Friday’s Game 3 loss to the Denver Nuggets was the first time all season I have walked out of the Target Center with time still left on the clock. The Minnesota Timberwolves were down 7 points. That doesn’t seem like much until you consider that the team had been down anywhere between 5 and 10 for 75% of the game. It was within 3 at one point, but Minnesota just couldn’t get over the hump. Denver is an excellent team; the Wolves were undermanned. The Slam Squad shot a miserly 33% from the trampolines. It was not exactly a recipe for success.
Despite the predictability of the loss and impending series sweep, many have lamented the lack of enthusiasm from the crowds at the Target Center this year. Even as the Timberwolves inched closer to tying the game on Friday, fans were hesitant to get too rowdy. You’d think that after two decades of total malaise that these supporters would go nutty for two consecutive playoff appearances. That just hasn’t been the case. I found myself increasingly frustrated with the lack of fan engagement at games this year. However, as the year plodded on, I began to understand why things have transpired this way.
This reservation towards unyielding support goes back to the systemic distrust that sprouted from the Kevin Garnett era. No fanbase in the NBA knows the scent of false hope quite like those in Minnesota. Those years of ineptitude in the 2000s, the draft misses amidst ample lottery opportunities, Kevin Love having no help, the White Era, and Jimmy Butler’s conquest have shattered any implicit trust that fans have in this team. They are supporters nonetheless, but that does not come without its fair share of baggage.
With the historical context in mind, this year’s apathy is explained by first looking at last year’s rendition of the Timberwolves. There were little expectations beyond the development of Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels. The Karl-Anthony Towns–D’Angelo Russell pairing still wasn’t fully fleshed out, but any modicum of team success would have been seen as a major bonus.
What happened next was nothing short of magical. Sachin Gupta threw Patrick Beverley on the team, who brought with him personality and identity and a whole lot of heart. It was contagious and brought out the best in Edwards. These intangibles carried the plucky Wolves to a 7-seed and they almost beat the Memphis Grizzlies in Round 1 of the playoffs.
Counting stats aside, last year’s team was fun to watch. It was a bunch of young and hungry players that had something to prove. They left it all out on the floor each and every night. More on this later, but in the entertainment business, there are few things more entertaining in sport than pure unfiltered human desire. That’s why March Madness is so popular every year; those guys have everything to play for. The 2021-22 Timberwolves were nothing short of a Cinderella story.
However, as the NBA is moving towards a more “analytics-based” approach, Tim Connelly was hired, given the keys to the city, and flipped any and all young guys for an aging and entitled star in Rudy Gobert. With that trade, the life and boyhood charm was sucked out of this team. It went from a ragtag group of lovable characters to a now veteran-laden squad with expectations to win immediately. The midseason acquisition of Mike Conley helped stop the vibes from bleeding, but the damage had already been done.
The heightened expectations make every win that much less sweet while making the losses that much more painful. Winning no longer becomes a euphoric experience when it’s simply the baseline expectation of a day’s worth of work. Failure to execute the most simple of tasks leads to frustration. It really is that simple.
As the losses piled up this year, animosity and spite began to rebuild itself in the hearts of fans that spent the entire season prior vacating all that pent up disdain and mistrust. In particular, the “on-brand” way that the Wolves found ways to blow leads and lose all season was a constant flashback to the bad times. You can take the bad players out of Minnesota, but you can’t take the Minnesota basketball tradition out of the Target Center.
Even beyond the heightened expectations, this new team simply isn’t fun to cheer for. Gobert has been a 7’1” sulking nightmare who makes questionable choices in the way he conducts himself off the court. Towns missed 52 games, came back to some heroics, then quickly regressed into what has been one of the worst versions of himself. Jordan McLaughlin has been awful in the latter half of the season, and his poor play has exposed this similarly poor roster construction in regards to guard depth. McDaniels broke his hand punching a wall. Naz Reid broke his wrist. Effort is now questionable most nights. The list goes on.
One singular bright spot in Edwards is not enough to mask the slew of other issues this team has. Edwards may be one of the easiest players in the entire league to cheer for, but it is hard to ignore what lies on the horizon for this Minnesota franchise. So much future draft capital was sent away to ensure success in the present, and that success isn’t happening. Beyond Edwards and McDaniels, things are looking bleak. That isn’t something to cheer for.
Ultimately, the NBA and the basketball games it puts on are in the business of entertainment. There isn’t much entertainment in watching a team dramatically underachieve. Fans simply do not owe this Timberwolves team their love and adoration if the on-court product doesn’t give them a reason to do so. Until the team can either find a way to consistently win or at least look like they’re trying, the tepid crowds will continue. Fans are not the ones to blame here; the Wolves have some work to do.
