There was not a single player on the Minnesota Timberwolves summer-league roster who played even a minor role in the team’s run to the Western Conference finals last season.
Josh Minott and Leonard Miller had great seats for the run but rarely saw the floor. Rob Dillingham and Terrence Shannon Jr. could find themselves in the rotation next season, but they have yet to wear the real Wolves uniforms that they held up for pictures at their introductory news conference.
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Despite the relative unfamiliarity or inexperience, there was something recognizable about how the summer Wolves played in Las Vegas. There was an intensity to the way they defended and connectedness in how they covered for each other that looked an awful lot like the team of All-Stars and veterans who went on such a stirring playoff run last season. They played with an identity that the real team has honed on the backs of Rudy Gobert, Mike Conley, Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Edwards and the rest of this core.
The younger Wolves went 4-1 in Vegas, but it wasn’t how they walked out in the desert that made them. It was the way they talked about what was expected of them and the responsibility they felt that resonated. From the moment they all met in Minneapolis to practice and prepare for summer league, a message was made clear to them from coaches who have been building this identity for three years now under Chris Finch.
“I told these guys, when the Timberwolves come in to play, they have to feel us defensively,” summer-league head coach Chris Hines said after the first game in Las Vegas. “The whole NBA, if they’re not feeling us defensively, then we’re not doing our job. I’m letting down the organization, I’m letting down Finchy, I’m letting down everyone behind what we’ve built this year.”
Summer league wasn’t just for players to prove themselves. The coaches were trying to turn heads as well.
Hines is a player development coach on Finch’s staff, a rung below his top assistants, Micah Nori, Elston Turner, Pablo Prigioni, Kevin Hanson and Corliss Williamson. But Finch has made player development one of the tent pole priorities of his coaching philosophy, knowing the importance of getting young players into the Timberwolves system and helping them improve over the years.
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He does not view Hines or any of the rest of his player development staff as less than. In some ways, Hines’s position is of primary importance because he has been tasked with working directly with Edwards, the face of the franchise, on his skill development. And after Joe Boylan left for Memphis in the offseason, Hines was elevated to lead the player development part of Finch’s staff.
But his position as head coach at summer league represented another opportunity for Hines to show what he can do. He has been an assistant coach in China and the G League. Serving as the head coach in Vegas allowed him to see the game from a different angle and get a true understanding of all the decisions that have to be made in the heat of the moment.
“I want to become one of the best head coaches in the world one day,” Hines said. “So, you’ve got to do that. You’ve got to coach.”
The Timberwolves had a lot riding on this Vegas team. Hines and his staff had to get Dillingham and Shannon up to speed on concepts and roles, incorporate new two-way player Jesse Edwards into the system and help evaluate how Minott, Miller and Daishen Nix, three players who were on the roster last season, have progressed in their pursuit of rotation spots.
“Coach Hines has just been telling me to set the play up,” Dillingham said. “Set the guys up and run the team and get to learn everything because we’re playing for the season, not just summer league.”
Like all NBA head coaches, Finch was in attendance, watching from courtside seats away from the team bench to allow the younger coaches to hone their voices. He has walked a similar path to the one Hines is on right now. Finch coached in Europe and the G League before spending 10 years as an NBA assistant. He then was hired to take over the Timberwolves in 2021.
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Hines has traversed the globe as well while working his way up the coaching ranks. He was an assistant in China for three years, coaching a team full of players who did not speak English. He moved on to the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, the Houston Rockets G League affiliate, and the Iowa Wolves before joining the Timberwolves staff and working with Edwards.
“You don’t get a lot of chances to be a head coach and so it’s a blessing to have that chance,” said Wolves player development coach Max Lefevre, a close friend of Hines who served as the summer head coach last year. “Just really a great learning experience. I told Chris, obviously you want to win games, but take it as a growing and learning experience. Everything you think is going to happen is not going to happen the way you think it’s going to happen, just stay level-headed.”
Hines has watched Finch closely since joining his staff and said the biggest thing he has learned is how flexible a coach has to be with rosters that change so quickly in the NBA. When Finch was hired in 2021, the team was built around Towns and D’Angelo Russell, a young, energetic team that flew around, made mistakes and covered them up with sweat and hustle.
Three years later, they are a veteran team with the Gobert-Towns frontcourt one of the more unique configurations in the league, a team built on defense and half-court execution.
“It’s put me in a place to understand how to adjust, put me in a place to also understand what makes sense, what doesn’t make sense, how to take away things and how not take away things,” Hines said.
He applied those lessons in Vegas with the same kind of no-nonsense straight talk that he has used with Edwards over the last few seasons. Hines does not pull any punches when it comes to teaching or motivating, and the players seem to welcome the challenge.
After the opening win over New Orleans, the players gave Hines a shower in the locker room to celebrate his first victory as a head coach. Edwards also recorded a video congratulating Hines.
C Hines got a congrats message from someone special. 🎥 pic.twitter.com/hK8Ct215Lk
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) July 13, 2024
“Go win a championship,” Edwards, who was preparing for the Paris Olympics with Team USA, told him. “I’ll win a gold, you win a championship and we’ll be all right.”
The Timberwolves didn’t quite win the summer-league title. Their season ended with a win over Orlando on Sunday. But they did get Dillingham and Shannon involved and on the court, they helped Jaylen Clark work off some of the rust after missing all of last season with an Achilles injury and they got some good video of Miller, Minott and Nix for evaluations. And Hines got his first taste of what being the head coach feels like.
“I’ll be forever grateful to the organization for this opportunity,” Hines said. “Not only do you get head-coaching experience, but you also get to watch young guys with talent grow.”
(Photo of Anthony Edwards and Chris Hines: David Sherman / NBAE via Getty Images)
Jon Krawczynski is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Minnesota Timberwolves, the NBA and the Minnesota Vikings. Jon joined The Athletic after 16 years at The Associated Press, where he covered three Olympics, three NBA Finals, two Ryder Cups and the 2009 NFC Championship Game. Follow Jon on Twitter @JonKrawczynski
