One-season wonders: Minnesota Timberwolves

Whether it’s Who Let the Dogs Out or the Safety Dance, everybody loves a one-hit wonder.

Well, one-hit wonders aren’t just for the music industry. The Minnesota Timberwolves have also had plenty of players who had a productive single season with the team.

Here are the best of the bunch:

Derrick Rose

Rose was no longer in MVP form when he was with the Timberwolves, but there were plenty of times he flashed his talents. The 2011 NBA MVP signed with Minnesota in March of 2018 after he was traded from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Utah Jazz and subsequently waived by the Jazz.

Rose was not on the team for long in 2018 but had one of his better NBA seasons with the Timberwolves in the 2018-19 campaign. He scored 18 points a game, shot 48.2% from the field and hit 37% of his 3-point attempts, which is the best mark of his career.

Jamal Crawford

The three-time NBA Sixth Man Award winner spent the 2017-18 season in Minnesota. Crawford did not have his best season with the Timberwolves, but he played 80 games and averaged 10.3 points per game. Not bad, especially considering he was 37 years old at the time.

Jimmy Butler

Butler’s time in Minnesota was memorable, even if he was only with the organization for just over one season. After he was traded to the Timberwolves from the Chicago Bulls in 2017, Butler was a key presence on the 2017-18 team which went 47-35 and got the eighth seed in the Western Conference playoffs. He averaged 22.2 points, 4.9 assists, 5.3 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game that season.

Butler played in 10 games the next season before getting traded to the Philadelphia 76ers after a particularly testy practice in Minnesota.

Gary Neal

We may remember Neal more for his time on the San Antonio Spurs, but the journeyman point guard made an 11-game pit stop in Minnesota at the end of the 2014-15 season. Neal was by

no means spectacular with the Timberwolves but managed to score 11.8 points per game and shoot 35.5% from long range.

Andrei Kirilenko

Kirilenko only spent one season in Minnesota but it was a good one. Kirilenko, otherwise known as AK-47, played for the Timberwolves in the 2012-13 season. While he was in the late stages of his career, it was one of his best years in the NBA. Kirilenko averaged 12.4 points per game (his most since 2006), shot 50.7% from the field and had 1.5 steals per game with the Timberwolves.

Michael Beasley

A casualty of the Miami Heat’s big three, Beasley was traded to Minnesota in 2010. His first year in the Twin Cities was a success, as Beasley scored 19.2 points per game in 2010-11, which ranked in the top 20 in the NBA that year and was far and away the best scoring season of his career. Beasley was on the Timberwolves the next season, but his scoring dropped down to 11.5 points per game.

Jonny Flynn

Flynn was on the Timberwolves for more than one season, but since his career was altered due to hip surgery after his rookie year in 2010, he is included in this list.

The former Syracuse standout was selected by Minnesota with the sixth pick in the 2009 draft and lived up to his draft status as a rookie. In the 2009-10 season, Flynn averaged 13.5 points and 4.4 assists per game and shot a respectable 35.8% from 3-point land. Those efforts were good enough for him to make the second-team NBA All-Rookie squad, but his career was never the same after that.

Doug West

West spent nine years of his NBA career with the Timberwolves but makes this list because of his 1992-93 season that was easily his best as a pro. West scored 19.3 points per game with a 51.7% shooting mark as a 25-year-old that season. Since West had 9.6 points per game average for his career, the 1992-93 season clearly stands out above the rest.