Posted on by

Timberwolves’ Luka Garza is making his mark, but will it impact playing time?

Timberwolves’ Luka Garza is making his mark, but will it impact playing time?

Luka Garza knew he still had a chance. A small twist of fate helped bring it to him.

When the Minnesota Lynx reached the WNBA Finals, there was a scheduling conflict with the Timberwolves at Target Center. Game 4 of the best-of-five series is scheduled for Friday night in Minnesota, the same day the Timberwolves were scheduled to face the Denver Nuggets in their fifth and final preseason game.

The Wolves and Nuggets upped their game by a day to accommodate the Lynx and New York Liberty. That meant the Wolves would play a rare back-to-back preseason, including a game at Chicago on Wednesday night followed by the game against the Nuggets on Thursday.

If the Wolves had had a rest day between games, it’s conceivable that coach Chris Finch would have played his starters quite often, allowing them to continue to work on chemistry with newly signed Julius Randle, who sat out the first three games of the preseason, before taking on the Bulls.

Since they were playing back-to-back games, Finch decided to rest all nine of the Wolves’ top rotation players, including their three standout big men (Randle, Rudy Gobert and Naz Reid). With no one in front of him for one of the few times in Minnesota, Garza was in the starting lineup against Denver. He knew big moments were coming, which meant another opportunity to prove that, yes, him Was so good.

“I know how rare opportunities like this are, especially this one. And a chance to play and compete against the best player in the world,” Garza said. “It’s a great opportunity. So I wanted to go out there and do everything I could do, stay present, stay in the moment and not let it go to waste.”

If there’s one thing Garza has done in his basketball career, it’s make sure he takes advantage of the opportunity. He scored 29 points on 11 of 17 shooting, hit three 3-pointers and grabbed nine rebounds in nearly 33 minutes against reigning NBA MVP Nikola Jokić. The Wolves lost 132-126, but considering Denver played its top eight players for nearly three quarters, it was a solid performance.

Jokić didn’t seem to take the game too seriously. He took just one shot in the 18 minutes of the first half and switched defenses about every five possessions.

This is where a player like Garza can do damage. Old heads around the league like to say that playing hard is a skill. Garza’s hunger for a chance faded within minutes of the game starting, and when he faced his favorite player, he was seething.

That’s the only way he knows how to do it, and it started as a child growing up in the Washington, DC area. Garza would try to attend neighborhood games, but skeptical teammates would stare at the big, lumbering white boy and exclude him. So Garza realized that if he wanted to get his hands on the ball, he had to get it himself.

“I had to find a way to get the ball and it went over the glass,” Garza said. “And I think that’s where I started.”

The work he did with his father, Frank, helped him become national player of the year in college at Iowa. He still fell to the second round (No. 52 overall) of the 2021 NBA Draft. He spent one season with the Detroit Pistons and is now in his third season with the Timberwolves. The first two were spent behind one of the best big man rotations in the league, with Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns starting in the frontcourt and NBA Sixth Man of the Year Naz Reid coming off the bench. This gave Garza 122 minutes last season.

Any time he spent with the Wolves’ G League affiliate in Iowa resulted in him dominating at a level that almost seemed unfair.

In nine games with Iowa in the 2022-23 season, Garza averaged 29.8 points, 9.2 rebounds and shot 50 percent from deep. He played three games there last season and scored 36.7 points in 36.0 minutes per game and 12.3 rebounds per game.

He’s shown he’s too good for this level, and now it’s time for him to prove he’s capable of joining an NBA rotation. Garza had his moments in the league, scoring 20 points in a game three times as a rookie, two with the Pistons and one with the Timberwolves after he was traded. He scored 25 points in a win over Utah in his sophomore season and had 11 points and six rebounds in emergency duty last season while Gobert and Towns were both out.

“He gives you everything he has,” Finch said. “He has a lot of game, fights, takes attacks, defends people, fights. I thought he was really good tonight.”

There’s a scenario this season where Garza isn’t just a player who breaks glass in an emergency.

The Wolves traded Towns to the Knicks just before the start of training camp, dramatically changing the look of their team. Gone is the unconventional two-big starting five with Towns and Gobert next to each other. Randle has taken KAT’s place in the starting lineup (and in the locker room, moving into Towns’ old locker), but is a much more conventional power forward. He’s smaller but stronger than KAT and fits the traditional power forward position, which the Timberwolves didn’t have in their starting group last season.

Last season, Towns started at power forward and then became the backup center for Gobert with the second unit. With Towns heading to New York this season, the Wolves will have to be more creative in using minutes at center when Gobert takes a break. Maybe Reid will play a bit there, although he seems to have settled in more at the 4 and has even shown some ability to play as a small forward. Maybe Randle gets a lot of those minutes in a small-ball lineup.

Or maybe Garza can earn a few of those minutes on certain nights. The path is much clearer for him this season and he has also spent the whole summer preparing for it. He has worked tirelessly on his defense, long considered the biggest flaw keeping him from playing NBA rotation minutes. He has also worked on losing weight and gaining muscle to increase his foot speed and quickness.

With so much talent in front of him, Garza can’t afford to slow down even after the KAT trade.

“When you play in this league, you kind of see that the margin for error, especially in the bottom half of the roster, is so small,” Garza said. “There are so many players who are incredibly talented. (Some) don’t make it because they can’t handle the stress or can’t come every day with the same consistent attitude and approach. And for me it comes naturally.”

Those habits are already making an impression on Rob Dillingham, Minnesota’s 19-year-old rookie point guard.

“Luka is crazy because you watch Luka work every day and then he comes in and works the same way,” Dillingham said. “He may not get a chance in every game, but he is always ready. It just shows up in everyone from the weight room to the gym. Just watching him makes you want to play with him because you know he’s been working.”

There will still be obstacles in his way. How he handles defense is a work in progress. Finch joked early in the preseason that he would like to see Garza, an aggressive shooter, pass the ball.

There doesn’t appear to be a regular rotation spot for him on one of the league’s deepest teams at this point. Finch said he will play 10 players to start the season, and it appears Garza, Dillingham and Josh Minott are currently competing for the 11th spot.

That’s what made Thursday night so important for Garza. He knows he’s on the outside of the rotation right now. He knows there is still a lot to do. And so he will do what he has always done. He’ll just keep going.

“There is still more to do. You have to work until it’s undeniable,” Garza said. “And it’s not at that level yet. And I know that and I understand that. And that’s exactly the mindset now.”

(Photo by Garza: Jordan Johnson/NBAE via Getty Images)