Two nights after the Timberwolves got Ronny Turiaf back after two months away injured, reserve forward Chase Budinger made his season debut Wednesday against Phoenix at Target Center.
Budinger was welcomed back with warm applause and cheers when he checked into the game in the first quarter's final minute. He quickly was presented with his first chance to shoot and took it, missing a corner three-pointer that came up just short. That was his lone miss. He scored six points on 2-for-3 shooting, making one three-pointer, in 11 minutes.
The team's medical staff put Budinger on about a 20-minute limit in his return from two surgeries in the past 14 months on torn meniscus cartilage in his left knee. Adelman said Budinger's biggest concern is not his knee but the rest of his body because of no training camp.
"We'll see how it goes," Adelman said. "He hasn't played for a year. We've got to watch him and see how he reacts to it. … He's just sore. It's going to take him a little bit of time and it's going to take our guys to figure out what he can do."
Turiaf returned Monday to play 22-plus minutes after he missed more than two months because of an elbow injury.
"We have more options now," Adelman said about having both players back.
No worries
Both Robbie Hummel and A.J. Price went to work Wednesday knowing their non-guaranteed contracts will be guaranteed for the rest of the season starting Friday. NBA teams had until Tuesday afternoon to waive players before their non-guaranteed contracts become guaranteed.
Hummel didn't know about the three-day interim to allow players to clear waivers. "My mom called and said, 'Congrats' and I was like 'For what?' " he said. "I thought the deadline was the 10th [Friday]. It really made it a lot easier for me because I wasn't worried about it yet. It's great to know your contract is guaranteed, but there's still a lot of work to be done."
