Lakers News: How Ex-Timberwolves Can Be Key To Beating Minnesota

Expert weighs in on how new Lakers can help fend off their old team.

Your Los Angeles Lakers are a totally new beast than they were at the start of the season. In large part, that's because team vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka made a series of excellent trades midway through the year. New additions D'Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt, Malik Beasley, Rui Hachimura and Mo Bamba have all, to varying degrees, really helped balance out LA's depth and skillsets on both sides of the ball.

After adding Russell, Vanderbilt, Beasley and Bamba, LA went 18-8 down the home stretch of its regular season, to finish with a decent record of 42-39 that doesn't quite depict just how good this team is actually looking of late.

As Mark Medina of The Sporting News writes, three of these new LA players find themselves in a fairly unique position this season. Russell, Vanderbilt and Beasley were all key players on a seventh-seeded, 46-36 2021-22 Minnesota Timberwolves team that itself won its play-in game and lost a hard-fought six-game first round playoff series against the Memphis Grizzlies. 

Medina reveals that, in the build-up to the Lakers' impending play-in game against Minnesota this year, the team's coaching staff has been calling on that triumvirate's expertise to help prep for this opponent.

“They were very vocal; I’ll just leave it at that,” head coach Darvin Ham noted of the ex-Timberwolves.

Now-Lakers starting power forward Jarred Vanderbilt, whom Minny flipped to the Utah Jazz last summer before he was traded again to the Lakers in February, seemed positively psyched to face off against his old team.

“Honestly I don’t think we could script it any better,” Jarred Vanderbilt said of the matchup. “I know those [Timberwolves] guys personally and their tendencies,” Vanderbilt said. “I’m helping these [Lakers] guys with scouting, figuring out their game plan and how they operate. It’s much easier, especially since I got a couple of guys with me that have also been in that system and played with those guys.”

Of the three ex-Timberwolves, Anthony Davis noted that “they’re a big reason why we are today.”

“They came in and hit the ground running," Ham said of the new pieces. "A lot of times with the attention that LeBron and AD [draw], it makes for an easier transition for these guys in terms of offense and finding their way.”

All three have thrived with their new team. And all three seem eager to exact some level of vengeance.

The winner of tonight's matchup will go on to face the 51-31 Memphis Grizzlies this weekend. Memphis of course is another club that's been beset by injuries at exactly the wrong time, and will be missing starting center Steven Adams and Brandon Clarke for the duration of the postseason.

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