Player to Watch: Corey Brewer

FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.

Corey Brewer has not been a good NBA player. Taken seventh in the solid 2007 draft, Brewer joined a team in Minnesota desperately in need of quality on the perimeter. That the franchise spent its three highest picks in the recent 2009 draft on guards tells you that this problem has not been solved, by Brewer or anyone. Brewer played a bunch in his rookie season, failing to make a great impact on the floor, unless you consider being something between a calamity and a disaster on offense to be of great impact.

Billed as a potential stud defender, Brewer watched the effort around him lag, and his own energy can only do so much in the absence of expertise. Billed as a future Tayshaun Prince or Shawn Marion, Brewer has come off more like a devolutionary Joey Graham. It hasn't been exactly spectacular, right?

But there is hope.

And that hope, like it or not, comes with change. The wholesale brand of change David Kahn and Kurt Rambis have brought to Minnesota. To wit:

* Minnesota has had the worst guard line-up in the league over Brewer's career. Brewer missed most of 2008-09 with an injury, but nonetheless, here is a list of the NBA guards he has had the pleasure of sharing the court with: Marko Jaric, Sebastian Telfair, Kirk Snyder, Randy Foye, Greg Buckner, The Artist Formerly Known as Mike Miller, Rashad McCants and Kevin Ollie. This season, exactly zero of those players are expected to start anywhere in the league. Only three (Miller, Foye, Telfair) are expected to be legitimate rotation players, and only five of the seven have jobs (that includes Ollie, who inexplicably received a guaranteed one-year deal). That is a truly awful guard line-up.

Not only does it matter because there's been no one of suitable talent to get the ball to Brewer for easy baskets over the life of his NBA career, but also because a lack of stability in the backcourt clouds everything that happens on the floor. Team defense needs stability. Team-oriented offense needs talent, yes, but also stability in the backcourt. The Minnesota guards have been able to do nothing but feed Al Jefferson over the past two years. And while that's a noble duty, Brewer is the type of player who desperately needs help getting off his shot. Ramon Sessions and Jonny Flynn figure to be a big boon for that.

* Of course, even if Sessions and Flynn are able to feed Brewer, he hasn't been a particularly elegant scorer. In fact, as the chart to the right shows, he has been so dreadful that in 2007-08, his rookie season, Brewer was objectively the least efficient scorer in the league, with an effective field goal percentage worse than noted clankers Ben Wallace (then with Cleveland), Brevin Knight, defensive specialist Quinton Ross and he, Yes He, the one and only Larry Hughes.

Again, there's good news on this tip. First, Brewer was a rookie. It isn't as if he has some history of woeful inefficiency like Hughes or Wallace. Despite what Derrick Rose would have you believe, most rookie perimeter players struggle to adjust to the bigger-faster-better-stronger NBA. Brewer was no exception.

The real issue going forward is that, despite being a horrid jump shooter, Brewer took a ton of jump shots as a rookie -- some 68% of all his field goals attempts came from the perimeter. (He had an eFG% of .323 on those jumpers. Egads.) That's too many for most small forwards, let alone long small forwards with quick first steps and shaky jumpers. I dare say Brewer and his coaches identified that as a problem, and before the injury took 80% Brewer's 2008-09 season, the forward did attack the rim more, taking only 61% of his FGAs away from the hoop. Progress!

Unless he developed a jumper over the summer, he needs to be closer to 50%, not just avoid to avoid the incessant sound of clanking (Advil ain't cheap!) but to also use his tools properly. Fortunately, as a part of the regime change in Minneapolis, Rambis has insisted that this team will run more. Jefferson has slimmed down substantially, Flynn can fly, and to be honest I'm excited to see what Brewer can do in a Marionesque transition role. The Wolves have been middle of the pack in pace the last few seasons; while Telfair is quick, a lack of stability and ... well, energy, to be honest, and a focus on Big Al in the post has stunted any attempt at up-tempo play. Rambis seems committed to running, and that can only mean good things for Brewer.

* Where Brewer will make his name, though, is defense -- hence the Marion/Prince comps. Brewer has shown more promise here, as the team has been better defensively with Brewer on the floor. Honestly, there's only so much he can do so long as the Jefferson/Kevin Love duo fails to defend the paint sensibly. But the defensive improvement in the backcourt -- Telfair was tiny, Foye is limited defensively, and Miller was quite lethargic all last season -- can help, and it's not insane to think this team could end up in the middle of the pack on defense. That requires big things from Brewer, especially in the passing lanes. If Rambis imports his flood defense from the Lakers -- a defense led by another Brewer hologram, Trevor Ariza -- our protagonist could very well boost his steal rate and by extension improve the team's transition game, which of course helps his own offense.

It's all a lot of ifs and maybes, but hope springs eternal for the bright eyes of the league. Tell me you don't want to believe in this kid's future.