BBNBA Season in Review: Jarred Vanderbilt

Jarred Vanderbilt flies under the radar as far as former Kentucky players, but the third-year forward is carving out a nice role for himself alongside Karl-Anthony Towns on the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Here’s how Vanderbilt’s 2021 season went and where he’ll go from here.

Numbers

Regular season averages (per game): 5.4 points, 5.8 rebounds, 1.2 assists, 1 steal, 0.7 blocks

Shooting splits: 60.6% FG, 55.9% FT, 20% 3p

More (extra & interesting) stats:

• Career-highs across the board
• Played more games in 2021 than previous seasons combined
• Started 30 games
• Played 17.8 minutes per game

This past season

In another miserable year for the T-Wolves, at least Jarred Vanderbilt had a positive season of development. Vando appeared in 17 games as a rookie, just 11 for two different teams in 2020, but in the 2020-21 season, he appeared in 64 of 72 games and played nearly 18 minutes per game.

How did he earn the minutes? Not with offense or shooting. Vanderbilt is above average in just a handful of categories: athleticism, defense and rebounding — but great enough in those three areas that it makes up for the lack of impact offensively.

He’s also extremely versatile. Vanderbilt played two-thirds of his minutes as a rookie at the small forward position and didn’t play a single minute at center, then slid down the lineup and was a 4/5 combo player in the past two seasons, playing more center in 2021 than ever before.

On any team without a stud center like Karl-Anthony Towns, Vando is likely deployed at the five full-time. But since he’s often paired with a 7-footer that averaged 25 points and hit 122 threes, he can get by as a foil to KAT that provides solid defense and rebounding without much offense.

Looking ahead…

Who knows what young players will and won’t stick in the messy Minnesota situation. The franchise has been stuck in a hamster wheel of roster and front office turnover and is as lost today as they’ve ever been. They also just lost their protected pick to Golden State in the lottery draw to throw fuel on the dumpster fire.

Vanderbilt could take another step up in playing time as he develops as the yin to Towns’ yang, or he could be cut or traded in a matter of months and end up in a completely new situation next season. My hope is for consistency, that he stays put and continues to prove he can be productive alongside the core Minnesota has already built.

Just as the NBA will always value a shooter, teams also value guys like Vanderbilt: athletic freaks that grab offensive rebounds and get stops defensively.

Vanderbilt took his biggest step forward in year three, and he could take a bigger one in year four if Minnesota can find its own consistency on and off the basketball court.