Minnesota Timberwolves Roundup: Patrick Beverley, offseason moves rankings

The Minnesota Timberwolves and Memphis Grizzlies have consummated their trade, meaning that Patrick Beverley is now officially on the roster.

Additionally, the Wolves offseason continues to be looked down upon by folks around the league’s media landscape.

Minnesota Timberwolves Roundup: Patrick Beverley trade is official

The Wolves acquisition of veteran guard Patrick Beverley was initially reported just over a week ago. The trade has finally been confirmed by both teams and has been officially announced.

Yours truly wrote about Beverley’s near-perfect fit with the Wolves shortly after the trade was reported. It appears as though Beverley himself is excited about the new marriage as well.

Beverley has cited former Wolves superstar and new Hall-of-Famer Kevin Garnett as his primary motivation on the defensive end of the floor.

The Wolves Twitter account put out a photo of PatBev donning The Big Ticket’s jersey.

Again, Beverley’s defensive intensity, outside shooting, and veteran leadership will fit the Wolves’ otherwise painfully young roster perfectly.

After trading away Ricky Rubio a few weeks ago, Minnesota had an obvious hole at the backup point guard spot. Look for Beverley to come off the bench and play behind D’Angelo Russell, but don’t be surprised to see him on the floor during crunchtime and playing the role of primary point-of-attack defender on the perimeter while operating off the ball on offense.

Russell and Anthony Edwards will be the ones initiating the offense down the stretch of games while the offense flows through Karl-Anthony Towns, but Beverley’s defense and ability to stretch the floor on offense will keep him on the floor for 24-plus minutes despite not being in the starting lineup.

Minnesota Timberwolves Roundup: Offseason moves rankings

It’s no secret that the Wolves simply haven’t done much this offseason.

Front office boss Gersson Rosas traded away both of the Wolves’ first-round picks in the Russell-Andrew Wiggins trade last year. There wasn’t much cap space to speak of, and the Wolves didn’t have many viable trade assets outside of their core players.

We talked about this here at Dunking With Wolves two months ago; the Wolves were never going to have a busy offseason. There simply weren’t moves to be made.

The Athletic’s David Aldridge has ranked all 30 NBA teams based solely on their offseason moves (subscription required). He’s very clear in the article’s introduction that this is not a power ranking, and it isn’t intended to be received as which teams are the best and worst in the league, or even a ranking of rosters.

Instead, he is considering only the moves that were (and were not) made during the summer.

In what was still something of a mild surprise, the Wolves came in dead-last at No. 30. Despite the Beverley move and despite the self-control to not give up assets to horn their way into the 2021 NBA Draft to add yet another young player to the roster, Aldridge ranked them at the bottom of the league.

Other teams in the bottom five include the Sacramento Kings, Portland Trail Blazers, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Boston Celtics.

The Kings basically shuffled deck chairs in their frontcourt, the Blazers are mostly running it back after an extremely disappointing season, the Thunder simply aren’t trying to improve, and the Celtics have a new front office and first-time head coach.

At any rate, the Wolves’ No. 30 ranking seems a bit low, but it’s understandable coming from a 10,000-foot perspective.

We’ll see if Rosas’ relative inactivity is ultimately seen as a positive thing when the 2021-22 season is all said and done.