Minnesota Timberwolves: 3 trade ideas for the deadline

With the trade deadline looming on Thursday afternoon, is it time for the Minnesota Timberwolves to consider selling and preparing for next year and beyond?

The Minnesota Timberwolves are coming off another embarrassing loss, this time to the tanking Memphis Grizzlies. It’s time to start looking towards next year.

Sitting at 25-28 and a full four games out of the playoff race, it may be best for the Wolves to consider selling. The biggest problems the front office is facing are injuries and bad contracts, and while the Wolves have a decent roster when healthy, there isn’t as much flexibility cap-wise as they’d like to have heading into the summer.

While trading Jimmy Butler to Philadelphia netted Robert Covington, Dario Saric, and Jerryd Bayless, injuries to Covington and inconsistency from Saric has set the organization back for the current season.

Saric is still coming off the bench and is barely playing 20 minutes per game. He did, however, have a huge game on Tuesday night in Memphis.

If the Timberwolves want to make the most out of Dario’s potential, they need to consider moving him into the starting role and playing him 30-plus minutes a night. It makes no sense to trade a top-20 player in Butler for someone who only plays 20 minutes per game at the expense of Taj Gibson, who is a free agent at the end of the season and likely not a long-term fit in Minnesota.

The NBA trade deadline is coming quickly, and the Timberwolves have to make up their minds about moving pieces for the future.

Let’s take a look at three potential trades, taking into consideration that the Wolves are reportedly not considering moving Andrew Wiggins.