Has Naz Reid reached his limit?

Naz Reid can do no wrong in Minnesota. During his first five seasons in the NBA, the 25-year-old went from an overweight, undersized and undrafted center to a local folk hero and sixth man of the year on a championship-contending team. It's hard to imagine his NBA career getting any better than it already has, but Reid has built his career on improving his game each season.

As the most anticipated season in Minnesota Timberwolves history approaches, the team hopes to take the final step toward becoming its first NBA champion, thanks largely to internal improvements. That improvement has to come from young players like Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, Reid and whatever Rob Dillingham can provide in his rookie season. Reid enters his sixth season with an entire state behind him. Can he continue his rise and become a true NBA star? Or has he reached his limits with his great play last season?

Reid is already a standout NBA player. I don’t need to remind Timberwolves fans of that. En route to winning the Sixth Man of the Year award, Big Jelly averaged career highs in points (13.5), rebounds (5.2), assists (1.3), minutes (24.2) and three-pointers -Shot rate (41.4 percent). He has developed into one of the most talented big men in the league. Reid worked his ass off to lose weight and get faster. Since entering the league in 2019, he has improved his defense significantly. Reid's nice handles and quick first step make him particularly slippery at 6'3″ and 264 pounds.

He's coming off his best season ever and it's fair to wonder whether Wolves fans can expect him to continue to rise or whether he's close to his talent plateau. The best argument for continuing his steady progress is what he does when the Wolves ask him to start instead of playing behind Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert. In 14 starts last season, Reid averaged 17.6 points, seven rebounds and 2.1 assists in 29.3 minutes per game while shooting an impressive 42.3 percent in three starts in those starts.

Minnesota went 10-4 in those games and rarely missed a goal as Reid replaced the injured Towns late in the season. Reid has the skills and size to average 20 points and eight rebounds if he gets regular starting minutes, somewhere between 32 and 34 per game. He has shown that his effectiveness does not decrease as his role expands. He has also improved his defense enough, as he showed when facing Nikola Jokic in the second round, that Chris Finch could afford to play starting minutes without any noticeable defensive weakness.

Reid's shooting is the reason he may be closer to his ceiling than some Wolves fans would like to admit. Reid was a 34.4 percent three-point shooter in his career before going all out last season. At 41.4 percent, his three-point percentage last season was 6.3 percentage points higher than his previous best (35.1 percent for those who can't do the math).

Unless he can oust teammate KAT, who shot 41.6 percent from three last year and 39.8 percent for his career as his all-time best shooter, Reid is likely at the limit of his outside shooting. He has a career free throw rate of 71.7 percent, which suggests he doesn't have the natural shooting style to sustain a Steph Curry-level long-distance run for the rest of his career. If he falls back near the league average of around 36 percent, that would take points away from him and force Reid to become more efficient elsewhere to keep his points where he is off the bench.

Reid was mostly good in his first extended playoff run last season, but some inconsistencies stood out. His seven three-pointers almost saved the Wolves in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals against the Dallas Mavericks, which they lost. However, against the Phoenix Suns, Denver Nuggets and Mavericks, Reid's jumper largely failed. He shot 36.2 percent from three in the playoffs. However, if you take out the amazing 7 for 9 performance, that drops to 30 percent (18 out of 60). The sample size is small against the league's toughest competition, but Reid needs to find playoff consistency if he wants to raise his ceiling.

Reid is already a top 100 player in the NBA and is a key reason the Timberwolves have the sixth-best odds to win the 2025 NBA Championship. He's already improved his game by leaps and bounds since his rookie year, and everyone should be happy with the career he's already built for himself. Whether he reaches his ceiling is up to Reid and Finch.

But no matter how good things get, Naz Reid will always be popular in Minnesota.