Timberwolves fantastic voyage: A steep climb to relevancy

The Minnesota Timberwolves, wounded and cornered, still have some fight in them after all, it seems. After the team ended the 2022 calendar year on a nadir, a six-game losing streak that dropped the team to a 16-21 record, hope for a winning season seemed to have a candle’s chance in a hurricane. And yet, just one game into the new 2023 portion of the NBA season, and those hopes seem a little bit brighter. The Timberwolves handily defeated the Denver Nuggets by a score of 124-111.

There will be those irrational takes from this one. You can already see them showing up on social media or hear them being typed up in shock-filled articles about how this one game proves that the Minnesota Timberwolves are a better team without PG D’Angelo Russell or PF/C Karl-Anthony Towns.

Some have taken it so far that they believe that the entire Minnesota Timberwolves roster should be shed now, with the exception of Anthony Edwards, and reassembled to feature players who would ensure that Edwards is center stage in each and every Timberwolves game going forward. Their reasoning, again, is that these Minnesota Timberwolves are so much better when relying exclusively on A1 to lead them to the promised land

They’re not.

We see the Minnesota Timberwolves as we want to see them

We frame the world around us to fit our definition of it. A hammer views everything as a nail. A fish views the world as fishes. Right now, it’s tough to see who or what the Minnesota Timberwolves are. The team remains too ambiguous.

And so, we all see what we want to see. Some see a team simply going through growing pains, still on a trajectory to the NBA Playoffs. Others take a much darker view and see this team as being fleeced again via another NBA blockbuster trade. And even others see a team with no chance of being anything more than a one-and-done playoff team for the foreseeable future.

The more things change, the more things stay the same, eh?