The Minnesota Timberwolves recently pulled off an upset vs. the defending champion Denver Nuggets in the second round of the NBA Playoffs Despite being down 20 points in game seven they managed to pull off an incredible win.
This story should’ve set up a historic run to the finals. However, it ended up being soured by the Timberwolves losing in the western conference finals to the Mavericks in five games. Now instead of celebrating a championship they have serious questions to answer about their future.
The Minnesota Timberwolves problem
The Minnesota Timberwolves are without a doubt one of the most talented teams in basketball. However, this talent comes at a price. This season they were the third most expensive team in basketball, at 198 million dollars spent. Next season is projected to be even worse as they are on the books to spend 273 million dollars. Spending this much money puts them in the second apron, which severely limits the moves they can make in the offseason.
If the Minnesota Timberwolves have confidence this core can win a championship, they may be willing to spend all this money. However, this roster has glaring weaknesses that will likely prevent them from ever winning a championship.
One of the Timberwolves biggest weaknesses is that they don’t have a second ball handler. Their second star, Karl Anthony Towns, generally prefers to work off the ball. Their other big money guys like Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels are more there for defensive purposes. This puts almost all the pressure on Anthony Edwards to create offense. The biggest difference between the Timberwolves and Mavericks is the Mavericks have two guys who can rely on each other, Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving and the Timberwolves don’t.
The Timberwolves are built to defeat teams that have dominant big men. Their three big men of Towns, Gobert and Naz Reid give teams a hard time down low. However, when they face perimeter oriented teams this advantage quickly becomes a disadvantage. Teams are very willing to switch Gobert onto guards. Despite winning four defensive players of the year Gobert has generally struggled to guard the perimeter for most of his career.
The Minnesota Timberwolves most glaring issue is that they just don’t fit that well with each other. Towns was a center for most of his career. However, after trading for Gobert he moved to power forward. The duo has had some good games but they do get in each other’s way a lot. On offense Towns has to be less aggressive about going in the paint as Gobert’s man is generally willing to switch off him to force a double. Meanwhile on defense Towns and Gobert generally like to be “roaming” big men, meaning they don’t guard anyone, just an area. However since they both can’t do this role one is forced out of their natural role.
Photo via Pioneer Press
The Minnesota Timberwolves solution
The Minnesota Timberwolves will be paying three players over 40 million dollars next season; Edwards, Towns and Gobert. Simply speaking there is no way to make the roster better with these big salaries. One of these guys must be traded. Edwards has too much potential to trade for anyone, so it’s between Towns and Gobert.
Towns has been on the Minnesota Timberwolves since he was selected with the first overall pick in the 2015 NBA draft. Towns is a four time all star. His unique shooting abilities allowed him to quickly become a star in the league. Towns have been in trade rumors for years now. However, Towns has proven loyalty to the Timberwolves time and time again.
Meanwhile Gobert was traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves from the Jazz in a massive deal. Gobert is one of the best defenders of all time. He won his fourth defensive player of the year this season. However, his lack of perimeter presence on either end has been a point of criticism for years.
In my opinion I think Gobert should be traded. Although he makes the Timberwolves defense elite I think they can still have a good defense without him. In game 2 vs. the Nuggets in the second round the Timberwolves still had a good defensive game and ended up winning the game. The Timberwolves are not going to get back the four first round picks they traded for him, but they could make themselves a deeper team.
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