There’s a certain cadence to discussing the two cornerstones of the Timberwolves. Even within their own locker room, teammates discuss “Andrew and Karl” or “Towns and Wigs” or simply “those two.” Consecutive No. 1 picks emergent. Bedrocks to make any franchise envy. The future of Minnesota basketball.

The tone shifts up a register, then, to “but Zach LaVine” — the “but” almost seems attached at times — with a sort of incredulity, like, “Don’t forget Zach LaVine.” Everyone wants to let you in on the secret. That guy who won those dunk contests, man, he can play. He can play, too.

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“The first thing you see is the athletic ability,” Timberwolves rookie Kris Dunn said last week in Charlotte, N.C. “He can jump out the roof. But then it’s his shooting ability. Not only does it look good, but he can make shots. He can make difficult shots look easy.”

LaVine makes everything look easy. Here is this wiry 6-6 guard with the sharp chin and the hands seemingly stationed on hips at every break in action. Then the ball comes to him, and he’s using an inside-out dribble to find space for a jumper or slashing off a screen for a thundering dunk or nodding his defender off with a fake pass. The best leaper in the NBA might also be one of the league’s 10 best shooters. And he can even dribble (and maybe defend; we’ll get to that). This is a scary combination.

Yet he’s the third wheel. Heck, maybe the fourth, with coach Tom Thibodeau generating as much excitement in the Twin Cities as Towns or Wiggins. LaVine enters his third NBA season as a favorite for Most Improved Player and a player known throughout the league, if only for his dunks. Yet he also remains in the shadows. The Timberwolves have added three significantly higher draft picks — Wiggins, Towns and Dunn — since drafting LaVine 13th overall in the 2014 NBA Draft.

“We all love Zach. I think he’s more popular than me and Wigs combined, just for the fact that he’s won two slam dunk contests in a row,” Towns said. “But Zach’s a pivotal piece of the team. The way he shoots the ball and makes highly contested shots, it helps us tremendously, especially with his 3-point range. Zach’s one of the players who we're tremendously lucky to have as an athlete and as a shooter.”

Sporting News spoke with LaVine, a half-dozen of his teammates, Thibodeau and several opponents about the Seattle-native shooting guard. The consensus is simple: This guy could be so good. And we’re at the point where that potential no longer seems like some far-off hypothetical. The Timberwolves are a team on the rise, with Towns and Wiggins at the fore. But LaVine may be the secret to tapping their full potential, the game-changing force who opens up the floor and the sky.

“I heard he was really athletic, but I didn't know he was that athletic,” Timberwolves forward Shabazz Muhammad said. “He’s a freak.”

Muhammad left UCLA after one season to declare for the 2013 NBA Draft. LaVine arrived on campus a couple of months later, a four-star recruit ranked 44th in his class by Rivals, spurning Washington in favor of the Bruins. He joined a roster stacked with strong returnees, including Spurs small forward Kyle Anderson and Grizzlies shooting guard Jordan Adams.

When UCLA practice sessions opened, though, the whispers started. LaVine was putting on shooting and dunking clinics to draw all sorts of attention, and in the process he was earning a role on a team already strong on the wings. LaVine averaged 14.4 points a game as UCLA got off to an 8-0 start, but the important numbers are these: 62.3 percent from the field, 55.9 percent on 3-pointers.

Those numbers trailed off as the season went on, and he closed averaging 9.4 points a game on 44.1 percent shooting, 37.5 percent on 3s. Good enough to declare for the draft when you know you can show up at workouts and jump 46 inches. When you know your jumper is that feathery.

“I don’t think Zach LaVine has any confidence lack,” Towns said.

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Muhammad agreed, “He always thinks he’s the best and always comes into the game like he’s the best. When you have that edge, you can succeed.”

Then Ricky Rubio got hurt.

LaVine’s NBA career started by playing less than five total minutes in his first four games. He was a project, a 19-year-old who hadn’t even been able to consistently succeed in college the year before. But Rubio sprained his ankle in the fifth game of the season, and late coach Flip Saunders had to find a point guard. He had a shooting guard.

To put it kindly, LaVine wasn’t ready to be a point guard or a starter. Rubio missed 42 games, and LaVine started 23. During that stretch, he averaged 8.5 points, 3.6 assists and 2.4 turnovers a game and shot 41.6 percent from the field and 28.8 percent on 3-pointers. “LaVine as a rookie became almost a punch line for basketball snobs — the symbol of a shallow sporting culture that cares more about Vines, dunks, and over-rehearsed mean mugs than actual basketball skills. LaVine had no clue how to play NBA defense, or run point guard,” Grantland’s Zach Lowe wrote in 2015. Fun to watch, bad all the same.

“His first year, he kind of struggled a bit,” Timberwolves center Gorgui Dieng said. “But after winning that first dunk contest, that started giving him more confidence and he just started being himself.”

The Timberwolves were 8-39 when Rubio returned — for a month and a half before another injury. A strange thing happened, though. LaVine started the final 15 games of the season. And while the Timberwolves went 2-13 to lock up the draft lottery odds that helped them get Towns, LaVine averaged 19.6 points, 5.7 assists, 5.1 rebounds and 3.9 turnovers in 40.1 minutes a game.

Maybe he wasn’t a point guard, but he sure looked like an NBA player.

“I think it helped to really know the game better in trying to find his real spot in the league,” Rubio said. “He's a great shooter, but you're going to know when to shoot and when to pass and how to do it (by playing point guard). There's guards in this league who can really guard you, and he learned that.”

Winning consecutive dunk contests is not easy. The leaping ability that’s required is one thing, unlikely to fade quickly. But the creativity and the competitiveness can’t fade either. Terrence Ross of the Raptors, another player who can jump out of the gym and shoot 3-pointers, failed to impress anyone in 2014 as he tried to defend his 2013 crown. When Nate Robinson won his second in a row (and third overall), the rules were decried and eventually changed.

The contest is a big part of how we view LaVine. He and Aaron Gordon of the Magic put up the best show we’ve seen in 15-plus years in February. Gordon had the theatrics and the explosion. LaVine had the seemingly impossible hang time.

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LaVine’s dunks hint at who he is beyond a vertical leap, though. He’s not a dunker, for one. He’s only thrown down 91 in 159 NBA games in his career. That athleticism is all about silky smoothness. It never goes away, but guards don’t get all that many chances to throw down in halfcourt sets.

That’s what Rubio means when he talks about how LaVine grew by playing point guard. And Year Two made much of that evident. Only starting 33 games — coach Sam Mitchell inexplicably favored 35-year-old Tayshaun Prince — and still backing up Rubio often, LaVine averaged 14.0 points and 3.1 assists a game. But he cut his turnovers down to 1.9, and he spent most of the second half learning how to find his shot.

“Last year, I shot 45 percent after the All-Star break from 3,” LaVine said. (It was actually 43.7 percent, but we can give him credit for being that close.) “So if I continue to do that, I feel that's a pretty good number. I’ve always been able to shoot the ball, so it’s just about continuing to work on your shot and shoot the ball. That’s the main thing. Got to get those shots up.”

The lineup of the future took form in that second half, sort of. Rubio, LaVine, Wiggins, Dieng and Towns started almost every game and are the team’s projected starters for this season. A report Wednesday from The Vertical suggested that Dunn could be the starting point guard by midseason, replacing Rubio, who likely would be traded.

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But LaVine is the shooting guard. Elements of his style drew comparisons to sixth man extraordinaire Jamal Crawford of the Clippers, another lanky scorer who can play either guard spot. But it’s the 3-point shooting even more than the dunking that separates LaVine. He is the top option on a team with two probable stars when it comes time for a deep ball. And a big part of that is his athleticism.

“We all see Zach as one of those people where when he gets the ball at the 3-point line, we want him to shoot,” Towns said. “The thing that makes Zach so special is his ability to make contested 3s with defenses draped all over him.”

Towns has a great jumper, especially for a 7-foot center. Dieng can hit a mid-range shot. Wiggins and Rubio are willing to fire from deep, even if they are still in the process of making them fall consistently. Key reserve Nemanja Bjelica is a true stretch-four. The Timberwolves absolutely will play four- and five-out this season. LaVine is the reason that could work, though, the defenses really have to worry about leaving open from any distance.

“He's a big piece of what we're doing,” Thibodeau said. “His shooting is critical. He shot the ball very well in the second half of last season. We need that 3-point shooting to open up the floor. His athleticism, the way he can run the floor. And there's no reason he can't be an excellent defensive player.”

Thibodeau had to include that last part, right? He had to include it because he’s Tom Thibodeau, arguably the best defensive mind in basketball, but also because he’s talking about Zach LaVine.

Only four eligible guards finished last season with a worse Defensive Real Plus Minus than LaVine. Any film study of his habits last season would make that number no surprise. He showed flashes of improvement this preseason — check his two blocks against the Heat on Oct. 8 — but has faded at times.

He’s got the size and the athleticism. And everyone you ask suggests he has the work ethic, too. “He’s getting better (on defense) every day,” Dieng said. “He was trying to be a one-way player, and now he realizes we need him both ways on the floor.”

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That’s where teams like the Timberwolves get so tricky. It’s easy to see all this immense talent — Towns may have the brightest future in the NBA, while Wiggins isn't too far behind — and the logical way it fits together and from there jump to, why can’t they be good now? They won 29 games last season, though. Their Las Vegas over/under is 41.5, which would be an impressive leap on its own. They are ridiculously young. No one is rushing anything in Minnesota.

Maybe they are just old enough to realize that would be unwise.

“It helps us a lot,” Towns said of the young locker room, which 25-year-old Rubio said makes him feel old. “The morale, camaraderie we have is largely due to the age we have. We’re all pretty much the same age, so we watch the same things, intrigued by the same things.”

They also pick each other up when necessary. In Charlotte last week, LaVine was breathtaking. He finished with 30 points on 13-for-20 shooting, including 4-for-6 on 3s. He threw down two vicious dunks and was in perfect step with the rhythm of the game for the first half. (The Hornets dominated the second half while Thibodeau turned the reins over to his bench.)

LaVine can play that type of beautiful basketball. He plays a position that almost requires it. Every two in the modern NBA is expected to score, but the paths to success are varied. Klay Thompson, James Harden, Dwyane Wade, DeMar DeRozan and C.J. McCollum are such different players, each successful in his own way.

LaVine admits that shooting guard is more natural for him, and Dunn’s presence should allow him to play there almost exclusively. But no one wanted to compare him to any other two. There simply aren’t guys with 45-inch verticals, 45 percent 3-point shooting and the ability to slide over to point guard, all at 6-6.

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"There's so many different styles to it,” LaVine said. “I use my athletic ability to create shots for open people, I run the floor, then also space the floor as well. That’s what I try to do. I try to space the floor and use my athletic ability to get to the rim. … I try to get the best of both worlds.”

For now, LaVine’s main focus is on helping the Timberwolves turn this team-of-the-future talk into something tangible. In doing that, he must build off all that potential and all those responsibilities. That may entail scoring. That may entail scoring a lot, while helping distribute and bettering his defense. LaVine has the talent to do it. He may even change the cadence of the conversation. “Andrew, Karl and Zach.” "LaVine, Towns and Wiggins." "Those three."