After his great performance in the NBA Finals, the Minnesota
Timberwolves signed JJ Barea away from the defending champs in hopes that he
would be the play-maker they lacked last season. This was before Ricky Rubio
came in and made a splash with his flashy passing ability of course.
The Timberwolves hadn’t had a whole lot of success over the
past few years with Luke Ridnour running the point for them which prompted them
to make the play for Barea and push to get Rubio to join the team.
With Barea’s signing the Timberwolves were hoping to bring
Rubio along slowly but Barea’s inability to stay healthy forced Rubio into the
lineup early. Rubio would make the most of his opportunity by showing what kind
of an impact he could make on the team.
And he was doing a great job up until he tore up his knee a
couple of weeks ago ending what had been a fabulous season up until that point.
The T’Wolves have gone 2-6 without Rubio in the lineup.
Barea’s play has been promising the past few games though.
Barea has registered ten or more assists in each of the past three games and
even had a triple-double when the T’Wolves played the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday.
They would still lose to the Thunder in double overtime but
a stat line of 25 points, 14 assists and 10 rebounds shows why Barea was such a
coveted player during free agency.
He will have to continue to produce if the T’Wolves are
going to have a shot at making the playoffs though. They are currently 3.5
games behind the eighth-seeded Denver Nuggets with only 17 games left to play.
But with the effort Barea has displayed as of late and with Kevin
Love putting up numbers like the 51 points and 14 rebounds he posted in that
double overtime loss, the T’Wolves have the potential to make a serious push
for a playoff spot in the final weeks of the season.
That potential better become reality soon though or the T’Wolves
can look forward to another trip to the lottery.
Roosevelt Hall is an NFL Blogger for The Sport Mentalist and an NBA Blogger for The Sport Mentalist 2. He is also a Sports Reporter for Pro Sports Lives. He can be contacted at RHall_TPFB@Yahoo.com and be sure to follow him on Twitter @sportmentalist.
No comments:
Post a Comment