Minnesota Timberwolves: 5 things they need this offseason
By Ben Beecken
#1 – Don’t overthink the offseason (you don’t have to make a splash)
Year One of the Tom Thibodeau regime saw the Timberwolves stand pat. They made zero trades and only made fringe free agent signings, although the Cole Aldrich contract ended up being fairly expensive for how he’s been (not) used.
Last offseason, however, Thibodeau got to work. He acquired Jimmy Butler via trade and signed Taj Gibson, Jeff Teague, and Jamal Crawford in free agency. Undrafted free agent Marcus Georges-Hunt ended up seeing some minutes at backup wing, too.
The team jumped from 31 wins in 2016-17 to 47 wins and a playoff berth in 2017-18. While it’s all felt largely unfulfilling to many fans, progress is progress. And since the entire makeup of the team shifted last year, it would make sense that Year Two of this lineup and Year Three under Thibs would see significant improvement.
Remember, Butler missed 20 games and Towns made a leap from star to superstar, landing his first All-Star nomination and an All-NBA Third Team nod. If the defensive makes a marginal improvement and some of the aforementioned adjustments are made to the roster and the rotation, this is surely a 55-win team.
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It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next few months. It seems more likely that nothing major goes down, but it wouldn’t be a complete shock to see Thibodeau go off script and do something significant.