4 things to love about Minnesota Timberwolves new lineups

There are plenty of qualities to love about the Minnesota Timberwolves roster after the NBA Trade Deadline, and the lineups that the coaches can send onto the basketball court as a result. This is no longer a team battling injuries and roles. The parting of ways with D’Angelo Russell may create a void in scoring for the team, but let’s not turn a blind eye toward the new opportunities that his absence creates for the team.

If the stories are true, and DLo openly chided and berated his teammate, center Rudy Gobert, that created a bad locker room environment. But let’s not overlook the fact that D’Angelo Russell had plenty of question marks himself. In the NBA Playoffs, when the team needed all hands on deck, he sat and watched his teammates battle it out with the Memphis Grizzlies.

Timberwolves picked up players who are great fits

The Minnesota Timberwolves not only off-loaded a very expensive player, but they were able to get three draft picks as a result, as well as add a true veteran point guard Mike Conley Jr., as well as a promising wing player in Nickeil Alexander-Walker.

But the roster is not nearly as important as the team’s lineups.  So let’s take a look at how the Timberwolves opened their first game with Conley and Alexander-Walker on the roster:

For their second game since the NBA Trade Deadline, the Timberwolves tweaked the lineup. And the move illustrated one of the reasons to love the new lineups. But for now, let’s just point out the changes.

The Timberwolves started power forward Taurean Prince, and played forward Kyle Anderson off the bench:

So what is there to love about this roster?

Reason IV: It’s a versatile group of players

The Minnesota Timberwolves, like every professional sports team, is a group of professional athletes who must be willing to adapt a bit to promote the success of the team. Adapting is one of the strategies that separate successful teams from unsuccessful teams. So far this season, the Timberwolves have found it necessary to rely on players to adapt in multiple ways.

The most obvious is the fact that the Minnesota Timberwolves have played 38 games without All-Star PF/C Karl-Anthony Towns. But he was not the only key player injured for the Timberwolves. The team has had to play 10+ games without center Rudy Gobert, power forward Taurean Prince, forward Kyle Anderson, backup point guard Jordan McLaughlin, and even guard Austin Rivers.

Course correction

But perhaps more importantly, this was a team that was created on a whiteboard, an assembly of players onto the Minnesota Timberwolves roster who never had the chance to generate any chemistry before the season started, and as a result of injuries, failed to identify several trouble hotspots for the team.

D’Angelo Russell was simply not the point guard for this team. And after discovering that revelation, the Timberwolves were already behind the eight ball thanks to the injury to backup point guard Jordan McLaughlin. So the team redirected the floor general responsibilities to both Kyle Anderson and Anthony Edwards. While both players stepped up, it was not an optimal use for either.  Now, with Mike Conley on the court, the Timberwolves have multiple options to handle the basketball.

The team can also sit Kyle Anderson and start Taurean Prince, a vital option to have as Anderson continues to struggle with back spasms.

Reason III: A good blend of veterans and youth

There is so much focus on the Minnesota Timberwolves seasoned veterans that it’s almost ridiculous how quickly and easily NBA analysts and pundits overlook the quality of this team’s young players. Yes, the Timberwolves have solid veterans in the form of Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns, and that is vital to the success of this team.

But the Timberwolves also have incredibly talented young players, in the form of Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels. Those two players are not only talented basketball players, but they have the energy and defensive chops to cause plenty of problems to opponents when they are both on the floor and can lock in.

Balanced, as all things must be

The Timberwolves roster is not skewed in either direction. For every veteran like Mike Conley Jr. or Taurean Prince, there is a corresponding young player like Jordan McLaughlin or Naz Reid. And with three additional second-round picks, the Timberwolves are in a much better position to keep the talent pipeline filled with young players.

Don’t forget the promising players who are on Two-Way contracts for the Minnesota Timberwolves: Center Luka Garza and forward Matt Ryan. The team will need to prune and graft players along the way, but the Timberwolves’ core is quite good, and when fully healthy will be quite competitive for years to come.

Reason II: This is a team built upon NBA All-Stars

The Minnesota Timberwolves have built this team upon a triad of NBA All-Stars. They are Rudy Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns, and now Anthony Edwards. Although paying D’Angelo Russell to be that third leg of an NBA Championship team, he was neither productive nor versatile enough at that compensation level to make sense. Unfortunately, as the season wore on, his salary demands outpaced the willingness of the team to compensate him any higher.

But with the arrival of Mike Conley, the Timberwolves now have a boost to their defense, and that was spotlighted as the team shut down the Dallas Mavericks to preserve a desperately needed victory on the road. The performance was so spectacular, that former Timberwolves great Kevin Garnett even was prompted to talk about it:

That’s pretty special

Timberwolves toughen up on D

The Timberwolves have made a serious push to get stronger on defense, and the results continue to flash for the team. Both Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels are standouts on defense for the team. But there are more talented players on this team’s roster than all that. We have witnessed Naz Reid and even Luka Garza step up and play energetic defense for the Timberwolves this season.

The unfortunate circumstances of injuries this season have made stringing wins together a bit more difficult for the Timberwolves than originally hoped.  But if the Timberwolves can get Karl-Anthony Towns back after the NBA All-Star Break, then the team has a chance to get hot in time for the NBA Playoffs.

Reason I: The Timberwolves have two tracks of success

The aspect of this Minnesota Timberwolves roster that I believe I love the most is the fact that this team has a built-in reset button. What do I mean? Well, if you look at the team’s construction, you will find that veteran All-Stars Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns jump off the page. But if you focus a bit more closely, you will find that the team has All-Star Anthony Edwards and potential future All-Star Jaden McDaniels on the roster as well.

The good news now is that with the addition of Mike Conley, the Timberwolves have unlocked the offensive output of their center, and added a bit more defense to the team as well. It was the arrival of Conley that has opened up the Timberwolves roster to many possibilities.

Conley may be the missing piece for the Timberwolves roster

With Conley at the helm, the Timberwolves have the right guy on the basketball court to feed Rudy Gobert the ball. That frees up everyone else on the court to get open and score, a much simpler task than their pre-trade deadline offensive gyrations. But it also adds a strong perimeter defender to the lineup, giving the Timberwolves the option of allowing Gobert to protect the rim, get Edwards and McDaniels defending the hottest shooters, and still have two defenders to move quickly on the court.

Ultimately, there will be no handouts for the Minnesota Timberwolves to close out this season. This team has played 60 games, and one more to go as the team hosts the Washington Wizards (26-30) on February 16, 2023, as their final contest before the NBA All-Star Break. But this team has shown remarkable resilience. Now, the team must pull it all together for one last push to the NBA Playoffs.