Minnesota Timberwolves Tim Connelly: “A place you want to come to win.”

The first order of business for the Minnesota Timberwolves is a simple basic step, and yet is the key to defining the future of the franchise and perhaps the legacy of the Minnesota Timberwolves new President of Basketball Operations, Tim Connelly.

The Timberwolves have to remake the face of the franchise. Not as a wheeling-dealing team. Not as a team where established NBA veterans go to sunset their careers. Not even where young NBA talented NBA players learn the ropes to sign max contracts elsewhere. Nothing like that. This is about making the Minnesota Timberwolves a place that draws players who want to win in the NBA to this team. And the only way to do that is to … win?

That’s right, the Catch-22 of the NBA. To attract winners, the team needs to establish a pattern of winning consistently, and then compete in the NBA Playoffs each year.

So aren’t the Timberwolves already there? I mean, a 46-36 record was good enough to earn a seventh-seed in the NBA Playoffs, and this team was tied 2-2 and up by double digits against the Memphis Grizzlies before dropping two games and being sent packing for home.

Minnesota Timberwolves and winning culture

No, not really. After the 2017-18 season when the Timberwolves finished with a 45-37 record, the team regressed and did not return to the NBA Playoffs until this past season. The NBA is structured in such a way that churns the teams that struggle to win consistently. That gives almost all teams a chance of finding some success over the course of a five to six-year cycle.

Connelly is talking about breaking through that cycle to the upper echelons of the NBA. Teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, the Golden State Warriors, or the Boston Celtics, may stumble for a season, but quickly right themselves back to their winning ways. And that success lingers from one season to the next.

Can Connelly build that type of winning culture with the Minnesota Timberwolves? Yes. The Timberwolves are well-positioned for the next two seasons to transform into a perennial winner. But that will take rolling the dice, making some bold moves, and perhaps ruffling some feathers along the way.

Winning consistently is not always easy. If it was, every team in the NBA would be doing it.