Minnesota Timberwolves: 5 best trades of the 2010’s decade

Honorable Mention #2 – Kevin Garnett comes home

You could say that Wolves fans were pretty excited to have the best player in franchise history back at Target Center as a member of Wolves.

This video still gives me chills every time I see it. Ricky Rubio, Kevin Martin, Andrew Wiggins, KG, and Pek started that game in a 97-77 win over the Wizards. Raise your hand if you miss those days.

While Thaddeus Young was a solid player in his half-season in a Wolves uniform, averaging 14.3 points, 5.1 boards, 2.2 stocks (steals + blocks) and a career-high 2.8 assists per game, he was simply a salary-filler (in the deal that brought Wiggins to Minnesota as part of a three-team trade) and was never a long-term fit with the Wolves.

From a purely statistical view, the Wolves may have “lost” this trade, but this move was very clearly not meant to be one that sought a player who would make an immediate on-court impact and take the Wolves to the next level in the 2014-15 season.

In his penultimate trade as Wolves’ President of Basketball Operations, Flip Saunders brought back a franchise legend and fan favorite to pair with an NBA champion like Tayshaun Prince, whom he coached in Detroit, in order to help mentor the next generation of Timberwolves.

The Big Ticket was always meant to close out his career wearing a No. 21 Minnesota Timberwolves jersey. He fully acknowledged his on-court role was going to be less important than his off-court one, which became crucially important once the Wolves drafted KAT first-overall the following summer.

While KAT and Garnett are very evidently very different breeds, KAT feels a responsibility to win for fans like you and me – who have long suffered through nearly two decades of losing basketball – because of Kevin Garnett. KG made sure not only that Towns knew what the fans in Minnesota had been through, but more importantly, that KAT understood he had the talent to bring the fan base the winning they so richly deserve.

It was a very low-risk, culture-building move that was aimed at instilling a winning attitude and work ethic in the young Wolves while allowing the greatest player the Twin Cities had ever seen step foot on the home Target Center floor to go out on his own terms, in his city, playing for the man that drafted him for one last ride.