The Minnesota Timberwolves have been bad in the past. The difference is that people are talking about them this year. Bill Simmons spent a good chunk of his most recent podcast with Joe House and Chris Vernon going in on the Wolves. After ripping the Los Angeles Lakers and the Golden State Warriors, he turned his attention to Minnesota:
You know who else might suck? The Timberwolves of Minnesota. I don’t know if you’ve caught a gander, a whiff, of their odor. It’s not a great odor. The body-language doctor, I almost had to, I had to take two Advil because my head was throbbing from all the bad body language stuff that you’re seeing in the games. The weird quotes. The Towns monologues. The questions about what kind of shape Edwards is in. The plus-minus stats, and the possession stats of when Gobert and Towns play together, it’s a borderline catastrophe.
It’s panic time, House. I think it is.
“Well, that one is fair,” said House. “See, I’m willing to be concerned about Minnesota. I’m not gonna give them the benefit of the doubt because they made an all-in move. I mean, an unprecedented, we’ve all been through it. You’ve judged it one of the worst trades in the history of the league, based on –”
“I was too light,” Simmons said, interrupting House. “I wish I would have gone further.”
“Maybe so,” said House, laughing.
But look, when you go on an all-in move in that manner, then that means you have a conviction, you have a belief. You looked at what you have in terms of the players, their personalities, the chemistry that they have, that head coach in Chris Finch, and they say, ‘We believe that we can take all of this and build it. We’re gonna elevate it with Rudy Gobert.’
Now, what have any of us seen in a full decade’s worth of Rudy Gobert, that suggests that that elevation, that he was that kind of guy? That he was gonna be a force multiplier? All of us were skeptical, you more so than me, for sure, and maybe Verno as well. But they have a problem because Towns and Gobert, through a dozen games, can’t play together, can’t be on the floor together.
“Yeah, who could have guessed that?” asked rhetorically. “Verno has to host a podcast with, basically, they have those election deniers, he’s hosting a Gobert trade denier, KOC (Kevin O’Connor).”
“Alright, let me tell you something,” Vernon said. “I’m gonna be able to see this team in person on Friday night.”
“Oh my god!” Simmons responded with fake excitement. “What a Friday night that is! That’s gonna be unbelievable!”
“I cannot wait,” Vernon said, sarcastically.
That being said, I covered that playoff series last year, and then that was part of my calculus for, ‘What are they doing?’ Because I thought, regardless of my opinion of Rudy Gobert, okay? Regardless of that, and what I think happens to him in the playoffs and whatever. There’s Gobert truthers, and then there’s me, and we’re probably both too radical.
“Can I be with you?” Simmons asked in jest. “Wherever you are? Can I stand next to you? Thank you.”
You can be with me. I, as an observer of a playoff series. Minnesota 100% could have beaten Memphis last year. I mean, that was a razor-thin margin, and, in fact, when Malik Beasley said, ‘We feel we should have already won this series,’ not only did I not rip him, but I agreed with him.
I thought, ‘You know what? They did an amazing job on Morant. Amazing. As good a job as you could have possibly wanted, alright?’ And they had a good combination of star players and grinders. The role players and the stars. And everybody kinda had a pecking order, and they had a couple bad Towns games, and the refs really took over that series, but the truth was –
“A couple bad Towns games?” Simmons asked Vernon, incredulously. “Jesus!”
“I know,” Vernon acknowledged sheepishly.
“What?!?” responded Simmons.
“But a team –” Vernon said, trying to re-establish his argument.
“That was your analysis of the Towns games?” Simmons asked, laughing. “A couple bad ones? It was one of the worst performances by anyone.”
“It was a perfect example, though,” Vernon restarted, “a perfect example of the problems that they provide other teams with having Towns as a guy that can come down and stand at the top of the key and shoot threes.
They could not play Steven Adams, right? Who was one of the most effective players on the entire Memphis team. And if you play a center, he drives past you. If you play a smaller guy, he will, every once in a while, he will take you down to the block. And now, you’ve got another center down there, he’s now just Sam Perkins, just going from three-point line to three-point line, right? He’s guarding fours, and he’s playing against fours.
“You’ve removed the thing that made him special,” avers Simmons, “which is the mismatch.”
“And the most important thing is that you didn’t even need him to be that good,” added Vernon, “because with him out of the way, and you having to honor him because he shoots a high enough percentage, the whole damn thing was open for Edwards, who is the best damn player on the team.”
“How about this?” prompted Simmons. “They traded for the wrong fucking guy on Utah.”
“Eh,” Vernon responded in disagreement.
“I mean,” responded Simmons, “just make the same trade and get Mitchell back instead of Gobert, and you’re probably better.”
“I just think you look at them,” said Vernon, “and you go, every move I would make would be with Anthony Edwards in mind.”
“Yeah,” Simmons concurred.
“And I get it, he’s young, he’s immature – whatever else,” said Vernon, referring to Edwards. “But how does this fit with Anthony Edwards?”
“Well, they sped up the timetable on him and made it seem like he’s on the Tatum right now,” referring to a conversation they had about Jayson Tatum earlier in the show.
Like how we were talking about how Tatum is gonna be 25, he’s moving into [another stage of his career]. Edwards is, he’s a pup. He just got into the league.
Like, you’re getting this adult, All-NBA center, who’s a fully-finished veteran. He’s not gonna be any better than he is, and it’s like, basically, they were like, ‘We’re a contender for years to come.’ It’s like, ‘Well, Edwards has a lot of checkmarks to get through before we get that.’
And then the Towns thing.
“Look,” Vernon countered. “Towns is still awesome.”
“Is he?” Simmons asked earnestly.
“Edwards is still awesome,” Vernon doubled down, “and this is all getting – it reminds me of years ago when everybody got sour on Tatum and Brown when they were playing with Kyrie.”
The conversation briefly devolved into Boston Celtics talk. Simmons reminded everyone that he was always pro-Tatum and Brown, and anti-Kyrie Irving before bringing it back to the Wolves.
“House, should [Minnesota] have just traded for Donovan Mitchell?” he asked. “They could have made this all easier. They could have just given D’Angelo Russell, whoever, could have kept Vanderbilt. Could have put Vanderbilt in all the Gobert minutes. Aren’t they better off?”
“I don’t know about that part,” House disagreed. “And I don’t know if there’s enough balls to go around. You’d get this version of Donovan Mitchell that we’re seeing in Cleveland. There’s a clear role for him in Cleveland, it makes a ton of sense.”
“Good point,” said Simmons.
“I don’t know if you’d get this version of him in Minnesota,” House continued.
But, you know, the thing, if you want to be glass-half-full about it, you give Chris Finch a little more time. You say it was a difficult chemistry experiment. I mean, look who’s leading the team in P-E-R (player efficiency rating), none other than Rudy Gobert, No. 1 on the team in PER, so there are some efficiencies.
“Did House just drop PER on us?” Simmons asked, laughing.
“Oh my God!” Vernon exclaimed.
“What just happened?” Simmons asked in disbelief.
“If you want to be glass-half-full,” House responded, “you say, ‘Let them navigate.’ And the more interesting thing is, what team will Russell be playing on next? That’s the question.”
“House, Verno made the key point,” said Simmons.
If you’re doing, and this is what Russillo and I said when we were in shock at how dumb this trade was when it happened. If you’re doing this trade, this is like the final piece. This is like the Clippers saying, ‘You know what? We’re gonna have Kawhi and Paul George together. We’re gonna win the title or come close with these two guys.
For everything they gave up, they still, I had like real questions. I was like, wait, can Gobert and Towns play together? Is Edwards gonna be ready? Who are gonna be your glue guys now? You just threw all of them in this trade. What is your team gonna look like? Wait, don’t you still have D’Angelo Russell?
It left us with nine more questions, and watching them before the season, there was this huge piece, I think it was in The Athletic, this big victory lap about the Gobert trade, here’s how it all came together. They were talking about it like it was the Normandy invasion. I was like, can we see these guys play together well for 10 minutes? Just before you’re all popping the champagne on how brilliant of a trade this was.
And I watched those two guys together, and they don’t make sense to me. They don’t make sense for how basketball is played in 2022. They don’t make sense for just how they complement one another. And, as Verno said, they remove Towns’ most important advantage, which was his mismatch potential. He’s no longer a mismatch. So what the fuck was the point of the trade?
That’s my rant.
While it’s not great when national pundits are ripping the Wolves, the fact that they spent this much time on them means they’re in the conversation more than they’ve ever been. The fit looks rocky right now, but Simmons, House, and Vernon believe that Finch can figure it out.
It’s interesting that Vernon is so high on the Timberwolves. He’s a Grizzlies fan based in Memphis who saw them blow three double-digit leads in the playoffs. And all three guys ask familiar questions: Why blow up that team? Why did they go all-in on Gobert? And should the Wolves be building around Edwards instead of Towns?
Ultimately, the Timberwolves are getting a lot of attention right now because of what they did last year and in the offseason. But they will fade into the background if they can’t get things straightened out soon.
