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A night after the Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs played perhaps the best game of the NBA season in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals, Timberwolves President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly addressed the media for his end-of-season news conference Tuesday.
Those two teams looked like dual behemoths set to dominate the Western Conference for the foreseeable future, while the Wolves have come up short against each of them in the last two postseasons.
“The equation changes when you see the two teams playing in the Western Conference finals right now and how good they are,” Connelly said. “We got smacked by Oklahoma City last year. We got smacked by San Antonio [this year], and we know they’re teams we have to beat.”
He continued: “Denver, they’re a world champion team and have the best player in the world, so we know our competition is not going to sit still, and nor will we.”
From the sounds of it, this era of continuity is over for the Wolves. That seemed evident when the Wolves fell to the Spurs in six games, with three of those losses coming by 29 or more points.
Expect Connelly to have a busy offseason looking for deals that will remake the Wolves roster. Expect them to be among the suitors for Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo until there is (finally) a resolution to the drama in Milwaukee. Connelly, per league rules, can’t publicly discuss any specific trade targets, but here are some key quotes and takeaways from his 26-minute session.
“We have to be realistic about what we have, which is way more good than bad, but know that we’re not good enough right now,” Connelly said.
After trading Rob Dillingham, Leonard Miller and multiple second-round picks to Chicago in February for Ayo Dosunmu and Julian Phillips, Connelly said Dosunmu was in the team’s long-term plans
That stance only became firmer in Connelly’s mind after watching Dosunmu, who is headed to unrestricted free agency, the remainder of the season.
“Ayo’s our most important free agent,” Connelly said. “He’s a guy we thought we knew pretty well, and we liked him from afar. Now seeing him day to day, we love him. I think he fits in not just on the court but off the court. I think his best basketball is in front of him.”
When Connelly speaks as glowingly about a player as he did of Dosunmu, he typically finds a way to get a deal done. The Wolves have Dosunmu’s Bird Rights, so they can exceed the mid-level exception, projected to be about $15 million, to bring him back, giving them a leg up on several teams who might not be able to do so. Expect Dosunmu to return.
After the season, players opened up about the moodiness of the team during the regular season, how it was hard to keep everyone moving in the same direction if players weren’t getting their complement of shots or points at given times. How might that play into the moves Connelly makes?
“The guys will tell you it’s the thing that most drives me nuts, because these are all really good people. Our team is full of great guys,” Connelly said. “They don’t always play well, just like I don’t always do my job well. But as human beings, they’re great. I’ve never won a championship, so I can’t tell you how to win it, but I’ve absorbed enough to know that you can’t string together bad days. I think a little bit of that is excuse making after a poor end to the season.”
Connelly mentioned emotional maturity would be a focus of the team this offseason.
There’s too many nights when we were not as locked in as we should be, and that’s unacceptable, plain and simple,” he said.
But it sounds as if Connelly doesn’t think the Wolves are full of bad apples.
Julius Randle, who has said he can be moody, gets a fair share of criticism for this from fans. When asked what he thought of Randle’s season, Connelly said: “I thought Julius was fantastic to start the season. He’ll be the first to tell you he didn’t play his best basketball versus San Antonio. I think his playmaking, I think his on-ball defense, his physicality was really impactful, so we don’t win because of one player, lose because of one player. ... We have to look at the collective, me included, the whole building. What can we all do better to ensure that we don’t see the same result next season?”
If the Wolves are going to break up the pairing of Randle and Rudy Gobert in the starting lineup by trading one or both, then Joan Beringer, the team’s 2025 first-round pick, figures to be a big part of the future at the center spot.
“We think his future is unbelievably bright,” Connelly said. “I would think he’ll be a multi-position defender. He’s a guy that has the complete faith and buy-in of not just our coaching staff, but, most importantly, the other players on the team believe in him. So, we think he’s going to be a really impactful piece moving forward.”
An expanded role for Beringer could signal the team shifting its focus to a younger core around Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, Naz Reid and Dosunmu, all of whom are 26 or younger.
“I like our collective sub-26 core,” Connelly said. “While certainly we’re not happy how the season ended, we don’t want to be dismissive of a lot of positive things that happened. I think we’ve learned to win in the postseason, but also I think we haven’t learned to win enough.”
By both Connelly and coach Chris Finch’s admission, Edwards probably had the ball in his hands initiating the offense too much this season. It sapped Edwards of energy on the defensive end of the floor, and it also reduced how much the Wolves used Edwards off the ball, where he is an elite catch-and-shoot player.
“I think when we have a top player in the world in Anthony, and we’re pretty aware of the guys who can most not just help him but also protect him — and those skill sets are something we’re going to look forward to adding more of as we’re building this summer,” Connelly said.
Connelly said he didn’t want every shot for Edwards to be a hard shot and the team could also lean into McDaniels as a playmaker more.
