3 positive Timberwolves trends are surfacing in the 2023 preseason
By Bret Stuter
The Minnesota Timberwolves started playing their preseason games long before the rest of the NBA. Well, save one NBA team, the Dallas Mavericks. And yet, the amount of press that is splashing the NBA headlines following their first contest, a game in which the Timberwolves roster mauled the Mavericks, did not get nearly the headlines that I had expected it to.
But isn’t this just preseason?
Preseason is what you make of it. I wouldn’t be as focused on the Timberwolves’ ability to win two games in the preseason, as the way individual players performed. And yes, there are plenty of smiles to go around if you focus on how players seemed to show up in the first two preseason performances.
It’s the Timberwolves’ time to snarl, again
The Timberwolves are shooting for more than safe harbors and happy places this season. This is professional basketball, a highly competitive sport that is built upon the blood, sweat, and tears of discipline, of mental toughness, of reaching down when every part of your body is screaming to stop, and finding the strength to keep on going. That is what the Minnesota Timberwolves are discovering about themselves in preseason this year.
Blame the persistence and durability of Minnesota Timberwolves shooting guard Anthony Edwards. He has been a lynchpin in holding the Timberwolves roster together and on track. Even when he appeared to be sorely injured in the 2022-23 NBA season, Edwards continued to resurface during games in which he was ruled questionable, doubtful, or even out for the rest of the game.
Loving what they saw, Timberwolves executives made it a point to find and add similarly tough-minded NBA players. So now that the Timberwolves roster is bursting with tough-minded durable players, what difference are they making this year?