The Minnesota Timberwolves were not included in the NBA’s restart in Orlando.
The Minnesota Timberwolves are one of eight teams excluded from the NBA’s ‘bubble’. With the Warriors, Cavaliers, Hornets, Bulls, Pistons, Hawks, and Knicks alongside the Wolves as the bottom-eight teams in the league, none were included in the league’s restart plan simply due to none having realistic playoff chances.
While that rationale does suffice initially, the teams left out of the NBA’s restart plan are all at a significant disadvantage when it comes to player development.
Currently the Nets, Wizards, Suns, Kings, and Spurs are the worst teams by record left in Orlando. While they are all fighting for playoff positioning, giving their young players competitive basketball minutes (while also being able to run full practices) as the worst-eight teams in the league are only able to complete one-person shootarounds seems unfair.
The NBA has done a spectacular job on Disney’s campus. No players have tested positive for COVID-19 since league play started back up. Perhaps introducing a second bubble would dramatically help the teams at the bottom of the league.
The re-introduction of basketball should not be viewed as a continuation of the 2019-20 season, but rather a completely new one.
The four-month long break players received was just as long as any typical offseason and forcing eight professional basketball teams to go nine months without playing in a competitive setting severely hinders each of those teams’ evaluations of their own players, as well as any other team included.
Take Fred VanVleet, for instance. This summer, VanVleet is a pending free agent for the Raptors. He averaged 18 points, four rebounds, and seven assists. However, in the bubble so far (again, it is only three games), VanVleet is averaging 23 points, five rebounds, and eight assists (and only two turnovers) on shooting splits of 53/50/94. And yes, while it has only been a small sample size of games so far, VanVleet will have the opportunity to prove himself even more merely due to his team being able to A) play five more games in a competitive regular-season-type setting and B) play playoff basketball.
From the Timberwolves perspective, they have three pending restricted free agents and only had 14 games to evaluate two of those players. Malik Beasley could command a hefty contract based on what he did in a Minnesota uniform this season, but giving the team more time to evaluate both he and Juan Hernangomez, who they acquired via trade (giving up valuable assets to obtain them), would do nothing but benefit the team (and possibly Beasley/Hernangomez, as well).
If the NBA is unwilling to create a second bubble or allow teams to run full practices, then they need to create some sort of system in order to help the non-bubble teams from a competitive standpoint. It could be a re-organization of lottery odds (maybe not excluding the teams that were included in seeding games but putting more emphasis on the teams that did not make it). It could also be an additional financial exception during free agency (giving those without salary cap room more money to spend on talent).
However, there has to be something done in order to help the bottom-eight teams. The NBA’s restart plan has been excellent so far and hopefully it will continue to be such, but the Timberwolves are at a disadvantage going into next season, especially if they would like to make a playoff push.