The Minnesota Timberwolves need a tremendous amount of help this offseason.
The Minnesota Timberwolves need help at multiple positional groups this offseason.
Simply put, their current bench is downright bad. The Wolves have players such as Jordan McLaughlin, Jake Layman, Jarrett Culver, and Naz Reid coming off the bench and if they would like to make a playoff push next season, they will need to dramatically improve that rotation.
Minnesota will be competing with teams such as the Memphis Grizzlies, Sacramento Kings, and Phoenix Suns for a playoff spot this coming season, and if they fail to improve upon their current roster, may fall short of the postseason.
The first overall pick is going to be something of an asset in October for the Timberwolves. While they need to land at least a starting-caliber player right away, they also need someone that brings a good amount of upside that will help both Karl-Anthony Towns and D’Angelo Russell in the long-term.
Minnesota also needs a good group of role players that can come off the bench, though. The Timberwolves may hit on their first-round pick (in fact, it’s more than likely), but building up the back-half of the roster is going to nothing short of a challenge for Gersson Rosas.
The Suns, for instance, had Mikal Bridges, Dario Saric, Cameron Johnson, and Aron Baynes all in the back half of their rotation and failed to make the playoffs with a roster that consisted of both Devin Booker and DeAndre Ayton (with arguably better-surrounding starters than what the Timberwolves have around Russell and Towns).
Again though, the Suns aren’t the Timberwolves’ only competition for a playoff spot. The Western Conference is loaded, and the more competitive teams are, the better their benches seem to be. While it may be more of a long-term team-building goal, beefing up the bench might be the only option. Being able to go four players deep off of the bench should be a reasonable expectation for any playoff team.
The Minnesota Timberwolves need more depth to become more competitive in 2020-21, and while Rosas certainly does not seem to be close to done building the roster, the clock is ticking to build around Towns and Russell.