When the 17.5-underdog Portland Trail Blazers beat the Minnesota Timberwolves at home, it cemented the Wolves on the wrong side of history, again. The 17.5-point upset was the largest against the spread upset since books began recording it in 1995. Oddly enough, this doesn’t feel out of the norm for Wolves fans.
Wolves fans are no strangers to losing, which is why the Jimmy Butler-led Wolves beating the Denver Nuggets in Game 82 to eke into the playoffs felt so good. It’s also why the complete blowup that same offseason felt so bad. The Wolves likely would have cruised to the playoffs if Butler had never gone down, but that injury forced the Wolves to put up one last fight to ensure their playoff series. The theatrics of game 82 and the rest of the memories created along the way of the 2017-18 season made it even harder to believe they traded Butler after only ten games the next season.
When the Timberwolves made the playoffs last year, there was even more satisfaction because it wasn’t fabricated through a major trade. It felt like the Wolves had broken through after two years of progress. Instead of needing a star to get them into the playoffs, they needed one to push into contention. After a strong start to the offseason by signing Kyle Anderson, the Wolves made a splash trade for Rudy Gobert.
The hype around Minnesota was as high as it’s ever been.
80 games in, the buzz has died down and by many metrics, the Timberwolves season was a tad disappointing. The Wolves had a preseason projected win total of 48.5, and they failed to reach that. Even though this season isn’t over yet, it has been a bit disappointing. Still, it’s important to remember that the Wolves are building towards something. The Wolves haven’t seen this level of sustained success since the Kevin Garnett era, and that should still be celebrated.
The Butler-era Wolves weren’t built to last. Butler was their star player and free to leave two years after they traded for him, and he refused to sign an extension over the offseason. Once Butler had decided he didn’t enjoy playing for the franchise, they blew the team up and completely restarted.
Minnesota went 26-56 the year after they drafted Garnett in 1995. But after that, the Timberwolves didn’t have another losing season for a decade. If the Wolves are going to elevate themselves as a franchise, that’s the type of success they need to recreate. They can’t mortgage the team’s future for one year of success.
Although Tim Connely mortgaged the team’s future for Rudy Gobert, the team has control of Rudy’s contract for three more years. That wasn’t true with Butler.
Another aspect of this roster that provides promise compared to years past? They were good without Gobert. They had already made the playoffs before Gobert even arrived. Gobert is the cherry on top, whereas Butler had to be the entire sundae.
The Wolves were 31-51 the season before adding Jimmy Butler and ended 47-35 in his first season. Last year, the Wolves won 46 games and made some noise in the playoffs.
It’s not easy to accept a worse record after making such a franchise-altering move in the off-season. But this Wolves season was never going to be easy. That was evident after Karl-Anthony Towns went down with his calf injury early in the season.
The disappointment is hard to ignore with this Wolves season, but it’s important to look at it through a positive lens. The Timberwolves franchise has only had three 40-win seasons in the past 18 years, and they just secured their first back-to-back 40-win season since 2006. To do all this while their best player goes down 21 games into the season is even more impressive.
Just like last season’s play-in victory, it’s hard for an NBA fan of a different franchise to understand why a back-to-back forty win season, or a play-in victory means so much. But they weren’t there for the Butler blow-up, and the Andrew Wiggins saga. They didn’t watch Kevin Love try desperately to pull this franchise into relevancy.
Most fans under 25 will likely not remember watching the Garnett-era Wolves, which in turn means they’ve never watched the Wolves sustain success. It’s now up to Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, and the rest of the Wolves long-term pieces to continue this success into the late 2020s. If Wolves fans ever stop caring about winning 40 games, that means they’ve done their job.
It will take a long time for the Timberwolves to pull themselves out of the ranks amongst the worst winning percentages. In fact, if the Wolves won every game they played from here on out, it wouldn’t be until the 47th game of the 2028-29 season that they broke over the .500 mark for all-time winning percentage. But as someone who wasn’t even a year old when the Wolves last recorded back-to-back 40-win season, I can only imagine it’ll get better with Anthony Edwards and Co. leading the way.
