The New-Look Wolves: The Curious Case of Mark Blount

Out of the current Timberwolves, no one is likely to cause the fans more aggravation in the upcoming season than Mark Blount. The reason is quite simple: of the 7 players on the team that can be considered prospects for the teams, they break down like so: 2 point guards (Foye and Telfair), two shooting guards (Green and McCants), a small forward (Brewer), and a two power forwards (Gomes and Smith). So not only do the Wolves not have an up and coming center, but Chris Richard is their tallest of the prospects in camp (6’9”), and almost certain to be cut from the 15 man squad. This is a problem, as their other two ppssible centers for this season are the Contract Formerly Know As Theo Ratliff and Al Jefferson. Ratliff can be a decent backup, but unless the Timberwolves plan to keep Jefferson on the court for every minute of every game, he’s going to be paired with Smith, Gomes, Mark Madsen, or Juwan Howard. There’s potential for this combination to get horribly abused by any front two that consists of even average players.

If you were to make a list of Timberwolves that need to be traded, Blount would definitely be number one. I’d say with a bullet, but this has been the case since about halfway through last season. He’s certainly disgruntled, and hasn’t been doing anything for the Wolves besides scoring in bunches. He also makes $7 million a year, which is more than any team is willing to put out for a seven foot jump shooting center. If he was a small forward he’d be the anti-Bruce Bowen and would probably have some value on the trade market, but he’s a center, which is a position where teams look at more than just points per game. And so the Timberwolves are stuck with him, despite deleterious effects he could have on both the team’s and the fans’ morale.

The problem with Blount seems to stem from his apathy about the game. He’s 7 feet tall, not unathletic, and can definitely score, but he’s not interested in playing when he doesn’t have the ball. The thing is, there was a time when he used to care.

Season	PTS/FG	DRB/48	STL/48	BLK/48	TO/48	PTS/48	TO%
2000-01	1.01	5.86	1.71	3.32	2.71	10.84	19.19%
2001-02	0.84	6.82	1.85	2.20	2.66	10.87	18.36%
2002-03	0.86	6.74	1.44	2.33	3.52	13.72	18.16%
2003-04	1.13	7.63	1.60	2.12	3.00	16.85	16.19%
2004-05	1.06	5.72	0.74	1.44	3.56	17.38	16.17%
2005-06	1.02	5.76	0.86	1.63	4.16	19.59	17.25%
2006-07	1.03	6.96	0.81	1.09	3.00	19.06	13.82%
Fall 2000-Spring 2004	1.02	6.97	1.60	2.43	3.05	14.32	17.41%

The only positive from these stats are that Blount has figured out how to cut down his turnovers from horrifying to merely average (starting centers average 13.67%, centers in general 13.99%) as a percentage percent of possessions. The rest shows a player who entered the league with a strong number of blocks and steals, but gradually gave up on trying defensively in favor of putting up solid jump shot numbers.

How do we know he gave defensively? Well, I don’t feel entirely comfortable with advanced defensive measures from Dean Oliver or John Hollinger, so I’m simply going to look at the rebounds, steals, and blocks. And while they barely tell any part of the defensive story, some value can be squeezed from them. In Blount’s case, we can approach them the same way astronomers approach dark matter; the overall drop in the numbers imply that Blount’s effort on defense has dropped since he came into the league.

Now for the fun task of reversing course a bit: Mark Blount isn’t that bad. He’s certainly not a star, and he shouldn’t start, but he knows how to make jumpers, and would be an acceptable scoring option for the second squad. Of course, there’s no way the Timberwolves can move a backup making $21 million the next three years, meaning that he’s going to be taking valuable cap space during that time. But if the Wolves give him starter’s minutes, his terrible defense is going to end up costing them (not to mention that every minute plays at center is a minute Al Jefferson spends at power forward, depriving Gomes and Smith of playing time). My suggestion would be to put him in as a starter for the first month or so and make sure he scores at least 20 points game; follow up by shopping him around the leaguer as a scoring center. In the meantime he’s making money the Timberwolves could spend on Jefferson, he’s taking up time (and roster space) that younger (and probably better) players could use, and his sideline attitude is poor at best. And even though I expect to see Blount in a Timberwolves jersey the rest of the year, I hope that they can trade him by the beginning of next season. After all, there’s someone out there who needs a small forward trapped in a center’s body, right?

-The stats are based on Mark Blount's stats page at http://www.basketball-reference.com/