NBA Rumors: Timberwolves never intended to extend D’Angelo Russell

The Minnesota Timberwolves were active at the NBA Trade Deadline, as the team needed to get their house in order. Clearly, the extent to just much of the Timberwolves’ roster struggled never truly broke to the public. The Timberwolves’ rumors that surfaced throughout the season detailed contract negotiations that found themselves on the back burner.

At one point, those rumors suggested that at one point, D’Angelo Rusell’s group ‘leaked’ word that he was willing to take a pay cut to stay with the Timberwolves. At other times, word was that the Timberwolves were focused on extension talks with other players including Naz Reid and Jaylen Nowell.

‘Connelly never wanted to extend him’

But after D’Angelo Russell has been traded, Darren ‘Doogie’ Wolfson shared on The Scoop podcast that Minnesota Timberwolves President of Basketball Operations, Tim Connelly, had soured on extending D’Angelo Russell, all but ensuring that the team would trade DLo at the trade deadline:

"“Now that Russell is gone, he’s in L.A., just know this: Tim Connelly never wanted to extend the pending free agent,” Wolfson reported on The Scoop podcast"

The Timberwolves rumors were reported on The Scoop, and you can check it out for yourself in the embedded podcast below:

If you want to get a video on the story, here is a link to a video podcast as well.

While there was no screaming and shouting in the Timberwolves’ locker room, D’Angelo Russell was not quiet about his unhappiness with Gobert. Rather than work with Gobert to reinforce their chemistry, the truth is that DLo put the burden of making everything work on Gobert, and let everyone know it. We had already reported how uncomfortable Russell made Gobert feel on the basketball court. That is just appalling for a starting point guard.