows if over-usage is part of the reason Butler suffered his knee injury last year, but it’s hard to manage it didn’t at least contribute to it.

Hopefully bringing in James Nunnally will help take some of the workload off the starting five. Like I said earlier, this was a relatively small move for the Wolves, but it was a good one.

Grade: B