The Timberwolves have decided their path to success involves building the best possible team around Anthony Edwards, writes Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. The top pick in the 2020 draft took another step forward this year, averaging 24.6 points per game during the regular season and 31.6 PPG in the first-round loss to Denver. In a news conference last week, president of basketball operations Tim Connelly said Edwards will be “paramount” in all the team’s future personnel moves.
“We’re tasked with developing, I think, the best 21-year-old in the world who’s a … great, great kid who wants it, who’s so competitive, whose work ethic is off the charts,” Connelly said. “As he grows, we want him to see winning and we want him to be around winners.”
The Wolves were criticized for giving up a large collection of assets to acquire Rudy Gobert from Utah, but Connelly said that trade and the signing of Kyle Anderson were part of a strategy to ensure that Minnesota would remain a playoff contender. The front office wants Edwards to get as much postseason experience as possible early in his career.
“I think too often in our league the development coincides with losing, and we feel pretty strongly that the best way to learn to win is to win early and to win often,” Connelly said. “But certainly it’s a challenge to ensure that we’re doing anything and everything to make sure that he’s developing, not just individually but the team’s developing at a level that we think that we can get to. That’ll be the challenge this offseason.”
There’s more from Minnesota:
- It doesn’t appear the team will undergo major changes this summer, Krawczynski adds. Connelly told reporters that the Wolves “really like” their current starting five and that Edwards has good chemistry with Karl-Anthony Towns and the rest of the rotation. As Krawczynski points out, injuries limited the starters to seven games together after Mike Conley joined the team in February.
- The Timberwolves hold Bird rights on Naz Reid, which means they can offer him more money than anyone else in free agency, but they’re not able to give him a starting spot with Towns and Gobert on the roster, notes Chris Hine of The Star Tribune, who believes that will factor into whether Reid decides to re-sign this summer. Hine also examines potential extension offers for Edwards and Jaden McDaniels, along with the need to find a reliable backup point guard.
- In another Star Tribune article, Hine looks at which members of the current roster are likely to return next season.
For the love of god please let Jordan McLaughlin go.. seeing him get his layups blocked left n right was tough … I also wish they would’ve gave Luka Garza a chance to play instead of Nathan knight
Luka got a lot of time late in the season which wasn’t great. He played like a back up bench player. On transition he was so slow; where so many wolves made quick plays to force turnovers this year. No breaks in the NBA until that whistle blows.
I love what the GM said above and it’s a refreshing perspective considering the tanking and losing so prevalent today.
“We want to win while we’re developing and we want to win often and early. And that’s while still developing our players and our roster.” I love that.
@Gary – Agreed. Though it is coming from a guy who traded away control of his own draft picks for the next 5 years. That might take the fun out of tanking.
Lol exactly !! Not much choice but for him to try and win.
I mean, the Wolves have enough talent to win games, so I don’t see how that has any bearing on the tanking aspect of things. That said, I don’t disagree with your larger point and firmly believe lazy tanking with no clear purpose or direction doesn’t work well.
Just look at the Rockets: languished under a clearly overmatched head coach for multiple seasons, don’t play a lick of defense, lack overall discipline, missing veteran leadership, and lack a true playmaker to help develop the kids. That’s a toxic situation for development.
Maybe it all works out in the end due to the sheer talent (and tanking), but I feel that type of process fails more often than it works. The notion that you can simply hand big minutes to young players and expect them to properly develop is silly.
Too bad the kid is as bright as a rusted spade…
From their diet to their off court choices that bookended their season… Lot’s of blockheaded moments…
It just sounds like you are giving the synopsis of a random 90s family sitcom
That the NBA for ya… Drama and laughs… lol
You can take issue with the preseason slur (I did) and the chair-throwing incident, but I take exception to the narrative that he’s dumb. His self-awareness and ability to learn from mistakes have been remarkable to this point in his career.
I think people watch clips of him saying goofy stuff and forget that he’s 21. He’s going to say goofy stuff. It makes you lose sight of the way he’s become the emotional leader of the team in three seasons, despite turmoil at head coach, front office, ownership, and starting point guard/veteran leaders (3x). So, I’m confident that he’ll learn from the poor choices to bookend this season, as you say. Also, not going to tolerate someone on the internet calling out an elite athlete for their diet.
He’s been told to clean up his diet many times and still eats like a drunk guy at 5am…
He’s dumb… Has a chance to improve themselves but until they show it they are very fitting of being labelled as dumb…
“he’s been told to clean up his diet many times” – by who?? KAT? KAT missed 53 games this year and Ant’s missed 23 in three years, so this doesn’t carry much weight.
“and still eats like a drunk guy at 5am…” – again, what? Dude, he’s 21. And he’s an elite athlete amongst elite athletes. You’re some schmuck on the internet.
“Has a chance to improve themselves but until they show it they are very fitting of being labelled as dumb…” – you’re doing that thing where you de-humanize athletes and it’s telling by you using “they” to generalize Ant into an amorphous population of people that you think we shouldn’t respect. Tell you what, I’ll give you a handful of examples of Ant recognizing an issue and then adjusting based on it. That is intelligence even if you don’t want to recognize it.
1.link to nbcsports.com
2.link to theathletic.com
Unless you come back with any real examples or non-dog-whistle arguments, I’ve done my work and am done here. You’re just saying shit for the sake of seeing your words on the internet.
Shouldn’t Minnesota have been able to figure out 1 year ago to build the team around Anthony Edwards????
They made the Gobert trade thinking they were erecting this incredible twin towers set.
Now they have very few assets left to reshape the team correctly … and Gobert is now 1 year older and fading.