We interrupt your Twitter updating on news we can’t talk about until July 6 to bring you a Summer League practice report.
The Wolves wrapped up their first Summer League practice, led by assistant coach Pablo Prigioni, on Monday evening.
This Summer League roster has a lot of faces on it that will probably make the team, which is pretty uncommon for a Summer League roster. There’s Josh Okogie and Keita Bates-Diop, along with second-round pick Jaylen Nowell. Then you add in guys like Jared Terrell and Mitch Creek, two guys who spent time on the team’s active roster last season.
It’d be a surprise if this team didn’t compete in Las Vegas later this week. Of course, wins aren’t necessarily the most important thing in Summer League, it’s better to win than lose.
Well duh, Kyle.
Here are a few observations from the team’s first practice, which the players admitted was kind of sloppy, but that’s what you get when you have a group of guys playing together for the first time.
Imagine if you just went to another workplace tomorrow. The first few hours would be weird and someone would probably ask you to go home.
- Robert Covington and Jeff Teague were at practice. They will not be playing in Summer League, obviously, but it sounds like Teague is going to help the team out as a hybrid assistant coach of sorts. Prigiono sounded pretty excited about it: “I love it, I love it. It’s great because I’ve played against him (for) many years and now to have him on the team and to have this experience with him joining the coaching staff, it’s great. And it’s a good opportunity for me to be a relationship with him.” Teague was all smiles at practice, for whatever that’s worth.
- Back to Prigioni. Why did he pick Minnesota? Prigiono, a former point guard for the Rockets, was a hot commodity this offseason and surely had other options, but it came down to fit and family for him. “It was a lot of things with my decision to come. Not just my relationship with Gersson (Rosas), but it was a family thing. A lot of things that as a family we decided it works better for us to move to Minnesota and actually, I’m super excited for the opportunity with the team.”
- Bates-Diop enters his second season and he sounds confident. He’s been in Minneapolis for the majority of the summer, getting work in. He said it was a bit weird having a full offseason to work on his game, unlike last year when he was trying to convince teams to draft him. “It was actually kind of weird . . . I didn’t have to be anywhere or have to do anything. So you kind of put it on yourself. They brought us back here for a lot of the weeks, but a lot of the time we had off whether we were at home or if we went anywhere else, we had to do it ourselves.” Bates-Diop proved last season he has the tools to be an NBA player. Now he needs to continue to develop those tools. It sounds like that’s what he’s been doing.
- Nowell was shy, and that’s not a surprise. It was his first in-person NBA media availability. Nowell said he hasn’t been told what his role will be, but for him at this Summer League, it’s all about getting those wins. “I just hope to get a lot of wins out of it. That’s really what I’m looking for. I love to win. As long as we play together and we continue to talk on defense and on offense as well, get more comfortable with each other as a group, we can for sure make a run.” He also called the skyway system the “sky bridges” so this is going to be fun.
- The most popular player among media members at practice was former University of Minnesota Golden Gopher Jordan Murphy. Murphy, 6’7, primarily played as a big with the Gophers. With his size, and actually – more the size of other NBA players, Murphy will probably have to play more on the perimeter. He was shooting at practice from the 3-point line and actually looked pretty comfortable. That’s somewhat surprising considering Murphy shot just 32-for-138 from deep in four years with the Gophers. But it’s something he’s been working on since wrapping up his college career, and he sounds confident. “I think I’m way ahead of where I should be right now as opposed to what I was during the year. I have a lot of confidence in it. . . Basically, it was just reps. Getting in the gym early mornings, late nights type of thing. Making sure that I was working with my trainers, getting the mechanics down.” It’ll be fun for Minnesota basketball fans to watch Murphy in Vegas playing for his hometown team.
Plenty more to come this week, but overall, vibes are good around Timberwolves headquarters. Lots of smiles for the team’s first practice.
The team practices on Tuesday morning. We’ll update you accordingly because that’s our job.