The new-look Timberwolves will try to build on last season’s success

The Minnesota Timberwolves of 2024-25 are a different beast than the other 35 iterations we have seen from this franchise. They are a squad flush with success and plush with goodwill, focused and unified, save for an unsavory ownership squabble that thankfully should have little-to-no bearing on the course of play between now and when they finish at a yet-to-be determined point sometime next Spring.

The only other time this franchise came into a season fresh off a pair of playoff series victories, Latrell Sprewell was haughtily rejecting a three-year contract extension just three days before the team’s home opener in 2004-05, setting in motion a toxic chain collision of distraction and disillusionment that would force the firing of coach Flip Saunders after 51 games, while the Wolves fell out of the playoff picture for the next 13 years.

The team’s next trip to the postseason was in 2017-18, the apex of the bristling but brief Thibodeau-Butler era, which disintegrated via another player snit-cum- sabotage that lopped off the head of the coach and sent the Wolves tumbling down the standings.

The Wolves of 24-25 are without their senior star from the year prior, having dealt Karl-Anthony Towns to the Knicks earlier this month. Yet there is a through-line of integrity running through this operation now, from President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly to head coach Chris Finch to veteran leaders Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley, franchise superstar Anthony Edwards and his brethren Naz Reid and Jaden McDaniels, and even to the newcomers fetched in the KAT trade, Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle.

Bottom line, on the cusp of their 36th campaign, the Timberwolves have never looked more organizationally capable of enduring the myriad rigors of an 82-game regular season and entering the crucible and carnival of the playoffs with a potent blend of hunger, experience and synergistic talent.

That said, looks can be deceiving. Every NBA season, a betting favorite or two slowly but surely goes belly-up due to a poisonous porridge that can include injuries, mysterious regressions, off-court melodramas and dreadfully-timed bad luck. Winning consistently is hard; the formula concocted for it needs to be reliable but not too staid, and coupled with antidotes for strife and malaise hastily rendered when needed.

Yes, these Wolves on opening day have never looked stronger. But the Western Conference in which they compete has never looked deeper or more rugged. Ten of the 15 teams in the conference won at least 46 games last season (10 games over .500) and half of those won 50 or more. This season, three of those five teams below 46 wins — Memphis, Houston and San Antonio — figure to be significantly improved while none of the top 10t last season look significantly worse.

As with last year’s season preview, what follows are the X-factors, framed as key questions, that I believe will determine how successful the Wolves can be in 2024- 25, at least in terms of issues roughly under their control. My predicted win total and playoff seeding will be provided at the end, and if you subscribe (for free) to the And-One newsletter, I’ll give you my predicted standings in both the Eastern and Western conferences, with a sentence or two about each team.

Key questions

How does coach Finch structure his frontcourt rotations in a manner that retains a top-tier defense while creating a more productive identity (or identities) for the offense?

For the past two seasons, Gobert was the starting center and KAT slid over from power forward to play center when Gobert rested. Naz was the power forward off the bench who played beside each one. Before KAT was traded, Finch toyed with the idea of getting Naz more involved via a “3 bigs” frontcourt in which he would occasionally play small forward beside both Gobert and KAT.

In terms of the frontcourt, the trade essentially swaps out KAT for Randle. While both have performed well enough to be named to multiple All Star teams, they are very different players. In the modern game, KAT is a natural “stretch five,” a big man who is a superior long-range shooter who can rebound and protect the rim but can also be overmatched on defense.

Randle is a natural “bully-ball four,” a bruising power forward who can get a basket on his own in isolation, but lacks the overall range and efficiency of KAT on offense. On defense, he is less of a rim protector but better guarding in space and in overall mobility.

Then there is Naz, who came into the NBA as an overweight, top-heavy, too-short center but has sculpted his body and honed his skill-set into that of a fearsome combo forward who has experience as a center who is ill-suited to extended exposure, especially down in the paint against legitimate big men.

There is a strong, logical argument for slotting Naz into KAT’s spot in the rotation and having Randle fill Naz’s old spot as a 6th man off the bench. Naz has the

shooting range of KAT and is a quicker decision-maker to foster better ball movement and movement without the ball, long dreamed-for staples for Finch, who favors spontaneous flow at that end of the court.

Naz also has a track record of success playing beside the team’s two most important players. In the 572 minutes that he shared the court with Ant and Gobert, the Wolves scored 109 points and gave up 95.8 per 100 possessions, for a net rating of +13.2. That is the highest net rating, and the stingiest defense, created by any three-player combination that logged more than 500 minutes together for the Wolves last season.

On offense, Ant and Gobert are never going to be naturally compatible because Gobert has very little range away from the rim and thus naturally clogs the paint for the drives that are a crucial component of Ant’s game. Honing their interaction as a pick-and-roll tandem and using Gobert as a lob threat are obvious remedies, but that remains a stubbornly slow work-in-progress.

Randle further complicates and clogs the floor spacing because he is best as a midrange shooter in isolation, capable of smart ball movement but mostly by drawing double-teams and kicking out passes — it’s not flow. Last season, the Wolves offense sagged when both Ant and KAT became ball-stoppers attempting to score or play-make in isolation, but at least KAT could space the floor as a fearsome three-point threat. Randle is a career 33.3% shooter from deep.

On the second unit, Randle would be united with DiVincenzo, who earned the backup point guard slot in preseason. They played together 786 minutes last season, the second-most frequent pairing of any of Randle’s Knicks teammates.

With Gobert and/or Ant sitting, Randle would have the midrange space and freedom to flex his game against the subs, surrounded by long-range marksmen who could include DiVincenzo, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Joe Ingles and Naz.

Here’s the rub: Randle is a proud 10-veteran who will turn 30 next month. He is playing for a new contract — he has a player option that will pay him $31 million next season if he opts in, a reasonable sum that could be more if he chooses free agency after playing a vital role for a championship contender. He never came off the bench over five years and 330 games for the Knicks.

An important factor here is that Finch and Randle showcased an extravagant mutual admiration society after the trade, with Randle gushing that he was never utilized better than he was his lone season in New Orleans (back in 2018-19), when Finch was coordinating the offense. For his part, Finch never flinched from anointing Randle the starting power forward this season, and he projects a reassuring confidence that Randle will be a comfortable and productive fit.

The plot thickens when you consider Naz also has a player option for next season, at a paltry $15 million that is barely more than half of what he could probably make in free agency. Naz also just turned 25 (a year older than McDaniels, two years older than Ant), has improved every season, is a fan favorite and reigning th Man of the Year.

Randle only played one preseason game for his new team, although he has been practicing with the starters for weeks. The speed and ease with which he is integrated into whatever role fits him best this season will be enormously important to this team as it battles for seeding in the daunting gantlet of the West.

How will Ant evolve in his first season being fully immersed in the cyclone of fame?

During his first four seasons in the NBA, Anthony Edwards has been the most lovable athlete I have ever covered. His stupendous dunks and crunch-time applications of lock-down defense are nestled in the memory as if from a branding iron coated with endorphins. And that’s not even the best part. Rarely has such a supremely gifted athlete also been such a resonantly heartwarming human being.

Ant has a near-unerring instinct for spreading goodwill — toward teammates, fans and through life in general. To update what I wrote last year, he is 23, both chronologically and a mean between the best attributes of people aged 5 and 40, brimming with both guileless glee and the wisdom of an old soul.

Inevitably, those charms were going to become commodities. The mechanisms for marketing Ant began in earnest at the beginning of last season, but the Wolves’ run to the Western Conference Finals and his role on the latest USA basketball Olympic gold-medal winners have put him into the bloodstream of society. And vice Versa.

The irony here is that Ant’s lovability put the cyclone of his fame into overdrive ahead of the level of achievement usually required for the whirlwind. He is a phenomenal player but unfinished as a leader of champions. That was evident in the playoffs and at the Olympics. He isn’t there yet, and perhaps a good ways away. But how do you ignore the unvarnished giddy that he brings?

More importantly, how long can he retain it while simultaneously filling out the hardest parts of superstardom and being the “Face of the NBA,” aka the league’s marketing chew toy du jour?

Can those pure instincts for goodwill survive the parallel grinds? Ant is not Lebron, seemingly born and raised in the spotlight. He’s “country” in the best way possible, refracting the sterling character of the women who raised him.

Amid the maelstrom, how does he unearth the basketball self-awareness required to improve his shot selection so that tough, second-quarter midranges that clank out don’t continue to betray his team? How does he stop snatching that extra second of mental rest on weak side defense and other off-ball situations where back-cuts or the sudden need for switching erupt on his consciousness?

As his commodified likeness gets besmirched and defamed by the whims of the populace, how does he continue to welcome and absorb the tough-love coaching of Finch and Mike Conley, the ribbing of his boys McDaniels and Naz, and the implacable needs of his wife and child?

More challenges

How well will roster depth compensate if and when injuries hit?

One of the many bounties bequeathed to the Wolves last season was remarkably good health. John Hollinger of the Athletic had a more concise context than anything I could come up with when he noted that, aside from the 20 games KAT was out, the other seven members of the team’s eight-player rotation collectively missed just 29 games.

Depending on a repeat of that good fortune is a fool’s errand. It’s better to consider how this season’s roster changes have prepared this team for a more normal onslaught of breaks, sprains, dings and tears. It’s not a fun enterprise.

First the good news: Along with salary cap relief, the best dividend from the KAT trade was the acquisition of DiVincenzo, who has elevated the floor on the Wolves backup point guard position behind Conley, who is 37 and entering his 19th NBA season. Rookie Rob Dillingham has flashed an impressive potential upside as Conley’s heir apparent, but at age 19 and 165 pounds, he is simply too young and too slight to shoulder the burden of orchestrating an NBA offense for a team with designs on a championship.

DiVincenzo is a legit combo guard who can even play some small forward. But if Conley is hurt for an extended period, his solid but rudimentary playmaking belongs in a time-share with Alexander-Walker and Dillingham if he is progressing apace. On the court, he and either Ant or NAW can become dual combo guards. The wild card here is Ingles, who may be a poor man’s Kyle Anderson (that’s a compliment) and thus serve as the de facto point guard on his own; or age may have ripened him into a mere “locker room leadership” presence.There was evidence for both scenarios during the preseason.

The other places depth can’t adequately compensate are center and crunch-time scorer. The low-key damage from the KAT trade was his role as the team’s ace backup center as well as its premium shooter. Folks who still consider Naz as a center really ought to update via a close look at his svelte physique — he’s currently better roaming as a small forward than jousting in the paint.

Finch very briefly experimented with a small-ball lineup of Randle at center and McDaniels at power forward during a preseason game in Iowa and it did not go well. And Luka Garza is to be lauded for plugging along at his self-development, which currently has him as a surprisingly indomitable scorer on offense and slightly less embarrassing on defense.

Suffice to say it is vitally important that Gobert remain healthy. Even under the status quo, how the Wolves stock the frontcourt in the non-Gobert minutes is, as mentioned earlier, an X factor this season.

If Ant goes down it is a crisis event, of course, but the resulting chaos would require group replacement, a scenario for which the Wolves are better suited than might originally be expected. Randle’s natural inclination to be an isolation-heavy, volume shooter and playmaker becomes a help instead of a hindrance and DiVincenzo displayed a comprehensive upside in preseason that can also be tapped beyond what is currently planned.

No Ant would give Conley the impetus to flex his 40% shooter from three-point range more often, and Finch could unleash the dogs who frolicked in the flow during preseason, such as Naz and Josh Minott. Sometimes an entire roster gets strafed — look at Memphis last season. If that happens, you curse fate and those suddenly too-expensive seats.

Tally it all up and what do you get? Well, the Vegas line on the Wolves win total this season is 51.5, which strikes me as a pretty accurate dividing (and divining) Point. I wouldn’t want to bet the over or the under with any confidence, which means I’m going to call for 51 wins. That’s five fewer than last season, but I think the adjustment from KAT to Randle/Naz, the odds of more injuries, and an even deeper pool of quality teams in the West justify the shave.

That quality depth is also the reason why I’m going to be vague about predicting the playoff seeding for this team. Even under a best-case scenario, it is hard to pick them over Oklahoma City, but barring catastrophe I can’t see them falling lower than fifth, so the call is a range from seeds 2 through 5.

I’m more optimistic about their playoff odds. Last season’s experience has the Wolves graduating into the sort of team that prioritizes the postseason over the regular season. If healthy and not waylaid by the other two concerns mentioned earlier, I’d envision a return to the conference finals and perhaps beyond.

The debut of this different beast, flush, plush and powered by the most exciting performer in the game today is almost upon us. Can’t wait to buckle up.

Britt Robson

Britt Robson has covered the Timberwolves since 1990 for City Pages, The Rake, SportsIllustrated.com and The Athletic. He also has written about all forms and styles of music for over 30 years.

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