National Basketball Association

Timberwolves Player Preview: Zach LaVine

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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This is the eleventh part in our series previewing the entire Minnesota Timberwolves roster, player-by-player from the least to the most minutes played last season.

Zach LaVine is entering his third season of play in the NBA. When people talk about the outsanding youth in Minnesota, LaVine is consistently mentioned.

The former UCLA Bruin is the back-to-back dunk contest winner, and that’s still is what he is known for outside of Timberwolves fans.

In Bleacher Report’s Game of Zones series, in fact, LaVine does “cool dunks”.

LaVine has had an interesting career so far. One could argue, as I would, that the best thing for his career, was Ricky Rubio being hurt in Zach’s first season.

In LaVine’s first season, the starting lineup included Ricky Rubio at the point and Kevin Martin at shooting guard. Rubio was injured and LaVine ended up starting 40 games his rookie year as a 6′-5″ point guard.

I’m a believer in learning by doing. The best way to teach LaVine to compete in the NBA was to just throw him into the starting spot.

For those who follow the Timberwolves, it’s obvious that Karl Anthony-Towns and Andrew Wiggins are expected to be the future of the program. In my opinion, Zach LaVine should end up being the third star on the roster.

Some people might disagree with LaVine being the third-best player on the team, but I believe Zach could become a deadly scorer. Last season, Zach scored 14 points per game while shooting 45.2 percent from the field.

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New head coach Tom Thibodeau will be good for LaVine. Thibodeau favors athletic scorers, despite being a coach that is very defensive minded. Plus, Thibodeau is a believer in strict systems.

On offense, this will set up higher percentage shots for LaVine. An explosive and long player like Zach will also play well in the team defense that Thibs runs.

I have very high expectations for LaVine this season. I think he will play north of 30 minutes per game and has the potential to score around 18 points per contest.

Be ready for an exciting season from Zach LaVine. On top of his scoring abilities, you can’t forget his highlight-reel dunks. But Zach is not a player who only dunks. He’s a really good player that can also dunk — better than anyone else in the league.

We’re in the home stretch with our player preview series with just a few articles to go. Stay tuned as we take a look at the top-three minutes earners from a season ago.

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