48 wins, tied for third in the west. Here’s his analysis:
3 (tie). Minnesota Timberwolves (48-34)
It’s amazing yet true: One year after making one of the worst trades in NBA history, the Timberwolves are likely to be one of the league’s best teams.
While giving up Walker Kessler and five future firsts for the right to overpay Rudy Gobert through 2026 is an all-time stinker that will sting this franchise with a vengeance in the second half of the decade, they haven’t had to pay the piper yet.
Instead, this is the last year when everything is still fun: Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels are each on the final year of their rookie deals, and Karl-Anthony Towns’ extension hasn’t kicked in yet. Minnesota was able to spend its exception money, re-sign Naz Reid and still keep a couple million in wiggle room below the luxury-tax line. That all changes a year from now, but the present looks good.
Partly, that’s because the front office did a tremendous job digging out from the Gobert disaster over the last 12 months. Trading for Mike Conley and Nickeil Alexander-Walker stabilized the backcourt at midseason, while offseason moves to add Troy Brown and Shake Milton further solidified the bench. (Smart alecks will note that removing Chris Finch’s ability to play Austin Rivers should also help.) The Gobert trade also overshadowed a genuinely sharp move to ink the vastly underrated Kyle Anderson for the midlevel exception, a huge value at that price. (He, alas, will be an unrestricted free agent after the season.)
Wolves president Tim Connelly also had an incredible draft record in Denver, so it will be interesting to see how some of his late-draft picks turn out in Minnesota. We didn’t see much last year: Wendell Moore was just a rumor, and Josh Minott was a raw one-and-done, but if those two and 2023 second-rounder Leonard Miller turn into real pieces, that makes the future a lot more palatable.
Of course, much of the reason for optimism is the emergence of Edwards, an elite athlete still figuring out how to use all his tools. This summer, the FIBA version of Anthony Edwards showed both the best and worst of his game — taking over as a go-to guy because of his ability to create a shot at a moment’s notice but finishing last on the team in true shooting because of his iffy ability to read the game and pursue high-percentage opportunities.
The other reason Minnesota started slowly last year was the poor frontcourt chemistry between Gobert and Towns, but they had seemed to work out many of the kinks by the time the playoffs started. It’s still an unnatural fit, with Towns shoehorned into a perimeter role on both ends of the floor and Gobert’s hands and finishing as a roll man having markedly declined from his peak in Utah. One still wonders if the best endgame for the Wolves is to move off Towns before his $216 million extension kicks in next year in exchange for somebody who is a better positional fit for this roster.
Again, other gremlins lurk just over the horizon. Conley, Anderson and McDaniels are all free agents after the season, and the team will end up deep in the luxury tax if it keeps more than one of them. Also, there are no draft picks left to trade to replenish things, let alone to acquire any other young players. Even the good news is bad: Edwards’ emergence may well result in an All-NBA selection … and change his extension to a supermax, which would push the Wolves further into the 2024-25 luxury tax. But those worries can wait until next summer.
I feel like I might be alone here in my Wolves optimism: Not one of the 30 execs in the league’s GM survey picked the Wolves in the top four in the West. (Pedantic side note: I’ve listed this finish as a tie, but technically, the Suns projected with three-tenths more wins than Minnesota.) However, the logic pencils out: This roster has a really strong top seven, with some interesting depth pieces mixed in, and the key players are more likely to play more games than those of the other teams in this range.
So, Minnesota fans, enjoy these last precious days of your brief Edwards-era summer before the harsh winter comes. The 2023-24 season should be a fun party, at least, especially if you ignore the Arctic blast of salary-cap reality that’s about to blow in.