The Minnesota Timberwolves were the headline of the offseason talk last season, as they acquired center Rudy Gobert in a trade that included a haul of first-round picks. Not only did the exchange become debatable, but a snowball effect on how players are valued in the market was also in play.
Despite the move, the Timberwolves netted an identical result from the 2021–22 season, with a first-round exit in the NBA playoffs. There were also a lot of issues within the team in the regular season if the roster meshed together properly and their strengths aligned with one another.
Of course, the easiest way to solve the puzzle is probably to break it all up. But it’s only year one for the aforementioned Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Anthony Edwards. They pretty much eat up a large chunk of the Timberwolves’ cap (assuming they give Edwards the lofty extension), so the prerogative is to really find a way to make everything work.
Looking ahead to next season, tweaks and improvements from these big names have to be made. Here we assess their strengths, the skills in which they’ve made strides, and ultimately highlight the main weakness that should be worked on for the betterment of their team’s performance.
Timberwolves-Anthony Edwards: Off-ball defense
At his age and factoring out the perception he had going into the draft, Edwards is as advanced a player as you can get. To prove that point, he had five 30-point playoff games, which is good for second and only behind LeBron James. Impressive, right?
In their five-game series versus the Denver Nuggets, Edwards averaged 31.6 points on an efficient 60.2 true shooting percentage. Scoring has also popped up in a wide variety, where he ranked seventh among players in the playoffs on points generated from drives (10.4 points), second in free throw attempts drawn in drives (3.6 attempts at 88.9%), and can create his own shots in isolations (4.0 points, which ranks 12th in the playoffs).
To be quite honest, it’s been tough to poke a main weakness in Edwards’ game. The strides of him becoming a good passer were evidenced by the 5.2 assists he had this postseason, which included a lot of drive and kick reads. In his defense, having a total of 3.8 stocks (steals plus blocks) is something that makes Edwards a really special two-way player at his peak.
But if we’re really unpacking the former No. 1 pick’s defense, there’s a small detail that he could just clean up a bit. It didn’t help that the Timberwolves played a Nuggets squad that incorporates a lot of movement, so guarding your primary guy wasn’t enough—where Edwards pretty much succeeded. A little polishing just needs to happen to fully cement the tag of a two-way star for Edwards.
Timberwolves-Karl-Anthony Towns: Screen Navigation
With the arrival of Gobert to the Timberwolves, Towns’ wish to not play the 5-position (center) was granted. That also came with responsibilities for towns to make it work, but sadly, it became a rough setback to fix the whole year.
Playing with two bigs has not been the formula for winning basketball in this era of the NBA, even as talented as both guys are. On the offensive end, it wasn’t much of an adjustment for Towns because he can definitely score outside. Figuring out how to play the 4-position was the biggest challenge.
Being in the generation of pace and space in basketball, we surely could see the uptick of 4-out and 5-out sets of teams across the league. It means towns have to be able to toggle around different screening actions in the perimeter, which they commonly call “screen navigation.
Against the Nuggets, the Timberwolves mixed it up for Towns, who he saw time guarding Nikola Jokic and most of the time was placed on Aaron Gordon. Though Towns is a considerable non-shooter, the genius of the Nuggets’ offense still had to find a way to punish Towns’ inability to navigate screens.
Disclaimer: Jokic is insanely and uniquely gifted to execute a pick-and-roll as the handler and be this effective. Here is an action where Gordon screens that made it necessary for Towns to go over it, factoring Gobert’s base coverage as a drop.
Going over the film of the regular season, it doesn’t make sense to make a judgment as to how Towns will be able to thrive in this role. He and Gobert surely need to share the court for more than 27 games next season to get sufficient reps on guarding actions, especially for Towns.
Timberwolves-Rudy Gobert: Finishing (beyond the pick-and-roll)
This might fly under the radar, but Gobert quietly had a good postseason performance, knowing he was going to be tasked with slowing down the Joker and the potent Nuggets’ offense. That’s also with the caveat of the injury to their best perimeter defender, Jalen McDaniels, and backup big man Naz Reid.
Just to piggyback on the defense part for a little, the most talked-about drop coverage of Gobert did get cooked by the terrific two-man game of Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic. But unlike the past few playoffs, the French big man wasn’t reluctant to adjust his role and scheme because he did variations on that end by being higher on the screens and was a roam guy in sending help towards the two-time MVP.
Not only was the defense improved, but scoring grew for Gobert as well. Thanks to his great chemistry with point guard Mike Conley in the pick-and-roll, the shot profile was optimal for opportunities at the basket. Gobert averaged 15.0 points per game, which is the best output in his playoff career. In the nine PNRs between the combo, Gobert scored each time at the rim.
And we understand that at some point, opposing teams will try to slow down this action. The question of how Gobert would remain as a scoring or even a mere roll threat without Conley now arises.
Well, the easy answer to that is that Gobert’s bag hasn’t been that deep since. You can’t ask him to score on post-ups or stretch out to hit a middy here and there, which was exposed again this postseason.
If the Timberwolves are to make some noise by next season, Gobert’s improvement opens up an avenue for Edwards and Towns to thrive more. With Kat being the perimeter-oriented big, he’ll have more open looks from deep once defenders honor Gobert’s ISO finishing.
When teams don’t help Gobert, Edwards will have more wiggle room for drives and in his jumpers too. It will be a tough ask, but it will be necessary to turn the corner for the Timberwolves.