Coin flips are going to have a significant impact on the 2025 NBA Draft.
An incredibly competitive playoff race in both conferences has resulted in the standings being very bunched together. The Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder are way out in front, but then 10 teams, a full third of the league, have between 48 and 52 wins.
That includes a three-way tie at 48-34; the NBA's policy for solving draft-order ties is to flip a coin. That means that for three teams, they won't know whether they have the 18th, 19th or 20th pick until a point a few weeks from now that the league arbitrarily flips some coins to sort it out. Similarly, a whopping four teams are tied at 50-32, allowing for a wild swing once the coin flips set the order.
And there, nestled right in between both groups, are the Minnesota Timberwolves.
A win on the final day of the season over the tanking Utah Jazz secured a 39-33 record for the Timberwolves, as well as a Top-6 spot in the playoff bracket. They are set to play the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round, the sixth seed playing the three seed despite being just one game behind them in the standings.
The Timberwolves' pick thus lands at 21, which is an intriguing spot to land given recent draft history. All-Star guard Tyrese Maxey was the 21st pick a few years ago, as was Christian Braun out of Kansas. Yves Missi, drafted this past year for the New Orleans Pelicans, look like a keeper. Yet there are also a plethora of flops at that pick, however, including Keon Johnson, Terrence Ferguson and De'Andre Bemby.
All of the history of the 21st pick, the drama around the standings and ultimately where the pick landed is largely immaterial to the Timberwolves, however, for this simple reason: they do not own their pick.
The Timberwolves are sending their pick to Utah
The reason that the Timberwolves are sending the 21st pick instead of the 11th pick is in large part due to Rudy Gobert, still the reigning Defensive Player of the Year for a few more days and who put together another excellent defensive season. Yet as any Timberwolves fan knows all too well, he came at a steep price.
Minnesota traded for Gobert in the summer of 2022 as the Utah Jazz entered a rebuild. As a part of that trade they sent two prospects, three veterans and four first-round picks. The first of those was conveyed in 2023, when the Jazz used the pick on Keyonte George. Now the Timberwolves will officially send the 21st pick, the second of four picks heading to the mountains.
It's hard to look back on the deal and conclude the Timberwolves won. They did make the Western Conference Finals last season, and Gobert makes them a much better team. They are also a very real step below the tier of contenders, and they gave up multiple valuable players and four first-round picks for him.
There is still plenty to be written on this deal, and hindsight will be necessary once everything has been conveyed. Did the Wolves get fleeced? Was it an expensive but necessary deal? The final details are yet to be set.
One detail has now been set in stone, however. The Timberwolves will be sending the Jazz the 21st pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, the latest in a series of assets flowing from Minneapolis to Salt Lake City.