At some point, I think this team is just going to have to face the facts: Williams is a guy who could potentially be a pretty good power forward, on a team that has absolutely no minutes available at power forward.
It’s not like the Wolves are oblivious to this sort of thing. The reason we got Cunningham in the first place is because the team saw it had a need for a hustler/defender in the post and no minutes available for Wayne Ellington on the wings.
I like Williams, and I think he’ll have a good career as a valuable player, but I don’t see how it will happen here. He’s a stretch 4, on a team that already has one of the best, if not the best, stretch 4s in the league. With Kirilenko and Cunningham filling in the gaps around Love, how is Williams going to find space?
via What to do with Williams - Canis Hoopus.
When the Wolves landed the No.2 pick in the lottery for 2011, it was manna from heaven. Another star young player to add to their core. They were already going to be better with Ricky Rubio joining Kevin Love and later, Rick Adelman. But the problem was that the draft was considered a particularly weak one, and big-heavy at the top outside of Kyrie Irving. Picks 2-7 were all bigs, it would turn out, if you consider Williams a big.
We’re not playing revisionist history, here. This is not some “it didn’t make sense in retrospect.” At the time, everyone said ‘They have to trade the pick, right? Right?” There was rampant speculation they would move out of the lottery, and the Wolves were involved in talks repeatedly for Williams, included a speculated trade with the Lakers. But in the end, nothing developed, and the Wolves simply took the No.2 guy, Derrick Williams.
Here’s the crazy part. They drafted a good player who wound up having a decent rookie season. He didn’t blow anyone away, he didn’t establish himself outright, but then again, he was playing out of position on a team that was gunning for a playoff spot until Rubio’s injury. In maybe the most Timberwolves thing ever, they drafted a good player and still wound up making a mistake. Do you know how hard that is?
So now Williams continues to drift between two worlds, trying to establish himself, playing out of position, and not even filling the needs of the position in terms of who the Wolves are.
The Timberwolves have made a ton of good moves over the past two years, and David Kahn deserves a lot of credit for that. The Wolves are not only respectable but could be a playoff team for the first time since KG left, and that takes some doing. They’ve managed the cap and their roster well. But Williams remains the oddest situation where they drafted the best player in his range (consider that Klay Thompson and Kawhi Leonard weren’t even top ten), and isn’t a bust, and yet it was a poor pick. Here’s hoping the Wolves can move him for an upgrade at a position of need and that he gets a chance to develop in a more natural setting. It’s not that he’s not good and not developing. It’s that things could be so much better for him elsewhere.
