NBA Trade Grades: Atlanta Hawks bring back Jeff Teague
By Phil Watson
Grading the trade: Minnesota Timberwolves
The Minnesota Timberwolves have been wanting to move on from Jeff Teague for awhile now, not quite from the moment he signed a three-year, $57 million deal with them as an unrestricted free agent in July 2017, but the honeymoon was over very quickly in the Twin Cities.
Teague has actually played better this season in fewer minutes, starting 13 times in 34 appearances. While his minutes have dropped from 33.0 a game in his first season in Minnesota to 30.1 last season and down to 27.8 minutes a night so far this season, Teague’s per-36 numbers over that period are interesting.
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But the Timberwolves seem to have settled on rookie Jarrett Culver at the 1 spot for the time being, with veteran Shabazz Napier backing him up (along with two-way contract recipient Jordan McLaughlin).
By acquiring Allen Crabbe, Minnesota — theoretically — improves its shooting. The Timberwolves are third in the NBA this season, averaging 39.0 3-point attempts per game, but only eighth with 12.6 makes a night.
That would be caused by their 32.4 percent success rate, 29th in the NBA ahead of only (in an ironic twist) the Atlanta Hawks. Not so sure of the logic behind going to the only team that does a thing worse than you do to fix that thing, but Crabbe has a history of being a very good 3-point shooter.
With the Portland Trail Blazers in 2016-17, Crabbe shot 44.4 percent from deep on 3.8 attempts per game, second in the NBA behind Kyle Korver, who split that season between the Hawks and Cleveland Cavaliers.
On much more volume over the next two seasons with the Brooklyn Nets (6.7 attempts per game), Crabbe still shot a solidly above-average 37.8 percent.
He missed 39 games plus the playoffs last season after bruising his knee in a hard fall in mid-December and eventually needing surgery, a malady which also kept him sidelined throughout training camp, the preseason and the first 10 games of the year.
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His minutes are down significantly this season, from 26.3 last season to 18.6 for Atlanta this season, with his 3-point attempts nearly halved (6.0 to 3.3 per game). And Crabbe isn’t making many of the looks he’s getting, hitting only 32.3 percent.
Minnesota president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas has to be thinking that with more regular playing time, Crabbe can regain his stroke.
This is also a low-risk move for the Timberwolves. They give up $20.65 million in expiring salaries in Teague and Treveon Graham, but Crabbe’s expiring deal is $18.5 million, so there is still some cap relief on the horizon.
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Plus, Crabbe will give them at least an opportunity to improve their dismal 3-point shooting without costing the franchise any young talent or draft capital. Still not entirely convinced Teague was as bad as the Minnesota fan base/media were making him out to be, though.