While the 2023-24 NBA season remains weeks away, the Minnesota Timberwolves are almost assuredly about to become one of the most scrutinized teams this year. Not only are the Timberwolves due for a significant improvement over their 2022-23 NBA season results, but the team is on a collision course with an NBA Salary Cap snafu.
So challenging is the salary cap challenge that many NBA insiders, experts, analysts, and pundits already are publicly reporting that the Timberwolves front office will be forced to trade one of the team’s three centers at the 2024 NBA Trade Deadline. In fact, ESPN NBA Insiders agree that the Minnesota Timberwolves will likely be forced to part ways with power forward Karl-Anthony Towns.
Waiter, there’s a fly in my NBA rumors about trading KAT
But there is one glaring weakness to those grandiose plans. Who will step in to take over for Towns as the Minnesota Timberwolves starting power forward? That is a huge question and is one that many believe will simply happen out of nature’s abhorrence over a vacuum. But for a basketball team GM who must plug holes in rosters and lineups as they occur, there is no wiggle room.
Shedding players who average 20+ points per game, for whatever reason, does not just happen on a whim. Wherever the team ends up on the other side, there will be an immediate need to address significant minutes and production that is suddenly vacated in the Timberwolves roster, starting lineup, and even rotations.
Even now, Minnesota Timberwolves Karl-Anthony Towns appears in an endless array of NBA rumors and NBA Trade scenarios. And so, if you cannot beat them, you join them. Well, to a point., at least. That is to say that if the Minnesota Timberwolves do elect to trade away Towns at the 2024 NBA Trade Deadline, who could fill those shoes on the Timberwolves roster? Believe it or not, the Timberwolves have some compelling and intriguing options: