It started out as a half-joke around the league, “Wouldn’t it be funny if Tom Thibodeau went after Luol Deng?” Chicago Wolves jokes ensued. Then pretty quickly it became clear this was no joke.
For weeks now, every source around the league has expected Luol Deng to sign with the Timberwolves sooner rather than later. Marc Stein of the New York Times confirmed this.
The veteran free agent @LuolDeng9 has drawn interest from other teams but the leaguewide expectation, sources say, still points to Deng coming to terms with the Timberwolves this week
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) September 10, 2018
Just to be clear, that gives Minnesota Jimmy Butler, Taj Gibson, Derrick Rose, and Deng from Thibodeau’s old Bulls team.
The question is how much Deng can contribute. He was benched in Los Angeles during season one of the Lakers’ youth movement last season, but still some veterans got run under Luke Walton while Deng sat the final 81 games of the season. Two seasons ago in Los Angeles he played in 56 games and finished with the lowest point total of his career (7.6 per game), shooting just 30.9 percent from three, with a true shooting percentage of just 47, a PER of 10.1, and he was below a replacement level player. Was that season’s decline an aberration, or has Deng (like other former Tom Thibodeau players) worn down earlier in their career than expected?
There’s not a ton of minutes for Deng to get. The Timberwolves likely will start Gibson at the four and have Anthony Tolliver behind him. Thibodeau doesn’t really go deep into his bench beyond that.
But the deal looks like it will soon be done, and then we’ll see what Deng still has in the tank.