The Timberwolves’ offseason makeover is playing out as a predictable work in progress on the court as we sort through the pluses and minuses of everything that happened.
There are big-picture questions like how much Jimmy Butler (when he’s not sick) will help this team grow, whether ditching Ricky Rubio in favor of Jeff Teague was a good idea and just what the ceiling is for young scorers Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.
But there are also some lower-level questions that might be more significant than we think. One of them has to do with the playing time of Wolves big man Gorgui Dieng.
Taj Gibson was signed in the offseason and inserted into the starting lineup. With Nemanja Bjelica also gobbling up power forward minutes, Dieng is averaging just under 14 minutes per game — less than half of what he had come to expect over the past three seasons.
Read Michael Rand’s blog at startribune.com/randball. michael.rand@startribune.com.
