Minnesota Timberwolves: Ranking the 5 best Wolves duos for NBA Jam
By Phil Ford
The Minnesota Timberwolves have plenty of current and former players who would be perfect for NBA Jam.
Millions of millennial Minnesota Timberwolves fans and NBA fans at-large have vivid childhood memories of spending hours and hours at their local arcade playing one of the most iconic video games of all-time, NBA Jam.
NBA Jam debuted in arcades across the country in 1993. Its simple yet effective gameplay style is one of the reasons it quickly became one of the most popular games in history.
The rules of the game are as basic as it gets. You can choose to play with any NBA team you want, and each team has a dynamic duo who you will match-up against your opponent in a game of two-on-two.
Once you pick your pair the game is, well, let’s just say it’s not exactly realistic. NBA Jam is most known for its gravity-defying dunks and insane alley-oops, players skying for huge blocks, and catching fire from the three-point-line all while Tim Kitzrow yells “boomshakalaka” at you as you throw down a monster dunk.
The original gave us some iconic duos like Utah’s John Stockton and Karl Malone, Golden State’s Tim Hardaway and Chris Mullin, Orlando’s duo of Shaq and Scott Skiles, and Phoenix’s Charles Barkley and Dan Marjele, among a slew of other ’90s stars.
Minnesota Timberwolves: Ranking the 5 best Wolves for NBA Jam
When it debuted in 1993, the Timberwolves’ original duo was Christian Laettner and Chuck Person. That’s not the worst original NBA Jam duo (looking at you, Blue Edwards and Brad Lohaus), but Laettner and Person were far from the most exciting pair to play with.
Twenty-seven years have passed since NBA Jam first launched and now it’s time to return to the arcade and rank the top five Timberwolves teammates who would make the best NBA Jam duo.
The rules of the game are simple, the ranking will be open to anyone who ever played for the Timberwolves from 1989 until the present.
Each player had to be teammates in real life for at least one game while members of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
That last rule is that each player will only be allowed to make the list once. That rule is in place so Kevin Garnett isn’t in four out of the five duos on the list because, duh, he’s Kevin Garnett, far and away the best and most NBA Jam-worthy Timberwolves player of all-time. It would be unfair and frankly pretty boring to see him dominate the list.
Now, before we get to the top five there are some pretty fun honorable mentions that could have make for a solid NBA Jam team.
The first honorable mention is Karl-Anthony Towns and D’Angelo Russell. If it was 2023, this tandem would almost certainly be towards the top of the list, but the friends have only appeared in a single game together. Give it a few years and Russell and Towns should be some of the most exciting teammates to watch going forward.
The other honorable mention here is the Kevin Garnett duo that didn’t make the cut: KG and Terrell Brandon. The KG-TB era was one of the most exciting three-and-a-half-year stretches in Wolves history. It would be fun to see Brandon trowing huge lobs to The Big Ticket and draining three after three after three, but unfortunately for Brandon, KG is paired up with another former teammate on the list.
Let’s get into the list.