Most coaches spend September saying nice things about their new star. Chris Finch went in the other direction.
In a two-part interview with Britt Robson of MinnPost, the Timberwolves head coach laid out exactly what he needs LaMelo Ball to fix, and he did not use soft language to do it.
“If you want to be a good shooter, the first thing you should do is get rid of the bad shots,” Finch said. “He does take some, and he can make them. But I think he has relied heavily on it.”
That is a head coach telling the basketball world his new point guard shoots too much bad stuff. Two weeks before camp.
The rim protector problem
Finch’s second concern is spatial. Ball has never played alongside a center like Rudy Gobert.
“LaMelo has never played with a rim protector like that,” Finch said. “But so he has to learn to play with a rim protector like that, too.”
And the finishing: “I think he goes into the paint a lot of the time as a passer, with a passing mentality, because he is so elite at it. So we really want him to focus on having a finishing plan, and embracing the contact that comes with finishing down there a little bit more.”
On integration generally, Finch said the priority is “just getting LaMelo to understand how we do things and the urgency with which that needs to happen.”
Anthony Edwards gets a homework assignment too
Finch was equally direct about what an MVP season would require from his franchise player.
“His on-ball handling duties will be reduced, which was probably the most taxing thing for him last year,” Finch said. “I also feel that for him to have an MVP season, he has to have more of a defensive component.”
He then explained why Edwards slipped defensively, and the answer was partly on the coaching staff.
“When we’ve had our more aggressive defenses, especially when they were rotation-based, earlier in his career, he was consistently good,” Finch said. “There may have been a lag time in recognition because he was learning, but he was good. As we’ve gotten away from more rotations, some of the worse habits may have creeped in.”
Finch named Zion Williamson and Pascal Siakam as bigger forwards Edwards has successfully defended, so the capability is there.
This roster barely resembles last year’s
Ayo Dosunmu has never been through a Wolves training camp. Donte DiVincenzo is gone for now. Naz Reid is gone. Lead assistant Micah Nori left the organization. Ball and Jonathan Kuminga, who signed a two-year, $12.4 million deal, are both slated to start.
The remaining constants are Edwards, Gobert and Jaden McDaniels.
Finch said he is considering reusing defensive principles from the Karl-Anthony Towns and Gobert pairing to handle larger power forwards, and warned about overcorrecting.
“The cool thing is that the changes allow us to be creative. But it is a balance, because right out of the gate you don’t want to be super-creative, because then you don’t have any foundation. That’s the biggest trap.”
Minnesota rebuilt around a ball-dominant guard with defensive questions while simultaneously asking its best player to become an on-ball stopper. Finch clearly knows how hard that is. He just said it out loud first.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.