Minnesota Timberwolves: 3 Andrew Wiggins trades with Thunder
By Ethan Becker
3. 3-way deal with Toronto
The Wolves, Toronto Raptors and Oklahoma City Thunder all look to be teams that have gone into rebuilding mode.
With the departure of Kawhi Leonard from the Raptors, and most of their other stars only having a year or two left on their contracts, it’s looking like the Toronto championship squad was only a one year fling.
The Thunder have already gotten rid of two of their three big stars in Paul George and Russell Westbrook and there are reports that there are no plans for Chris Paul to ever play a game in a Thunder uniform, implying that OKC might be hoping to turn around and rebuild around a younger squad.
The Timberwolves missed out on signing D’Angelo Russell after the he and the Nets agreed to a sign-and-trade that sent DLo to the Golden State Warriors. In their pursuit of Russell, Minnesota lost Taj Gibson, Anthony Tolliver, and Derrick Rose.
After they couldn’t sign Russell, the Wolves then declined to match the Memphis Grizzlies’ offer to Tyus Jones. Because of all this, the Timberwolves are probably going to look to make one more move to really make their team interesting next season, and a potential trade could be on the way.
The Raptors and the Thunder were in discussions about a trade for Westbrook and Paul George, and up until Westbrook went to the Houston Rockets, it was still likely that he could go to Toronto for Guard Kyle Lowry.
With this trade, the Timberwolves get rid of Wiggins’ awful contract, and bring in a promising talent in Lowry, the Thunder dump the equally awful Chris Paul contract, and the Raptors get two players who, when playing at their full potential, are top-tier players in the NBA.