Those were the days my friend, we wished they’d never end. For the Minnesota Timberwolves, the glory days have long been a factor in the struggles with setting up their annual Timberwolves roster. Oftentimes, NBA teams base their decisions on who to add, extend. or release on the past performances of a particular player. While that is about as dependable as it gets, that can lead to some regrettable decisions.
Sometimes the Minnesota Timberwolves were simply caught swinging for the fences with a free agency signing, and as many home run hitters tend to do, struck out instead. But it’s never an easy thing to do – to project how an NBA player will perform on a new team with new coaches and new teammates.
Veterans bring risks too
The event that triggered the willingness to sign veterans to the Timberwolves roster to begin the 2022-23 NBA season was the trade that sent five players and four draft picks to the Utah Jazz as compensation to acquire All-Star center Rudy Gobert. Because the Timberwolves roster was suddenly shorn of so many players, the need to add new faces to known roles almost forced the team to turn to veteran players.
But throughout the history of the Minnesota Timberwolves, whether it was an attempt to fit players around a star to generate an NBA Championship-level roster or simply to fill in the gap of what the team needed to compete at that time, seasoned veterans have been a key component to that strategy.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. In the attempt to shoot for veterans who are a simple matter of plug-and-play to the Timberwolves roster, the team discovered that the player was already past his prime. Here are seven times when the Minnesota Timberwolves roster decisions did not pan out as well as hoped for: