How lopsided was Timberwolves trade of Wiggins for D’Angelo Russell?

In February 2020, the Minnesota Timberwolves traded Andrew Wiggins, a Top-3 protected 2021 first-round pick, and a 2021 second-round to shed a hefty contract and acquire D’Angelo Russell, Jacob Evans, and Omari Spellman.  At the time, the sentiment concluded that the Timberwolves had masterfully dumped an overpaid Andrew Wiggins and upgraded with proven veteran D’Lo.

In January 2021, history was rewritten, and NBCSports Bay Area Warriors declared the exchange a fleecing by the Warriors. At the time of the trade, Andrew Wiggins was a high-volume shooter who struggled to score from three-point range, was not a particularly good defender, and was handsomely paid for his underwhelming performance.

So what exactly was the trade?

One Timberwolves trade that we are still talking about

Well, for starters, it was one of the multiple trades that the Minnesota Timberwolves made before the trade deadline that year. And like any multi-step process, you get a pretty bleak picture of focusing upon just one step in that process. That is because it is all taken out of context.

On paper, it looked like this:

Did the Timberwolves pay a premium? If so, why? Well, to understand that, we need to go back to where the Minnesota Timberwolves were at the time of the trade. Well, trades, to be more accurate.

Let’s revisit the scenario once more, shall we? At the time of the trade, a less costly D’Angelo Russell was averaging a career-high 23.6 points along with 6.2 assists and 3.7 rebounds. The more costly Andrew Wiggins, who never fulfilled the hopes of being selected first in the 2014 NBA Draft, was averaging 22.4 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 3.7 assists.

Playing the End Game

At the time, Andrew Wiggins had just inked a five-year / $147,710,050 contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves on October 11, 2017. Wiggins was in the second year of his contract extension in which he averaged $29.5 million. Meanwhile, D’Angelo Russell was playing in the second year of a four-year / $117,325,500 contract with the Brooklyn Nets, in which he averaged $29.3 million.

At the time, the deal was considered a win-win. Wiggins was highly paid but not delivering for the Timberwolves.  Wiggins needed a change of scenery and a fresh start. Russell needed a chance to grow into a larger role than one he had with the Golden State Warriors.

Now, more than 18 months later, we’re back at it again, this time thanks to Heavy.com’s Sean Deveney revisiting the trade with an ‘anonymous’ NBA coach. This time the colorful descriptive terminology is ‘highway robbery.’ But this is a story that is quite honestly over two and a half years old. To place this all into perspective, the trade itself happened before COVID-19 ever swept across the nation, and the world.

The story has immortality

Hmm…

This narrative has more legs than the Philadelphia Eagles fans snowballing Santa Claus. I mean, 30 months after the fact, and suddenly that tired old trade bursts back into NBA headlines?

Can we give it a rest?

This repetitive return to a 30-month-old trade is a bit boorish. What the detractors insist upon is one trade. But let’s revisit the strategy of the move because it was one trade in a series of trades that would export multiple players, and import multiple players.

Minnesota Timberwolves reworking the entire roster

At the time, the Minnesota Timberwolves were not just trading for D’Angelo Russell. The Timberwolves were aggressively trying to appease their star center, Karl-Anthony Towns, who patiently continued to play lights out while awaiting the team’s efforts to assemble a winning roster around him.

The Timberwolves knew that D’Angelo Russell could give the team the necessary leverage to keep KAT on the roster. Besides that, he was a perceived upgrade at a position that the Timberwolves greatly desired.

The Timberwolves had already moved on from veteran  PG Jeff Teague, and the team was in need of a franchise-leading field general. D’Angelo Russell was ‘the fit,’ for many reasons. He seemed to be peaking, having just earned an All-Star honor in 2018-19 with the Brooklyn Nets, pushing his scoring average to over 23 points per game, and inching his three-point accuracy north of 35 percent shooting.

What Wiggins wasn’t

Wiggins never developed a long-shot, was lazy on defense, and was rapidly losing whatever goodwill he had with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Wiggins needed a wake-up call, and the sudden trade to the Golden State Warriors did exactly that.

So what were the Minnesota Timberwolves thinking? Well, the team had Karl Anthony Towns on the roster and had just traded away a disappointing Wiggins for a much better-suited D’Angelo Russell. But if you recall, that was a period of tremendous roster upheaval for the Timberwolves. If you recall, the team traded away plenty of players for plenty of new players.

The Timberwolves were involved in three separate trades before the NBA Trade deadline that year, sending out seven players and bringing in eight players.

Minnesota Timberwolves’ long-term strategy paid off

This was also a team that would end the season with a record of 19-45. Why would a team in a death spiral downwards be so active at the trade deadline? Simply stated, the Timberwolves burned it all to the ground to get a jump start on rebuilding the roster once more.   The team ended the 2019-20 season with a record that would place them into the NBA lottery, a lottery that would net the team the first overall pick in the draft.

The team chose shooting guard Anthony Edwards.

Now with D’Angelo Russell, Anthony Edwards, and Karl-Anthony Towns, the team modestly improved to 23-49. But the team showed signs of even better progress after the All-Star break, as the Timberwolves scored 8.5 more points per 100 possessions.

That momentum would carry over to 2021-22 when the Timberwolves finally put up a winning record of 46-36. The team would find a path to winning games from the combined efforts of Russell, Towns, and Edwards. But this team was not finished.

In the 2022 NBA offseason, the Timberwolves upped the ante once more, trading away multiple players and draft picks for what is believed to be the final piece to the puzzle that the Timberwolves began to assemble in 2020, All-Star center Rudy Gobert.

Records matter

Over the course of SF Andrew Wiggins’ career with the Minnesota Timberwolves, the team finished better than .500 just once in 5.5 NBA seasons. In just 2.5 seasons with D’Angelo Russell, the Timberwolves have finished one season at better than .500.

I won’t even bother to consider Wiggins’ impact on the Golden State Warriors. That team is carried by Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green. All other players on that roster are simply on the court to feed the basketball to one of the Warriors’ top-3, defend opponents, and take the easy open shots when necessary. Did Andrew Wiggins see an uptick in his stats on the Warriors? Sure. So did Otto Potter Jr. So did Damion Lee. So did Gary Payton II. Don’t be duped into believing that the Golden State Warriors have unlocked Wiggins’s true potential.

The Golden State Warriors have that effect on any basketball player who takes the court alongside their starting trio. The Timberwolves landed a great fit in D’Angelo Russell. How can I say that?

The Minnesota Timberwolves are a much better team now than when they had Andrew Wiggins on the roster. In the end, isn’t that what it’s all about?