The Minnesota Timberwolves hold the #1 overall pick in this years NBA Draft. Draft experts believe the wolves have to go with an interior paint presence after the departure of Kevin Love last summer, whether it be Karl Anthony-Towns of Kentucky or Jahlil Okafor of Duke. However, over the past couple of days there have been rumblings of Minnesota showing interest in 6’5″ point guard Emmanuel Mudiay. These rumors have only picked up steam as he now has a pre draft workout schedule with the T’Wolves. Following according to RealGM’s Shams Charania,
“Emmanuel Mudiay has scheduled only two predraft team workouts so far: the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday and Minnesota Timberwolves on June 20 and possibly sooner, with the T’Wolves convincing the 6-foot-5 guard that he’ll be under serious consideration with the No. 1 overall pick.”
Mudiay is in the 2015 draft pool unconventionally, he decided to skip playing college ball at SMU under Larry Brown and “played for pay” professionally overseas in the Chinese Basketball Association. 12 games into the season Mudiay severely injured his ankle which resulted in him having to sit out the remainder of the season. The guard from Texas put up some eye opening numbers in the limited sample size we saw him in, posting 18 points per game to go along with 5.9 assists and 6.3 rebounds. Mudiay had drawn early comparisons to John Wall due to elite athleticism and lack of a consistent jumpshot.
Minnesota has been rumored to be shopping crafty point guard Ricky Rubio, and now maybe we see why. If Rubio was to stay on the roster the pick wouldn’t make much sense due to the fact that bouncy guard Zach LaVine also occupies a good chunk of playing time. That isn’t the biggest issue though LaVine can slide over to the two guard if Rubio gets shipped away and Mudiay becomes his successor as a true point guard. The wolves don’t seem to be showing much interest in Ohio State combo guard D’Angelo Russell, probably due to the fact that he’s not as gifted a distributor as Emmanuel is but he does boast a sweeter outside stroke. A young talented core of Mudiay, LaVine, and reigning rookie of the year Andrew Wiggins could become a very scary sight to teams across the league, and maybe sooner than we think.
