Revisiting pre-season expectations for the Minnesota Timberwolves

This season was undeniably a disappointing one for the Minnesota Timberwolves. After starting the year with mild success, the team ultimately collapsed as the season progressed. While the entire roster was overhauled mid-season, there was not much from a chemistry standpoint that could be done towards the latter half of games played.

The Minnesota Timberwolves had a roller coaster of a year. After missing out on D’Angelo Russell in free agency in the offseason while also maintaining their roster and trading up in the draft for wing Jarrett Culver, the expectation was that they would be a playoff team.

The Timberwolves started the season with the eighth best odds to make the playoffs, according to FiveThirtyEight. They also were projected to have 44 wins, with a 51% chance to make the playoffs, according to the same projections.

Minnesota is not far removed from having a completely different roster. Only two of their current players were on the team just one year ago: Josh Okogie and Karl-Anthony Towns. While the team has overhauled in terms of players, they also had a rookie coach this past year as well.

Ryan Saunders, the late basketball great Flip Saunders’ son, who was an assistant with the team for roughly six years, took over head coaching duties after Tom Thibodeau was dismissed back in January 2019. He had a rocky season, living through losing streaks of eleven and thirteen games respectively.

While he was not spectacular, the offense that he ran has been much improved over the Thibodeau years, and actually made Andrew Wiggins a useful player when he played for the team before the trade deadline.

That was, of course, before D’Angelo Russell arrived on the team (in exchange for Wiggins himself). Russell, who has improved as a scorer each of his years in the league, finally gives the Timberwolves the elite-level guard they have been looking for.

The expectations around his arrival were mixed, though. While he certainly was not efficient while playing on the Golden State Warriors, Russell had, in fact, been on the worst roster in the league. Both Steph Curry and Klay Thompson were hurt, and Draymond Green was often out of the lineup as well. In Minnesota, though, Russell was very consistent as both a scorer and passer and should be a very good compliment to team star Karl-Anthony Towns.

While it is exciting to finally have a combination of All-Star caliber players, there has only been one game which the two have shared the floor — and with a roster that will hopefully improve over the course of the offseason, the expectations will seemingly be high yet again.