National Basketball Association

Wolves player profile: Chase Budinger

Published Oct. 3, 2014 2:00 p.m. ET

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This is the eighth installment in a 15-part series running Tuesdays and Fridays profiling each Minnesota Timberwolves player leading up to the start of the NBA season.

For those who think a bounce in one's step is purely mental, take a look at the two Chase Budingers.

The Chase that Timberwolves fans have become familiar with is one who's either behind the bench in a suit jacket and polo or sloshing his way through games on a bum knee. But the one that Minnesota coveted when it traded a 2012 first-round draft pick for Budinger flies around the court with ease, knocking down 3-pointers and even getting to the rim on occasion.

For really the first time since Budinger joined the Wolves in 2012, the fully healthy Chase is back. This week at training camp in Mankato, he's looked like the Budinger of old, the one who made 40 percent of his 3s in 2011-12, his last year in Houston.

His role with the new-look Wolves isn't yet defined. But at least his legs are allowing him to step into one.

2013-14 stats: 6.7 PPG, 39.4 FG %, 35 3-point FG %, 2.5 RPG, 82.1 FT %, 0.8 APG, 0.5 SPG during 18.3 MPG in 41 games

2014-15 salary: $5,000,000

Last year: The media guide says Budinger played half the season last year. An esoteric look at his fifth NBA campaign suggests otherwise.

After a happy re-signing with Minnesota -- Budinger took less than other teams had offered in order to stick with coach Rick Adelman -- the 6-foot-7, 218-pound wing showed up for pre-training-camp practices ready to put behind him the torn meniscus that cost him 59 games the previous year. Instead, he damaged the same cartilage in the same knee and required another operation.

Dr. James Andrews scoped his knee for the second time in a year and this time removed part of the meniscus in question. Budinger spent the first month of the season in Pensacola, Fla. rehabbing. Budinger didn't join the lineup until Jan. 8.

In the 41 games he did play, he wasn't the same Chase. He couldn't get enough lift on his shots, couldn't move well enough to hamper his defensive charge and didn't have enough confidence in his knee to attack the basket.

As a result, he averaged career lows in minutes, shooting and scoring. Then, in a cruel twist to an already aggravating tale, Budinger sprained his right ankle April 5 and missed the season's final six games.

The night before, he'd scored a Timberwolves career-high 24 points in a victory over Miami.

This year: That's all behind the mild-mannered San Diego resident now, he said ahead of training camp. Both knees and his ankle are fully healthy following an offseason that featured early rest, some work with the Wolves' summer league contingent -- though Budinger didn't play in Las Vegas -- and one-on-one tutelage from recently hired Minnesota shooting coach Mike Penberthy.

Perhaps most important, Budinger's confidence is back.

During the tail-end moments of practice that media members have been allowed to watch, and in Monday night's "Dunks After Dark" event in Mankato, Budinger hasn't displayed any stiffness in his shot. He's getting to the rim and finishing.

No hesitation and no feeling like his legs are in cement like he did last year.

What that means for his place with the 2014-15 Wolves is still ambiguous. Budinger finds himself amid a glut of swingmen that includes returning starters Kevin Martin and Corey Brewer and 2014 No. 1 overall pick Andrew Wiggins.

Budinger's best chance to see the floor, aside from being healthy, is maintaining his status as perhaps the team's best pure shooter. For all of its athleticism, Minnesota is short on knockdown jump shooters.

When his knees aren't failing him, that happens to be Budinger's specialty.

Quotable: "I'm really excited about this training camp since I haven't been in one for two years. . . . I've only showed little tiny glimpses of my game here. It's been a rough, rough time since I've been in Minnesota just with the injuries -- that's not how I play. Hopefully this year will be the year that I can really show this town and this team how good of a player I am." -- Budinger at the Timberwolves' media day

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