It seems as though there are more doubters than believers in the Minnesota Timberwolves plans to win an NBA Championship right now. But isn’t that how it goes? Innovators face more pushback than most. Upsetting the status quo comes at a cost.
Is there ever a warm welcome for anyone who tries to revitalize a concept that others had failed at miserably? Not only does that success shame those who failed to consider something ‘new,’ but it also points to those who failed to succeed at past attempts.
The Minnesota Timberwolves are out to prove them wrong. “Them” being all of the NBA Insiders, analysts, pundits, reporters, and talking heads who have concluded that the modern NBA is no longer ripe for pairing two bigs on the same team. But that is either based upon failed attempts to do so in the past, or a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure that dooms any attempt before it ever starts.
There will be plenty of time to look back on the Rudy Gobert trade and choose to either applaud or boo the move based on the outcome. But since we do not have the courtesy of 20/20 hindsight, we have to do our best today of estimating how Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert will complement one another.
Still, there are lessons about what not to do, and the Timberwolves would be wise to study the history of what does and does not work whenever NBA teams attempted to pair two tall players to co-exist on the same roster.