Timberwolves

For Better Or Worse, the Timberwolves Are Repeating History

Photo Credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images

The Minnesota Timberwolves are at a crossroads.

The NBA has edged into the second half of the season, and at 23-21, the Wolves sit in eighth place in the wild Western Conference. The optimist would say that as bad as things are since Luka Dončić hit that game-winner over Rudy Gobert in Game 2 of last year’s Western Conference Finals, the Timberwolves are only 1.5 games out of the fifth seed. Anthony Edwards is now an elite three-point shooter. Naz Reid is still Naz Reid. The Rob Dillingham statue committee is already scouting locations around 1st Ave.

If a few games had broken differently down the stretch, the vibe would be a lot cheerier around the Target Center.

The pessimist would say only two games separate the eighth-place Timberwolves from the 12th-place San Antonio Spurs and missing the Play-In Tournament entirely. The Julius Randle experiment has been a massive failure. Rudy Gobert has taken a huge step back since winning his record-tying fourth Defensive Player of the Year award last season. Chris Finch can’t do anything right. We can’t donate our big toes to Donte DiVincenzo. Mike Conley is respectfully washed. And Jaden McDaniels is on the precipice of becoming a staple of the trade machine.

The optimistic and pessimistic paths represent a similar season from Minnesota’s past.

The optimistic path could mirror the 2022-23 Timberwolves season. If you can’t remember what happened two seasons ago, let me paint you a word picture. Tim Connelly wasted no time as Minnesota’s new President of Basketball Operations and sent five picks and four players to Utah for Rudy Gobert. Karl-Anthony Towns suffered a calf injury that sidelined him for 53 games and robbed the Wolves of precious time to get the two-big system cooking.

Edwards made the All-Star leap in Year 3. Mike Conley and Nickeil Alexander-Walker entered our lives, and D’Angelo Russell left. The Wolves blew seemingly every 10-point lead they had all season. They hovered around .500 all season and finished as the eighth seed in the West. Minnesota lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the 7-8 Play-In game before beating the Oklahoma City Thunder in a do-or-die final Play-In game to earn the eighth seed in the playoffs and face the top-seeded Denver Nuggets.

The Wolves were no match for the eventual champs but played a hard-fought series that gave fans a sliver of optimism for the following season. Reading through that recap, you might think, This is the optimistic path? and you’re not totally wrong. The 2022-23 Timberwolves were mostly a headache to follow all season long. No lead was safe, injuries killed any momentum, and the Gobert trade initially looked like the worst trade in NBA history. But the reasons for positivity mirror why fans should cling to hope this season.

It took the Timberwolves a full season to get used to playing with Rudy Gobert when he arrived in 2022. Julius Randle’s arrival should be treated the same way. Randle is a good but flawed fringe All-Star type of player, and teammates take a while to get used to his bruising style of play.

Gobert’s first season in Minnesota was arguably his worst since he became a star in Utah. Randle’s first 44 games in Minnesota are a far cry from the three-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA player he was in five seasons in New York. Still, Randle eventually figured out how to play for Tom Thibodeau, got some reinforcements with Jalen Brunson and Co., and left the Knicks as a polarizing star.

It’s conceivable that Randle needs more time to figure out how to play in Minnesota. Anthony Edwards is a different kind of guard than Jalen Brunson, and Chris Finch is far less sadistic than Thibs. It’s on Randle to show he wants this to work and not bull rush four defenders in the paint, get surprise stripped from behind at the elbow at least twice a game, dribble up to his armpit, and start acting like he enjoys playing basketball.

Minnesota has enough talent to turn things around and make a run in the playoffs. Maybe not to the Finals, but there’s enough in-house to have hope for the next few years of Wolves basketball.

If you thought this glass-half-full look at the state of the Timberwolves sounded pretty pessimistic, well, the actual path of the Wolves pessimist is far darker.

The dark version of how this plays out is what happened to the 2004-05 Timberwolves. Weren’t alive for that, Charlie Walton? Rejoice that you didn’t have to watch the beginning of 20 years of losing in real-time.

Heading into the 2004-05 season, the Timberwolves were coming off the best season in franchise history.

The 2003-04 Timberwolves won 58 games, napped the top seed in the West, and were a Sam Cassell hip injury away from meeting the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 NBA Finals. Kevin Garnett won MVP. Sam Cassell was a first-time All-Star at 34. And Latrell Sprewell was the perfect third star on Flip Saunders’ squad. Expectations were sky-high especially since the Lakers broke up when Shaquille O’Neal moved to the Miami Heat in the offseason after beating the Wolves in the West Finals in 2004.

Things began normal enough for championship contenders. The Wolves were 15-8 and in fifth place in the West. KG was playing MVP-level basketball again. Then, the Wolves lost nine of their next 11 games, and things got dicey fast. Injuries hampered Cassell. Sprewell no longer had to prove his worth. The Wolves fell to 25-26 when the unthinkable happened. Timberwolves GM and Minnesota basketball legend Kevin McHale relieved Flip Saunders of his head coaching duties and supplanted him as coach.

Minnesota rebounded a bit, going 19-12 under McHale. Still, at 44-38, they finished ninth in the West and missed the playoffs for the first time since 1996. We all know how the story finishes. Cassell leaves, Sprewell never played in the NBA again. They traded Wally Szczerbiak the following season, eventually leading the Wolves to trade Kevin Garnett to the Boston Celtics in 2007, marking the official franchise reset. The Wolves didn’t make the playoffs again until 2018 and are only now establishing a new winning culture 20 years later.

This Wolves team resembles the 2004-05 squad a little too much for my liking. They have an all-world talent in Anthony Edwards who led the Wolves to the conference finals the season prior. They have an aging veteran presence with Conley and Gobert who have taken a step back. And the once-beloved coach finds himself on the hot seat if things don’t turn around halfway through the season. One disappointing season will not lead to another 20 years of pain, but the backslide should have all Wolves fans on guard for the worst possible outcome.

Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. The 2024-25 Minnesota Timberwolves are a team with two paths. They can weather the rocky season and come out the other side with real hope for the future. Or they can let things spiral and steal all hope from a beleaguered fan base.

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