| A Brave New World Authored by Adam Winegarden - January 27, 2006 - 12:33 am
The Wally World era of the Minnesota Timberwolves is officially over. Wally Szczerbiak has made his way with Olowokandi and Dwayne Jones to Boston. In return the Timberwolves have received the very first players that seem to be designed specifically for the type of play that head coach Casey desires.
Defense first, push the ball up the court and put pressure on the opposing team on both ends of the court. Rickey Davis, Marcus Banks, Mark Blount and Justin Reed are the soon to be residents of Minnesota. Davis, Banks and Reed have shown the ability to defend; Blount has shown very little outside of a respectable ten foot jump shoot.
However, this trade is less about the players involved and more about what it says about the Timberwolves commitment to becoming a more defensive minded, athletic team. You could hardly find two players with such a disparity in athletic ability than Szczerbiak and Davis. Rickey Davis has competed in the dunk contest. Szczerbiak is known as a shooter who has trouble creating his own shot. Davis has become a solid defender. Szczerbiak has become a solid shooter who has trouble creating his own shot.
Ironically, the thing that Szczerbiak and Davis have most in common is that both made a name for themselves in the state of Ohio.
In the end the success of this trade hinges on Szczerbiak and Davis. The player that can meld into his new situation the best will make his team seem the victor. Szczerbiak will have an opportunity to camp out and hope that Paul Pierce can get it to him out of the double team. However, he will not change the fact that Pierce will continue to get double teamed on every important possession.
Szczerbiak will join LaFrentz at the three point line and on occasion have shooting nights that cause the Boston faithful to mention him in the same breath as Larry Bird. But he will not help end the championship drought and his arrival will not cause Paul Pierce to stop looking over the fence, lusting after the neighbor’s grass.
Ricky Davis’s arrival in Minnesota can hardly be seen as the missing link in the Timberwolves championship puzzle. However, he does give the Timberwolves and Kevin Garnett something that they have lacked since the departures of Malik Sealy and Stephon Marbury. Davis, like Sealy can be at times a lock down defender. The threat of Davis as a defender will create much more fear in opponents that the idea of Szczerbiak staring them down. Stephon Marbury has been the only teammate of Kevin Garnett’s that could consistently be considered a scoring threat in crunch time. For the first time since Marbury left, opposing defenses have to at least consider the possibility that the ball doesn’t necessarily have to go to Garnett when the game is on the line.
Ricky Davis is much more adept at creating his own shot than any other member of the Timberwolves roster. Others have shown moments, Hudson in the Lakers' playoff series for one, but none have had the consistency of Ricky Davis. This ability more than anything else can give Timberwolves’ fans hope.
Banks, Reed, and Jones are like lottery scratch off stocking stuffers. They will have an exciting moment here or there but no one expects them to be much more than that. Should any of them progress to a level previously only glimpsed that could turn the balance of the trade as well. Blount and Olowokandi’s greatest contribution is as the genesis of the entire trade.
Blount will give the Timberwolves a body to throw in at center for a few more years and Olowokandi will take his place at the end of the Celtic’s bench and grace them with his absence next season. The true question of this trade will be Davis vs. Szczerbiak. The next time the Timberwolves are fighting for the win in the fourth quarter and face a must have possession, we’ll have our first answer. |
