Chris Finch's Biggest Timberwolves Task as Season Begins

As if Minnesota Timberwolves' head coach Chris Finch's job didn't already begin in June when they traded for LaMelo Ball, it really begins on Wednesday evening.

With the Wolves' season opener in the on-deck circle, the exhibition days are over. For fans, the real basketball games start. For players, the stats start counting. And for Finch, gone will be the days of playing 15 players and seeing what you have on the end of the bench.

For Finch, the single biggest challenge that awaits him with the regular season underway over the first stretch of games will be finding the right combinations of players and appropriate cross pollinations between starters and players off the bench in order to not only win in the regular season, but understand what he can get to in the postseason.

Finch has faced this challenge before

In Rudy Gobert's first season in Minnesota after a monumental trade, it took almost an entire season and a trade for Mike Conley in order for that to come into place. When Julius Randle got to Minnesota, it took until after the all-star break for Finch to strike the right notes.

But this season projects to be slightly different. Gone is one of the frontcourt equalizers that were at his disposal for the last six seasons in Naz Reid. Randle is no longer. The dropoff in the frontcourt now exists between Gobert and second-year player Joan Beringer. Last season, the Wolves had a 5.5 net rating with Gobert on the floor, and a .33 net rating with him off of it. The contrast in defensive rating was even more stark (109 with him on the floor, 119 with him off of it). The problem won't be the starting or closing group; that one is set.

But what happens with Beringer on the floor? Will LaMelo Ball and Anthony Edwards stagger, with Ball spending his time dishing the ball to the young French big man? It would surely leave a gap in maximizing Gobert on the offensive end, and Edwards' tendency to avoid throwing lobs and spend his time breaking down defenders in isolation also doesn't jive incredibly well with a bench unit that is already ball dominant in Ayo Dosunmu, Bones Hyland, and Terrence Shannon Jr. It's not exactly a one for one in substituting "Ant and the bench players" or "LaMelo and Beringer". But how the backcourt running mates are staggered in order to find combinations that work will be extremely intriguing.

Kuminga and Lyles add two more variables

What about Jonathan Kuminga? Could he be someone that finds success alongside a group of bench players willing to run and yield offense to a player that still likes his fair share of isolation? Kuminga won't see that running with the starters, and will have no choice but to be a glue player with the first unit. But he still has a contract to go win heading into this offseason, and will look to put improvements in that area on tape.

And Trey Lyles? Perhaps the wild card of the group in terms of playing time, it sure seems as though he'll see semi-consistent minutes as a high-IQ veteran in the rotation. His off-ball movement is excellent, and as long as he's hitting jumpshots is an ideal complement to a ball-dominant group. But which of them will he find himself most comfortable in the middle of games?

The sheer amount of moving parts to this team is asinine - and almost all of it is new. Sure, Finch used some of the preseason to get a feel for some of the directions he could go, but it's not the regular season, and the closers on this team have yet to close actual games. The whole coaching staff has a tall task ahead of them - but it's nothing they aren't used to. It just may have to take a little less time than it has in the past.

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