Minnesota Timberwolves Roundup: 2021 season start, Trevon Duval feature

There is finally some information about when the Minnesota Timberwolves’ 2021 season may get underway.

No, we still don’t actually know when the 2021 season will start for the Minnesota Timberwolves. But there is reason to believe that we’re getting closer to finding out.

Also, there is a Bleacher Report feature article on one of the Iowa Wolves guards from last year, including a quote from Iowa’s head coach.

When will the Minnesota Timberwolves’ 2021 season get underway?

For some time, it appeared as though the 2020-21 season was going to start on or around Christmas Day.

Then, due to a combination of player concern that they would be back in training camp only weeks after the conclusion of the Finals and owners holding out hope that they would be able to have fans in arenas if the start of the season was pushed back. Something like mid-to-late January, possibly Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, seemed to be a realistic target.

Now, with COVID-19 cases spiking across much of the nation, it sounds as if the league is no longer confident that they’ll be able to have fans in the stands at the start of the season.

But, if this happens, the league is preparing for a shorter season, undoubtedly with the goal of completing the playoffs prior to the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo.

Christmas is in exactly two months, of course, and there would need to be some semblance of a training camp and preseason prior to opening night, especially for the eight teams who were excluded from the Orlando bubble.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if the league opened camps early for the non-bubble teams and even gave them an extra preseason game or two. The teams who went deeper in the playoffs probably wouldn’t be interested in a lengthy run-up to the regular season, anyway.

There is a lot that needs to happen between now and the start of the 2021 season, but it’s certainly encouraging that there is progress in that direction.

Minnesota Timberwolves Roundup: Trevon Duval’s journey

The Iowa Wolves selected former Duke guard Trevon Duval with the No. 5 pick in last year’s G League draft. He was a one-and-done player for the Blue Devils who went undrafted in 2018 and has bounced around the G League over the past couple of years and played in three games for the 2017-18 Milwaukee Bucks.

Bleacher Report’s Clevis Murray wrote a feature piece on Duval, including quotes from his father, his agent, his AAU coach, and Iowa Wolves head coach Sam Newman-Beck.

Duval had a disappointing season at Duke after ranking as the No. 6 high school recruit in the country in 2017, and he hasn’t been able to put together a body of work to make him a true NBA prospect.

The combination of his modest size and lack of efficiency in his offensive game is to blame for his current status as a fringe NBA player, but his athleticism and feel on both ends of the floor has kept him in the conversation.

He was a rotation player for the Iowa Wolves, moving into the starting lineup when two-way player Jordan McLaughlin was called up to the Timberwolves. It was an underwhelming season for him in Des Moines, however, as he averaged only 6.9 points and 2.5 assists in 16.9 minutes per game. Shooting was indeed an issue, as he made only 21.3 percent of his 3-point attempts and 63.6 percent from the free throw line.

Given those numbers, it seems unlikely that he’ll be back in the organization, but we’ll know for sure as we draw closer to the start of next season. Either way, guys like Duval are easy to root for as he continues to fight to get his career on track.