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Timberwolves Sign Arinze Onuako to 10-Day Contract

The Timberwolves have signed one last emergency ten-day contract player from the D-League for the last six games of the season, power forward Arinze Onuako of the Canton Charge.

By David Naylor

There's something delightfully ironic about signing a ten-day contract when there are nine calendar days left in the season. Jon Krawczynski of the Associated Press has reported that the Timberwolves are signing Arinze Onuako to one last ten-day contract for the year.

Onuako is a 6'9", 275lb. power forward in his second season out of Syracuse. He went undrafted, and was signed by the New Orleans Pelicans in 2013.  He appeared in five NBA games in 2013-14 for a total of 30 minutes for New Orleans and Cleveland. He's spent most of his time with Canton in the D-League both last season and this season, and has gotten significant time this year. In 41 games in 2014-15, he's averaging 17.5 points and 12.2 rebounds on 62.2% shooting in 34.6 minutes per game. Other at-a-glance things from his stat line: He's an abysmal free throw shooter, shooting under 50%. His offensive rebounding is strong, with his 4.4 per game 6th in the D-League (his 12.2 overall is also 6th; only two of the players above him have played in more than ten games this season in each category). He had 31 double-doubles in his 41 games.

Onuako shot chart

http://stats.nbadleague.com/playerShotchart.html?PlayerID=202620

The shot chart is pretty clear: he's taken 14 shots total outside of the restricted area the entire season. He works at the basket.

This looks like a pretty big bummer for the Charge, who start the D-League playoffs later this week as the 3 seed in the East. Onuako was their leading scorer in the regular season. How he'll react to time in the NBA, we'll have to see, but it will be good to have someone working close to the basket and looking for rebounds. If you follow the D-League more closely than I do, feel free to fill in more blanks in the comments.

One final thought: assuming Onuako plays at some point over these last six games, which seems likely, he will be the 25th (!) different player to play in a Timberwolves uniform this season, and the fifth different ten-day candidate (Jeff Adrien, Miroslav Radjulica, Lorenzo Brown, Sean Kilpatrick).