Joe Ingles is 38 and barely plays anymore. His NBA team brought him back this season for $5.4 million anyway
This article was originally published by basketball.com.au and is reproduced with permission
When Joe Ingles re-signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves in July, it caught people off guard.
His first season in Minnesota had appeared to not go to plan.
He had teamed up once again with former Utah Jazz teammates Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley, but while they led the team back to another Western Conference Finals, he barely played.
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On the eve of his first season in Minnesota, the roster shifted around him as All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns was sensationally traded to the New York Knicks for forward Julius Randle and guard Donte DiVincenzo, two players who would likely take up playing time from the veteran Australian.
Suddenly there was no room. Ingles, who came to Minnesota with expectations of a rotation role, found himself on the outside looking in. Most veterans in that position could have grown bitter. Could have complained. Could have become a problem in the locker room.
Joe Ingles takes the court for the Timberwolves before a game against his old team the Utah Jazz in April 2025. Getty
Instead, Ingles, 38, went the other direction.
"He was serving as a real veteran leader type of a guy," The Athletic's Timberwolves reporter, Jon Krawczynski, told basketball.com.au.
"A good voice in the locker room. He gives Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels and a lot of the young guys some really good guidance."
That acceptance of his diminished role and his ability to find value in it, is what convinced the Timberwolves to bring him back on a veteran minimum deal worth, in Australian athlete terms, a whopping $5.4 million.
Ingles is now effectively 15th of 15 on the roster for playing time, in many ways, a playing coach. He knows this and is at peace with it. And not only that, he's effective at it. He deploys different expertise to different players, tailored to what each person needs.
Superstar Anthony Edwards, a guard who respects basketball intelligence, will seek out Ingles for questions about specific game sequences, about what he's seeing on the court.
Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle celebrate Getty
"You'll often walk into the locker room after the game and Mike Conley will be talking to Ant about a certain sequence," Krawczynski said.
"Often times you'll see in games, Joe is one of the ones who goes up to Ant and just pulls him aside for seconds and tells him something he's noticing."
For Terrence Shannon Jr, a second-year player still learning how to be a professional, Ingles serves a different function entirely. Shannon sits next to Ingles in the locker room.
They share routines, pregame, postgame, practice protocols. Ingles is establishing ground rules, answering the daily questions that a young player navigates constantly. He's teaching Shannon not just basketball, but the craft of being an NBA player.
The wiry Jaden McDaniels gets defensive pointers. How to defend without fouling, scouting reports on the scorers he'll face, technical details deployed by Ingles who's been defending elite wings for years.
And then there's rookie Queenslander Rocco Zikarsky, making his own transition to the NBA. Ingles can speak to that specifically.
Rocco Zikarsky, then of the NBL's Brisbane Bullets, dunks. Getty
"He's now a very good resource for Rocco," Krawczynski said.
"As an Aussie who is making the transition to the NBA and trying to find his way. Joe can help him both on the court but also off the court, just being settled and finding life in the NBA."
This is what the Timberwolves saw when they decided to re-sign him to the veteran minimum this offseason.
Last season proved that Ingles could adapt to a role where playing time evaporated.
This season, the Timberwolves are testing whether that same flexibility extends to being a coach without the title, a mentor without guaranteed minutes, a veteran who's found a different way to matter.
"He really understands what they need from him," Krawczynski said.
"They need another coach on the bench. They need a voice in the locker room. He's not going to be grumbling behind the scenes or stirring the pot. He's going to be doing everything he can to help."
"They need someone who, if they have some injuries, if something happens in a game that they can go to him, and he'll be ready."
In the National Basketball Association, obsessed with individual scoring and stats, Ingles has discovered something rarer: a value that will never directly show up on the scoresheet.
