Keep an Eye on Alexey Shved in the Olympics

Stateside, Alexey Shved is not yet a known quantity, but the Russian guard has averaged 15 points, 9.5 assists and 3.5 rebounds through two contests in this year's Olympic games, posting 16 points and 13 assists as his national team dominated Great Britain 95-65.

Alexey Shved cannot bother with your defense. (iamagm.com)

It is a small sample size, but something NBA fans would be wise to note. Shved is making the move from CSKA Moscow, Russia's premier basketball club, to the Minnesota Timberwolves when NBA action begins this fall.

At 6’6”, Shved has optimal height to play at either guard spot, though Ricky Rubio (assuming he fully recovers from the torn ACL he suffered last season) is entrenched as the Wolves’ starting point guard. That actually plays to the team’s advantage, since Shved plays mostly as a shooting guard, an unsettled position for the team in recent years. After shipping Wesley Johnson to thedesert, Minnesota is left with Malcolm Lee and the recently acquired, maybe-never-retired Brandon Roy to compete for the position.

A Washington Post profile mentioned general manager David Kahn’s intent to ease the 23 year old into NBA action, meaning Shved will learn from the bench. But Lee is not a starting-caliber player and head coach Rick Adelman will have to carefully manage Roy’s minutes due to his knee issues. So the possibility exists that Shved could make his way into the starting lineup in 2012-2013, much as Rubio began last season as a backup.

With starter’s minutes in Euroleague and CSKA play last season, Shved averaged 10.7 points and 3.1 assists per contest. With the T-Wolves, he’ll need to manage his turnovers (1.7 per game) and, ideally, make better shot selection from long range (40.6 percent from three) to earn the number of touches he’s seen in other leagues.

His weight could be another issue, with the WaPo profile pegging him at a rail-thin 160 pounds, while past measurements have put him in the 190-pound range.

That is the purpose of a simple entrance to pro basketball in America, though. Having gone undrafted two years ago, Shved improved his stock by patiently playing in his home country and showing up big in international contests. He is now set to join a playoff hopeful and could make sizable contributions for the Timberwolves. First, though, Shved is going to make all the noise he can for Russia in the Olympics.


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Report: T-Wolves to Offer Brandon Roy Two-Year Contract

For all of his questionable roster decisions, Minnesota Timberwolves GM David Kahn tentatively redeemed himself by bringing in Ricky Rubio to form a one-two punch with Kevin Love. 

In addition to acquiring Chase Budinger in a trade with the Houston Rockets on Tuesday morning, Kahn is now poised to take the first step in adding another veritable competitor, as ESPN Radio 1500 Minneapolis reported Monday night that the T-Wolves plan to offer Brandon Roy a two-year contract. 

Brandon Roy to Minnesota? (Getty Images/Jonathan Ferrey)

This comes less than two weeks after Roy took to his former college teammate’sTwitter account and announced his intention to return to the pro game. Roy retired prior to the 2011-2012 season due to degenerative knees.

Bringing Roy into the fold would give the Wolves a reliable scoring guard to compliment Love’s bucket-filling forward role. But it’s been well documented that the cartilage missing in Roy’s knees is not something that can be grown back or replaced.

Given starter’s minutes, Roy averaged 22.6 and 21.5 points per game as a Portland Trailblazer in ’08-’09 and ’09-’10, respectively. When it became obvious that Roy’s knees could not support 37 minutes each contest, he took a diminished role, posting an average of 12.2 points during his nightly 28 minutes on the floor in ’10-‘11. Productive, yes, but at a price – Roy played in only 47 games that season, sometimes on an every-other-night basis.

Another issue that could make the Wolves’ offer a dream rather than a reality is that Roy has also been tentatively linked to the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers, according to the New York Post's Peter Vecsey. Of the three, only one team can contend for a championship immediately, and no one could blame Roy if he committed himself to chasing a ring now, given his circumstances.

Due to the amnesty clause the Blazers used on him, Roy is not constrained by the rules applicable to other free agents. He can talk to teams at his leisure, and take his time in signing anywhere.

Minnesota does hold a couple links to Roy, though. Swingman Martell Webster shared a Portland jersey with him as recently as 2010, and Wolves assistant coach Bill Bayno is apparently the driving force behind convincing head coach Rick Adelman and Khan that Roy is worth the risk.

A year off means Roy's joints have had time to rest, even with the training he's been doing in his hometown of Seattle to get back into NBA shape. The story of an All-Star career being derailed by injury is already set in stone, but it hasn't written out the possibility of a postscript to retirement.


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