During Summer League, the NBA announced that it will be holding its inaugural In-Season Tournament as a part of the upcoming regular season. The tournament separates each conference into three groups of five teams based on their record from last season. Each group has a team randomly selected from five pools in their respective conference: the 1-3 seed, 4-6 seed, 7-9 seed, 10-12 seed, and 13-15 seed. As a result, each group should be relatively balanced in team skill level.
The Timberwolves were the 8th seed last year. They will be in a group with the Sacramento Kings (3rd), Golden State Warriors (6th), Oklahoma City Thunder (10th), and San Antonio Spurs (15th). Every group has good teams, especially considering how jam-packed the middle of the Western Conference standings were last year. Seeds 4 through 9 were all within three games of each other. Still, the Wolves may have landed in a pool that is slightly weaker at the top than the others, which may help them to advance to the Knockout Round.
The Kings are a great team, and had one of the best offenses in NBA history last year based on offensive efficiency metrics. However, the Timberwolves fared well against them last season, going 3-1 in their head-to-head games. While both teams have changed a bit around their margins, Minnesota’s roster still has fairly good counters to Sacramento’s most important players.
Rudy Gobert makes things tough on the Kings. De’Aaron Fox likes to put pressure on teams paint defense and score at the rim. Gobert takes away many of the easy opportunities Fox normally has there, and is physical enough to slow down Domantas Sabonis in the paint. Their star’s defensive shortcomings also play to Minnesota’s advantage. They have no one who can guard Anthony Edwards for a full game, and Karl-Anthony Towns has a speed and size advantage over Sabonis on offense.
The Warriors were a lower seed, but they may be a tougher matchup for the Timberwolves mostly because they have Steph Curry, one of the best players of all time. However, Golden State’s quintessential small-ball is difficult for the Wolves to play against, and has been the downfall of many big teams in years past. The Warriors are great at spreading the floor, and constantly making opposing guards run marathons while trying to chase Steph around countless Draymond Green picks. They also like to force the opponent’s bigs to run back and forth between the paint and perimeter to contest shots in 5-out, as a way to free up the lane for drives.
That could be a challenge for the Timberwolves, who often looked like a slow team in transition defense and on closeouts to the perimeter last year, especially when they had both starting centers on the court. However, Naz Reid cooked against the Warriors defense several times last year. He looked like he might be the solution to Minnesota’s small-ball problem in the future. Naz had a 30-point scorcher and a 20-point double-double earlier in the season. He also put up 23 points and six rebounds in only 21 minutes in their final matchup against the Warriors when no one else on the team could get anything going offensively.
Naz is a large part of why the Wolves still went 2-2 against the Warriors last year, and he’s only going to get better this year. Conversely, Golden State’s core is aging. While they likely still have a couple years left of fighting for a championship, players tend to be more injury-prone as they age into their late 30s. Klay Thompson may never return to peak form after a series of tragic injuries.
The Oklahoma City Thunder are on the rise and have many good players, including Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who made the All-NBA first team last year. They were only two games behind the Wolves in the standings last year. OKC will likely have internal improvement from their young players, making them a better team next season. However, it’s challenging to judge just how much better they will be. Young teams often have a hard time making the leap to the playoffs even if they are super talented.
The Timberwolves went 3-1 against the Thunder last season, and also beat them in the play-in game. The Wolves have a considerable size advantage over Oklahoma City. That should allow them to continue to impose their will in the paint against them next year, even with Chet Holmgren returning from injury. Additionally, Nickeil Alexander-Walker did a great job of slowing down his cousin Shai in the play-in. He will likely continue to be a good matchup for Shai in the future because of his size, skill, and knowledge of his cousin’s moves.
The San Antonio Spurs are the biggest wild card of the bunch. San Antonio had one of the worst records in the league last year. But they drafted Victor Wembanyama with the first overall pick, and he’s one of the most talented prospects the league has seen in a long time. It’s unlikely that he’s so amazing in Year 1 that the Spurs will suddenly jump from worst in the West to playoff contention. However, if anyone could do it, it would be Wemby. The Wolves went 2-2 against San Antonio last year, but that was largely because they played down to tanking teams.
During Group Play, the teams in each group will all play each other once. The teams with the best record in each group (and two wild card teams with the next best records) will advance from Group Play and into the Knockout Rounds. The 8 remaining teams will face off in a single-elimination tournament, and the players on championship team will earn $500,000. Every team that makes the Knockout Rounds will receive monetary compensation for their players. All games of the in-season tournament will count towards the team’s regular season record, excluding the championship game, which will be a stand alone “83rd” game for the teams that make it.
The Timberwolves will have a good chance to make it out of their group and into the Knockout Round. They had a .500 record or better last year against all the teams they are slated to face in Group play. They also match up pretty well against all of them. Minnesota should be a better team this year with KAT healthy, and an extra year of internal development and continuity.
Additionally, even though $500,000 may not be a lot to the max players or veterans making $15-20 million per year, everyone loves a bonus paycheck. More importantly, that money would be incredibly meaningful to young players still on rookie-scale contracts. And it could be even more meaningful to players on two-way contracts who may be unsure of their place in the league and could use the guaranteed money. Veterans on minimum contracts will also have extra motivation to try to push their team to collect the reward money, especially if they plan to retire soon.
The Timberwolves have a number of players all across that spectrum who could benefit greatly from an extra payday, and they will likely be highly motivated to win the tournament. So does almost every other team in the league. At the very least, this should make for some fun, extra-competitive playoff atmosphere games for the Wolves in the middle of the NBA season, which can occasionally feel slow and dull. It will be exciting to see how the first year of the NBA’s Mid-Season Tournament will play out, especially if Minnesota can make it out of the conference round or into the finals.
