The Minnesota Timberwolves are under the NBA playoff microscope for the fifth consecutive season. After back-to-back trips to the Western Conference Finals, the pressure has ratcheted up for the Wolves to break through to the finals with dire consequences ahead for anything less.
In 2022, the Timberwolves were just happy to be there. After making the postseason once since 2004, Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Chris Finch ushered in a new era of Timberwolves basketball. They won a surprising 46 games and gave the second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies a run for their money in the first round, heralding Ant’s ascent as a destroyer of worlds.
A year later, they took a step back as the young Wolves took time to acclimate to playing with Rudy Gobert. Then, Minnesota put the rest of the NBA on notice in 2024. They won 56 games on the back of Gobert’s fourth DPOY. Naz Reid became the Sixth Man of the Year. And Edwards turned in his first All-NBA season.
After the Phoenix Suns swept them in the regular season, the Timberwolves put the clamps on Devin Booker and swept the Suns, winning a playoff series for the first time in 20 years. They beat the reigning champion Denver Nuggets in a classic seven-game series to advance to the Western Conference Finals for the second time in franchise history. A few winnable games slipped through Minnesota’s fingers. Luka Doncic snatched Gobert’s soul, and the Wolves lost in five games to the fifth-seeded Mavericks.
Spirits were sky high during the summer of 2024. The Timberwolves were a couple of blown leads away from the finals with a team coming of age at the exact right moment. Tim Connelly shocked the world by sending KAT to the New York Knicks for Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo, and a pick that became Joan Beringer. The Wolves struggled to gel, got hot late, beat the Los Angeles Lakers and Steph Curry-less Golden State Warriors, and once again reached the West Finals, only to lose in five games to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Wolves ran things back this season and ended up in the same place. 49 wins and the sixth seed. But this year feels different. For the first time since the Kevin Garnett era, it feels like this truly is a do-or-die postseason.
Previous seasons had the youthful Hey, isn’t winning fun? Who knew we could do this? energy. This season felt more like Do we have to do this again? With the Denver Nuggets looking to get revenge for 2024, the Timberwolves have a mountain to climb to win a playoff series in three straight seasons. If they get past the Nuggets, that leaves the two best teams in the NBA, the San Antonio Spurs, and the reigning champion Thunder in Minnesota’s path to the finals.
A finals run seems ever increasingly unlikely. And if the Wolves fail to make another run, there should be major changes once again. Which Timberwolf is on the hottest seat heading into the playoffs?
Every year until he retires, if the Timberwolves fail to win a championship, the woke national media will lay all the blame at Anthony Edwards’ feet. As the superstar and face of the team, Edwards should always shoulder some blame for any failures. But the likes of Kendrick Perkins and Stephen A. Smith will get on TV and shout that Ant will demand a trade, that he’s overrated and will never win a championship because he sucks, or that the Timberwolves should get ahead of it and trade him like the Mavericks traded Luka Doncic.
That inevitable narrative is ludicrous. Anthony Edwards is still just 24 years old. His seat is arguably the coldest in the NBA alongside Victor Wembanyama and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. The Timberwolves will be on the clock with Edwards and his team long before he’s ever on the hot seat with the team. And that potential scenario is at least 2-3 years away at the earliest.
Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid are also relatively safe. Both are important enough to help propel the Wolves to the finals, but neither is integral enough to be the reason the Timberwolves crash out early. Unless either completely blows it, they will either be back on the team to start the 2026-27 season or part of a trade for a huge star to pair with Edwards.
On the court, the two players who will have the most pressure on them are Rudy Gobert and Julius Randle. Gobert made a push in the middle of the season for his fifth DPOY. But Minnesota’s defense has fallen behind the league-leading squad from two years ago. He’ll be 34 to start next season and has two years left on his contract. Randle was playing the best basketball of his career early in the season, and some of the worst basketball of his career since January. He needs to have the playoffs of his life; it’s unlikely he’ll play another season in Minnesota.
Chris Finch is sitting on the hottest seat inside Target Center if the Timberwolves get bounced from the playoffs early. He’s the best coach in Wolves history and has been at the helm of one of the great franchise turnarounds of the 21st century.
But if the Wolves lose in the first round, Tim Connelly and the front office will have to take a long, hard look at what Finch has done and can still do for this team. The players swear by him, but Chris Finch’s teams consistently play sloppily. The Wolves turn the ball over far too much and have for Finch’s entire tenure. They blow too many fourth-quarter leads. And have a penchant for sleepwalking through the regular season. If any of that bubbles up and is the reason they lose to Denver, we’ll be left wondering if Finch is the right coach to take things to the next level and vie for a championship.
The Timberwolves are finally feeling the pressure of a franchise that’s expected to win. If they don’t win, several people will be on the hot seat going into the offseason. Chris Finch will lead that group. If the Wolves can’t pull off a major upset against the Nuggets in round one, things might look drastically different in October.
