MINNEAPOLIS – Last Friday, Wes Johnson pulled an inhaler off the top shelf of his locker. It had been given to him to combat the breathing problems that accompanied the illness – which he described as pneumonia – he'd come down with earlier that week.
He shrugged and set it back on the shelf, knowing he'd need it later. Because within the hour, the not-quite-recovered Johnson took the court and started for the Timberwolves, playing 17 minutes for the injury-riddled team.
"He wasn't hyper-ventilating," Kevin Love said of Johnson after the game, laughing. "He wasn't gasping for air, so I guess that's good."
Love's only choice was to make light of it. There really wasn't another option for a team that defeated Dallas on Jan. 25 with just eight healthy players. Be resourceful, find the humor, and get through it.
Just a week later, the Timberwolves are in far better physical shape. Four players who'd missed weeks – in some cases, the entire season so far – have returned to the court, and with the addition of J.J. Barea, Martell Webster, Michael Beasley and Brad Miller, the Timberwolves' bench looks less like a place for well-dressed 20-something men to hang out than it has all season.
The physical burden has been shifted off of the team, but it's been passed on, in the form of a more cerebral challenge, to coach Rick Adelman, who must determine exactly where these now-healthy players fit within his scheme.
"It's not going to be easy," Adelman said of integrating the players. "Everybody's going to have to understand that… the ultimate thing is how our team does. These guys can only control the time they're on the court. They have to play hard and play within the team system when they're on the court. They don't control their minutes, but they do control how they play."
Obviously, players have some control over how soon and how much they get to play, but the ultimate decision is Adelman's. Beasley, the only injured starter, had a season-high 34 points in Houston on Monday, but he still hasn't returned to the starting lineup. Before spraining his right foot on Jan. 6, the small forward was averaging 31.6 minutes per game. In his first four games back, he's averaging 26.3, and he'll gradually creep back into his starting role.
Beasley said he's comfortable with where he stands right now, coming off the bench, and the transition back seems to be doing him some good. It's only been four games, but Beasley seems more consistent on the court than he did before his injury despite the fact the team's offensive attack has changed in the month he was injured.
"Normally, Michael was our starting small forward, and you would work him back in right away, but I think it's just to get some continuity, to probably bring him off the bench, see how he feels, see how he goes," Adelman said.
The other three players – Barea, Webster and Miller – are going through the process of reintegration without the expectation of getting regular starts. Barea, who averaged 20.6 minutes off the bench last season in Dallas and should see similar time in Minnesota, was the last player to recover. He's been suffering from right hamstring problems and a sprained left ankle all season, and his return Wednesday night against Indiana marked his third such comeback this season. The first two, he said, were premature, and taking two weeks off this time should put Barea in a better position to remain healthy.
The veteran point guard is one of the most difficult players to gradually re-introduce into a lineup, strictly from a personality standpoint. Though trainers said that Barea should only play 4- to 6-minute stretches, Adelman said that he is the kind of player who's always going to want to be on the court, who struggles to raise his hand for a sub. On Wednesday, though, Barea played just 14 minutes, and that was enough. He looked rusty in the first half and improved in the second, but even so, Barea said he felt like it had been a matter of years, not weeks, since he'd last played.
Adelman faces another less obvious challenge with Barea back in the lineup. When he's healthy, the team's best three guards – Barea, Ricky Rubio and Luke Ridnour – are small, which puts the team at a disadvantage against larger opponents. How Adelman will negotiate the three guards' minutes in those situations remains to be seen, and he'll have to find a balance between their talent and their lack of size.
"It's a domino effect," Adelman said. "I'm just going to have to play it by ear, and everybody's going to have to have some patience."
Webster, who had back surgery on Sept. 28, has a realistic view of what it's going to take to get him back to full-strength. When he entered the game against San Antonio last Friday, he had yet to even scrimmage for Adelman, and he's aware that he'll need more practice time to find his place.
Webster told Adelman that he's ready to go whenever the coach wants him, and he's averaged 22 minutes in the last three games after playing just six in his 2012 debut.
"The first step's there," Webster said. "The explosiveness is something that's going to come with repetition. That's something I can't get mad at because I can't control it."
Without a doubt, the team needs Barea and Webster. But what might come as the biggest surprise is the demand for 35-year-old Brad Miller. At the season's beginning, Miller being injured seemed like something of little concern; the team had Darko Milicic and Nikola Pekovic, two big men who could rack up minutes, and Miller's age and knee problems make it so he won't ever play the majority of a game. But with Milicic's recent injuries and illnesses – exactly what they are and how they limit him are murky – Miller's return came at the perfect time. With Pekovic playing the best basketball he's played since arriving in the NBA, there's less of a spot for Miller now, but having a veteran backup if Milicic continues down the path he's on will be crucial for Adelman and the Timberwolves.
Right now, Adelman still isn't at the point where he trusts the formerly injured players in clutch situations. Beasley may be the closest to earning that trust, but after streaky play early in the season, he still isn't there. Luckily, though, the initial "grit your teeth and put them in" phase is over. Now, Adelman must simply experiment and see where each player excels and struggles, and to what extent. Eventually, he'll make more permanent changes, but not yet.
"Someone's got to separate themselves to change things up," Adelman said. "One game, a guy does great; the next game, he doesn't. In my experience, once you start making changes, it goes the other direction."
For now, the Timberwolves should be happy with what they've added. Maybe injured players are rusty and still finding their footing, but they're still warm bodies, well conditioned and able to shoulder minutes. And while some players, most noticeably Anthony Tolliver and Anthony Randolph, seem to be cast aside in the process of re-assigning minutes, Adelman said that they too will have roles once this period of fluidity is over.
"It can limit guys' minutes in a good way," Love said of the influx of players. "It gives us different looks and helps our firepower."
For the first time all season, Adelman had a healthy scratch on Wednesday, when Randolph was relegated to street clothes on the bench. That's as encouraging a sign as any for this team, and though the process of figuring out where each player fits is nowhere near complete, at least Adelman has enough healthy players to again hold a somewhat normal practice – when there's time, that is.
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