Flip Saunders described Shabazz Muhammad as quite possibly the most misunderstood player to come out of the 2013 NBA Draft — and he might be right.
Muhammad was unfairly depicted as a lazy prima donna coming out of UCLA, a score-first player that really didn’t try unless plays were specifically d[[{"fid":"31513","view_mode":"default","fields":{"format":"default","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":""},"type":"media","attributes":{"style":"font-size: 13.0080003738403px; line-height: 20.0063037872314px; text-align: right; float: right; background-color: transparent;","class":"media-element file-default"}}]]esigned for him. His poor performance against the hometown Gophers in the 2013 NCAA Tournament further exacerbated that image, prompting many pundits to lose hope. Muhammad had “bust” written all over him.
So when the Wolves selected Trey Burke — a standout player at Michigan that looked the part of a hard worker — and promptly traded his rights to the Utah Jazz sothey could take Muhammad a few picks later, the 2013 NBA Draft was viewed as a flop before Muhammad even got a chance to prove himself on the floor.
In his second year in the league, in the midst of a breakout season, Muhammad has proven to be the polar opposite of the player he was painted as prior to the 2013 NBA Draft.
“He might be the hardest playing guys in our league on a consistent basis,” Saunders said.
While this came as a surprise to outsiders, it appears the inner circles of the NBA suspected that Muhammad had this potential all along.
“He's always been, in my opinion, a harder worker,” Sacramento King coach Tyrone Corbin said a few months ago. “He's starting to see the fruits of his labor."
Those fruits of his labor came in the form of some recent recognition as Muhammad, along with teammates Andrew Wiggins, Gorgui Dieng, and Zach LaVine, were selected to the Rising Stars Challenge on Wednesday afternoon — a reward for the overall effort that youthful group has put forth amid a frustrating season.
"We've had a rough year when looking at the wins,” Saunders admitted. “There are many times that coaches have come up and said, 'We really like your team.' We say, 'How can they say that when we’ve only won seven games?'
“So to get four guys in [the Rising Stars Challenge] is great for the players. It shows how the work pays off.”
Muhammad, specifically, started the season on an absolute tear, and while he’s missed the last two weeks with an oblique strain and appears to be a couple weeks from returning, Muhammad has used his bull-in-a-china-shop style of play to become a human highlight reel on the floor. He dunks every chance he gets — and sometimes even his failed dunks work out.
Muhammad’s success didn’t happen by accident. It came as a result of an offseason of hard work — and hard work might be an understatement. Muhammad worked out with ultra-intense trainer Frank Matrisciano in the offseason and dropped more than 20 pounds in two months. Muhammad said at Training Camp in Mankato a few months ago that he was in the best shape of his life.
That much was evident simply by looking at him. It was even clearer when watching him on the court.
“He’s turning into one of the crowd favorites just because, especially in Minnesota, people love guys that play hard and give everything,” Saunders said. “There’s not one time I’ve had to say to him, ‘You’ve got to play harder.’”
Though he admitted that his new body came with an adjustment period, Muhammad said he’s seen direct benefits in his game.
“I'm so much faster in transition,” he said a few months back. “It's going to be hard for them to try to guard both (Muhammad and Wiggins) of us in transition, and that's something that I've really been working on.”
Muhammad has also already signed up to work out with Matrisciano next offseason so there’s a chance he could get even faster in transition. He knows that training session was something that really and views it as another opportunity to improve.
“He wants to be a great player,” Saunders said. “There are a lot of people say they want to be great. He’s willing to make that commitment.”
While Saunders has never had to ask Muhammad to work harder, he’s had to limit him lately. As the second-year player recovers from an oblique strain, Saunders has made a concerted effort to make sure Muhammad is at full strength before he’s back in the mix. There’s no point in rushing him back at this point.
Though it’s unclear when Muhammad will be back — we’re hoping he’s able to play in the Rising Stars Challenge as a reward to himself for the year he’s had so far— he’ll definitely be back at some point this season. He’ll return to a lineup where he won’t be looked upon as the go-to guy like he was earlier in the year. Muhammad will have teammates —Kevin Martin, Nikola Pekovic, and Andrew Wiggins — that take the attention off of him. That bodes well for Muhammad and the rest of the team.
We haven’t seen what this team is fully capable of this season. We might get a taste of that in the coming months and if anything is clear at this point with the oodles of talent on the roster, it’s that the future is bright.
“It says a lot about where we're going,” Saunders said of four players being selected to the Rising Stars Challenge. “This is voted on by coaches. It's not picked by the league. It's voted on by the coaches. So it shows coaches are recognizing those players as having potential to be legitimate players down the road.”
Muhammad is certainly one of those players.