Timberwolves What-Ifs: Sam Cassell’s 2004 Playoff Injury

Another day, another what-if: would the Timberwolves have won the 2004 NBA Finals if Sam Cassell had not gotten injured in the Western Conference Finals?

The Minnesota Timberwolves missed the playoffs this season for the 13th consecutive year — the longest current drought in the NBA. And the last time they were there, they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games in the Western Conference Finals.

Going into the 2003-2004 season, the Wolves had been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in seven consecutive seasons, which was an NBA record. Of course, Kevin Garnett continued to be one of the best players in the league, but did not have a good enough supporting cast.

Vice President of Basketball Operations Kevin McHale, who was under plenty of criticism for not building a deep enough roster, got really busy in the summer of 2003.

McHale acquired point guard Sam Cassell and small forward Latrell Sprewell via trades and signed guards Fred Hoiberg and Trenton Hassell and forward Mark Madsen.

The Wolves got off to a slow start at 9-8, but started to take off once they began to gel as a unit. They finished the season with a 58-24 record and were the top seed in the West. Cassell became an All-Star for the first time in his career and Garnett was named the league’s Most Valuable Player for the first time.

The Wolves finally got past the first round, beating the Denver Nuggets in five games. Then, they beat Rick Adelman‘s Sacramento Kings in seven games in a series that will never be forgotten by Wolves fans. (It was the Wolves’ last playoff series win, after all.)

Up next were the Los Angeles Lakers, led by superstars Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, whose Lakers had won three straight championships in a run that had completed just two years earlier. Despite having home court advantage, many considered the Lakers to win the series. After all, they did have two of the best players in the league and had been the best team in the league three times in the past four years, while the Wolves just made it out of the first round for the first time.

The Lakers won 97-88 to take game one, but the Wolves came back to win the next game by a score of 89-71. Cassell, however, who had been the team’s second-best player all season injured his hip one minute into the game and did not return.

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The Lakers won the next two games at home to take a 3-1 lead in the series while Cassell played 26 minutes and scored 18 points in game three. He played in only five minutes the next game, however, scoring three points, and did not play in the final two games. Darrick Martin started in those two games, but only played a total of 36 minutes and had 10 points and six assists. Hoiberg received plenty of minutes at the point and Garnett spent a significant amount of time bringing the ball up the court as well.

The Lakers went on to lose in five games to the Detroit Pistons in the NBA Finals. Many have wondered since then whether or not the Wolves could have won the championship that year if Cassell did not get hurt.

For his part, Cassell certainly thinks so.

"“That was a major setback because I knew for a fact that if I was healthy, we would have won a championship. We would have definitely won a championship that year. Detroit won it that year and they beat the Lakers, (the Wolves’ opponent in the Western Conference Finals). I knew for a fact – and just to play not even 38 minutes, but if I was healthy enough to play 30 minutes, we would have won a championship that year. I know in my heart."

In 81 regular season games, Cassell had averaged 7.3 assists per game and a career-high 19.8 points a game. That’s production that simply can’t be replaced on the fly in the conference finals.

The Lakers traded O’Neal in the off-season and the Wolves were bringing back the same roster and things were really looking up in Minnesota. Unfortunately, the next season was a major disappointment. The Wolves went 44-38 and did not make the playoffs. Cassell only appeared in 59 games, averaging 13.5 points and 5.1 assists per game and was traded to the Los Angeles Clippers after the season.

Latrell Sprewell, who also played a critical run in the 2003-2004 season, did not have as good of a season as the previous one, either. He averaged a career-low 12.8 points per game and made the infamous needing-to-feed-his-family comments when complaining about his contract situation. Coach Flip Saunders was fired after a 25-26 start to the season.

Would the Wolves have beaten the Pistons? Maybe. The Pistons had an outstanding defensive team led by Ben Wallace. They also had Rasheed Wallace, Richard “Rip” Hamilton, future Wolf Tayshaun Prince and former Wolf and Finals MVP Chauncey Billups. But, perhaps the Wolves would have beaten them.

But even if they had lost, it would have been awesome to see them play in the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history. The missed opportunity is even tougher to swallow now given how everything has gone for them since that season. Someday, they could get there with Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, but that would surely be a few years away.

Saunders may also not have been fired, and Garnett may not have been traded three years later, sending the Wolves into a phase of perpetual rebuilding.

The Wolves have been hit hard by bad luck and bad personnel moves ever since the inaugural season in 1989-90. Winning a championship in 2004 — or even making it to the NBA Finals — would have of course helped ease the pain they and their fans are currently still experiences.

Next: What If The Timberwolves Had Drafted Giannis, Gobert in 2013?

Memories do not always last forever, but certainly help in bad situations. And the recent state of the Timberwolves is exactly that.