In retrospect, it was probably inevitable, but it’s beginning to fester like a hangnail just the same.

Remember back in 2023? Before the ball dropped in Times Square, the Wolves had the second-best record in the NBA at 24-7 and had beaten the only team ahead of them in their lone matchup. Their defense was more than two points better per 100 possessions than anybody else, and became a five-player sleeper hold on opponents after halftime.

In the third quarter, their on-ball pressure and fearsome rim protection squished their foes like a bug. Minnesota allowed 100.7 points per 100 possessions in 31 third quarters before the calendar flipped on the 2023-24 season. That was a staggering 7.1 fewer points allowed than the second-best defense.

If an opponent managed to survive that third quarter and make it into the final stanza, they almost never had the juice to finish the task. The Wolves won 11 out of 12 games that were competitive enough to be called “clutch” – defined by the NBA as the period of time when teams are within five points of each other and there is less than five minutes left to play. They had the league’s fourth-best offense to go with the fourth-best defense in those moments, and shot the ball more accurately, in terms of effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage, than any team.

But perhaps the most telling stat is that in the October through December period that comprised the 2023 part of the 2023-24 season, the Wolves ranked 26^th in total clutch minutes played, just 42. Opponents simply weren’t getting that close that often, and if they did, it was an uphill slog against a very confident team accustomed to triumph.

Not so in 2024.

In the first 20 games of the New Year, the Wolves have already logged more clutch minutes, 53, than they experienced in the 31 from 2023 – the second-most in the NBA. No, it is not a huge sample size, but those relatively scant minutes are the most consequential, and often reflect the mood and tenor of a team. What they reflect about the Timberwolves is not good.

The Wolves went 11-1 in games with clutch minutes in this season’s calendar year 2023 because they scored 23.7 more points per 100 possessions than they allowed in those tight situations. Thus far in 2024, the Wolves’ record in games with clutch minutes is 3-8 because they have scored 20.8 fewer points than they allowed in the clutch. That’s a whopping 42.5-point swing per 100 possessions, caused by a decline of 32.1 points by the offense and 12.4 points by the defense. Even granting the careening nature of small samples, that’s extraordinary regression.

As of Thursday morning, the Wolves are 11-9 in 2024. If you do the math on 3-8 in clutch games, that means they’ve had a good chance to win all but one contest of the 20 played this calendar year. But are middling – unreliable – in eventual outcome.

The past week has been emblematic of the Wolves’ current checkered routine. They walloped a woefully shorthanded Dallas Mavericks team to close out January, then blew a 17-point first half lead in a two-point loss to Orlando. They toyed with Houston for a second straight time to finish a home stand, then lost to the Bulls in Chicago after being up 22 at the half.

Between the Dallas and Orlando games, Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns were named to the Western Conference All Star team. The Houston win ensured that Chris Finch and the rest of his staff would be coaching the West All Stars as tribute to the Wolves holding the best record in the Western Conference two weeks before the game.

But the good vibes couldn’t tune out some underlying discordance. Rudy Gobert – the most consistent Wolves player and leader of their top-ranked defense – was stiffed in the All Star selection process. Then the Orlando loss made the All Star hoopla feel like nostalgia from another time (and it was – 2023). When I asked Finch after practice the next day after the Chicago collapse if he had a breaking point, he welcomed the question, revealed that he put his team through a blistering film study of the entire fourth quarter, and said, “I think what was needed today was absolute clarity and redefining some roles and getting some people back in their boxes and getting them to worry about the right things and the things they do best.”

Much of the Wolves offensive inefficiency, especially in crunch time, seems to come from a lack of structure. When I posed that issue to point guard Mike Conley in the locker room after Orlando, he stated that more structure had been implemented, but that the players still had to read and react to the defense as part of maximizing the play call.

Finch confirmed this at practice.

“We have a few sets that have been good to us to close games with. They involve getting our best players the ball in space, in action. When that happens, they have to make the right play. If they dust off the play and just go iso (isolation, or solo against the defense), then we don’t know what’s coming next, so the rhythm of the offense just falls down. Maybe we turn it over, maybe we get caught in poor transition, certainly we maybe don’t get a good shot. At that point in time, my breaking point is I don’t give them the ball at the end of games. I think the ball has to be back in Mike’s (Conley’s) hands a lot more at the end of games. And that’s something you’ll see differently coming up.”

In the cakewalk over Houston, late game offense was a moot issue. In the collapse against Chicago, the poor judgment and execution looked depressingly familiar.

I believe two of the best aspects of this Wolves team are the coaching of Finch and the play of Ant. Their mutual admiration should be a source of reassurance for Wolves fans – a coach who has taken the Wolves to the playoffs in every full season he has spent with the team and a 22-year old nascent superstar.

But if they are on the same page, they are reading it in different languages. And they know it.

To avoid outright friction, they coat it in humor.

One of Finch’s great virtues is the ability to criticize in a manner that doesn’t make it personal. His style is direct and honest, more book report than expository sermon, seemingly weighted with facts far more than opinion, so that any rebuttal is induced to proceed on the same grounds. When the win over Houston secured the coach’s presence at the All Star game, his players were universal in praising him for his clear communication and bottom-line accountability. And Finch was equally magnanimous in praising their “coachability.”

But some sly levity shaded the sunshine a bit. Asked what it might feel like to be coaching Lebron James and other legends, he capped his “amazing honor” gushing with, “And like these guys (his own Wolves players), I’m sure they won’t listen to what I have to say either.”

Ant had his own bon mot regarding Finch’s All Star nod.

“I think we’re just going to take all the mid-rangers out of the game,” he said, referring to players whose shot mix includes inefficient shots from the midrange distance from the hoop in the half court. “If one of the starters shoots a midrange, I’mma be like, ‘Finchy we don’t allow those right there.’”

The subtext of this is that Finch has let it be known that he dislikes a preponderance of midrange jumpers and wishes Ant would cut their volume – and that Ant basically ignores him, especially in crunch time, especially when he is going “iso.”

It is beyond dispute that, just as Gobert is the engine behind the Wolves defense with Jaden McDaniels an important complement, Ant is the engine behind the Wolves offense, with KAT an important complement. If you want to understand why Gobert is the Most Valuable Player of this 2023-24 team thus far, it is as simple as the Wolves ranking first in defensive efficiency this entire season, while the offensive efficiency has just as steadily been mired a notch of two above the bottom ten in the 30-team NBA (it currently ranks 19^th).

Of course everything is relative. For the third straight season, Ant’s overall numbers have noticeably improved across the board. His field goal percentage, three-point percentage and free-throw percentage are all career highs.

But it is not unfair to point out that they should be higher – and would be, with a smarter shot mix. The two most efficient shots are at the rim and from behind the three-point arc. Per basketball-reference.com, Ant has taken 27.9% of his career field goal attempts from zero to three feet away from the basket. Thus far this season it is 21.4%. For his career, 35.5% of his shots have been three-pointers. This season it is 31.4%. Inaccurate midrange jumpers make up the difference, with Ant setting career-highs in frequency from three-10 feet out (19.3% of the mix this season compared to 15.3% for his career), from 10-16 feet out (13.3% this season versus 7.4% for his career) and from 16 feet out to the three-point line (12.4% versus 8.6%).

Ant is not an especially accurate midrange shooter. On the contrary, for the season, per nba.com, he is ninth in midrange attempts yet 44^th among the 50 most-frequent midrange shooters in terms of accuracy. Over the last ten games he is 11^th in overall attempts and 49^th among the top 50 midrange gunners in terms of accuracy.

The caveats here are that Ant is getting to the free throw line more often, which improves his efficiency, and that, while his turnovers are a career high, his assists have improved at an even greater rate, which means he is getting his teammates involved better than ever. The counter is that Ant is improving each year on a baseline of inefficiency, relative to his high usage.

On Tuesday night, his dominant first half included 23 points on 3-4 shooting from three-point territory, 3-7 from inside the arc and nary a miss in eight free throw attempts. He also had four assists versus a single turnover as the Wolves scored 69 points in 24 minutes. The team was plus 20 in the 18:22 Ant played and plus two in the 5:38 he sat.

In the second half and overtime, Ant scored 15 points on 2-for-5 shooting from three-point range, 4-for-10 from two-point territory and just three free throws, of which he made one. He had but one assists and three turnovers as the Wolves scored 54 points in 29 minutes. The team was minus 24 in the 25:11 he played and minus four in the 3:49 he sat.

Oh, and Conley had four assists in the first half, four assists in the second half and zero assists in overtime, when Ant took two-thirds of his team’s shots. Conley finished the game with zero turnovers.

Obviously, not all of the Wolves offensive troubles can be blamed on Ant. Put bluntly, Finch and company are squandering the best long-range shooting team in franchise history. The team is third in the NBA in accuracy from behind the arc, at 39.1%, yet 22^nd in three-point attempts. (The good news is that KAT is finally upping his three-point volume.)

Three of the top six players in the rotation are shooting better than 40% from distance, led by KAT at 43.7%, then Conley at 43.6% and Naz Reid at 41.3%. And none of the other three are below 36%, led by Ant at 39.4%.

According to The Athletic’s Jon Krawcznski, the beat writer with the best connections on inside intelligence, President of Basketball Operations Tim Connolly has been active seeking one of the other, with hometown product Tyus Jones as the sexiest option and rumor. The difficulty is that the Wolves sacrificed most of their draft picks in the trade for Gobert, and any teams in selling mode at the trade deadline are clearly looking to rebuild with youth.

Whether Connolly can be creative (and circumstantially lucky) enough to make a deal or not, the Wolves have raised expectations with their glorious first half of the season. Even if the team succeeds in adding a solid bench piece in place of disappointments like Shake Milton and (to a lesser extent) Troy Brown Jr., it won’t move the needle as much as reverting to the suffocating defense that propelled the fast start and making better decisions on offense.

Otherwise, continuing this five-week stretch of unreliable performance will lead to more dramatic changes in the makeup of this team as the new majority owners contemplate soaring into luxury tax territory over the salary cap.

To call Morris a Swiss Army knife would be overstating it. He’s more like an adjustable wrench that should be very handy for the Wolves in a few specific ways.

He’s had extensive experience as a floor general. When Connolly was running the Denver Nuggets two years ago, he plugged Morris in as the starter at the point after the team’s second-best player, Jamal Murray, was out all season with a torn ligament. He logged the fourth-most minutes on a team that made the playoffs. And last season he was the starter for the Washington Wizards.

In those two seasons, he was a respected three-point shooter, canning 39.5% for Denver on a volume of 4.2 attempts per game, and making 38.2% for Washington on 3.3 attempts. (His career accuracy from distance is 38.9% in what is now his seventh season.) Better yet, he takes care of the ball. In those two seasons as a starter he dished 659 dimes versus 138 miscues for a gaudy assist-to-turnover rate of 4.8-to-1.

In other words, the insurance policy on any injuries to Wolves 36-year-old Conley just got upgraded.

The trade also didn’t significantly constrain the Wolves’ already dicey salary cap situation moving forward. The $9.8 million Morris is making this season is very close to the combined $9 million it cost to pay Milton and Brown. And while the Wolves had the option of terminating the deals for both now-traded players after this season, Morris’ contract is expiring anyway.

Morris doesn’t possess galaxy-brain court vision or above-average athleticism. He’s simply a capable pro who has bailed out a Connolly team in the recent past. He attributes are modest – but reliable. Which is what the 2024 Timberwolves need as they head into the playoff push on the final 30 games of the season.

It began with the Minnesota Timberwolves taking “hero ball” into a dunce-cap donning display of self-ownership, fixating on the skyrocketing point total of teammate Karl-Anthony Towns while ignoring the basics of defense and dignity in a loss to the woebegone Charlotte Hornets.

Then, after teetering through a couple of road games against also-ran competition, where the Wolves unsuccessfully tried to give away the games in the fourth quarter, the week ended with a cringe-worthy collapse in San Antonio, where the talented but developmentally adolescent Spurs took antic delight in the fourth-quarter hairball of clanked shots and clueless turnovers coughed up by the Wolves.

A new week began with a foreboding matchup against the Oklahoma City Thunder to close out the four-game road trip. Although the two teams were tied for the best record in the Western Conference, it didn’t feel like a fair fight. Although relatively inexperienced, the Thunder have plundered an unsuspecting NBA thus far this season with masterful preparation and execution while riding the skills of MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. After losing to Minnesota back in late November, they had systemically dismantled the Wolves in their past two meetings.

A few hours before the game, it was announced that Wolves point guard Mike Conley would miss his fourth game in the past five contests due to a stubbornly sore hamstring. It was no coincidence that the Wolves composure and collective IQ had plummeted with Conley on the sidelines. Now 36, in his 17^th NBA season, he is a calming presence on the court and an engaging sage in the locker room, a fixer of flaws who carries himself, and performs, with the fastidious integrity of a haiku. His absence portended writer’s block on any Wolves script for redemption.

But that’s why they play the games.

The matchup turned out to be as competitively rugged and suspenseful as the teams’ won-lost records indicated it would be, with one double-digit lead – by the Wolves early in the third quarter – that lasted all of 19 seconds before a 16-2 Thunder roll restored the possession-by-possession intensity.

Conley or no, the Wolves did indeed flip the script on their recent scroll of bad habits, most notably reversing the fourth quarter pratfalls that had plagued them throughout the road trip. The recipe for their 34-24 advantage in the final stanza to close out the 107-101 victory wasn’t ever hard to decipher: On offense, make quick decisions to move the ball and move without the ball while avoiding turnovers and trusting your teammates. On defense, stay focused, don’t foul, get back in transition and keep your poise.

After registering 13 assists but 12 turnovers in the first three periods, the Wolves doled out eight dimes with just one miscue in the fourth quarter. A lot of that arose out of top scorers Anthony Edwards and Towns choosing to get off the ball and feed their teammates as the savvy Thunder sought to follow their game plan and cut off the heads of the snake via traps and double-teams.

KAT had four assists and the team’s one silly turnover (which yielded no points), tacking on seven points despite no field goal attempts in the final 7:36, and five rebounds. Ant had five points on four shot attempts – including a resounding dunk to create a rare two-possession lead with 1:57 left to play – two assists and zero turnovers.

Both stars created more fourth quarter points via the pass than the shot, feeding subsidiary personnel the Thunder gambled wouldn’t, or couldn’t, be counted upon to score. KAT twice dished to Conley’s replacement in the starting lineup, Nickeil Alexander-Walker (NAW), for an open corner trey and pullup midrange jumper, as well as a layup for Jordan McLaughlin and a dunk for Rudy Gobert. Ant’s assists were modified drive-and-kick three-pointers splashed by Naz Reid and Jaden McDaniels.

I’ve belabored the Wolves maddening tendency – with Ant and KAT by far the biggest offenders – to ignore the simple pass and instead barrel into the painted area toward the basket and a bevy of defenders waiting to thwart them. Rather than another chapter-and-verse rant this time around, I’ll simply point out a few stats from the tracking data at nba.com.

When it comes to the play type “drives” – the barreling toward the hoop – the Wolves are 10^th among the 30 NBA teams in frequency, 15^th in field goal percentage and 10^th in free throw attempts. They are 24^th in the percentage of times they pass during drives, 23^rd in the percentage of times they register an assist on a drive, and first in the percentage of the times they turn the ball over.

Wouldn’t it by lovely if there were more “drive and kick” instead of merely “drive?” A pretty significant argument for that is under the tracking play type “catch and shoot,” the Wolves have the second-best overall field goal percentage, the best three-point percentage and the best effective field goal percentage (which properly weights the added value of threes).

So, worst turnover rate on drives, and most efficient production on catch-and-shoot field goal attempts. Add in the fact the Wolves NBA-best defense becomes positively superhuman in the half-court game, when turnovers aren’t creating transition opportunities for the opponent, and you understand why a team that features the firepower of Ant and KAT continues to languish somewhere between 18^th and 20^th in points scored per possession this season.

The irony of all this is that Wolves Head Coach Chris Finch has always preferred a movement-oriented, “flow” offense that involves multiple passes and quick decisions. At the beginning of the season, the need for more structure in the offense was a hot topic, but mostly in reference to positioning and spacing so that the multifaceted ways both KAT and Ant could score were given freer rein even as the potent pick-and-roll combination of Conley and Gobert could also be utilized.

I asked Finch – poorly timed, as it was the pregame before the ridiculous charade of teamwork against Charlotte – why the players had been slower to adopt his mantra of quick decisions, ball movement and movement without the ball this season compared to the previous two years.

“That’s a good question,” he said, and chose the words in his answer carefully. “I think we have got some guys who have become really comfortable trying to – well wanting to – break off the offense early; trying to get into an iso (isolation) game. We’re a heavy ‘drive-it’ team so guys are trying to penetrate a little too early before we actually can create a gap or turn corners. I think (that is because of ) our reluctance – or at times frustration – to just kind do something for each other early in the (shot) clock; sometimes it has been there and not others. I’m not sure exactly why but when you add it all up it is still … there is room for growth and we need to keep trying to hammer down on those things.”

Is that a delicate balance of when to give players full freedom of their talents and when to bring them up short? I asked.

“The deal I have always tried to strike with those guys is you have the freedom to do your thing in the flow of the offense but you also have the responsibility to keep the offense going,” he responded. “Most of the play-calls are going to go in your direction anyway – there is a kind of a natural selection; you are going to get more of your share of opportunities anyway, so you don’t need to always be forcing it.  But it feels sometimes like guys are forcing it. They have to do a better job of making the offense work for them and everybody else.”

After the Spurs hustled the Wolves out of the gym in the fourth quarter in San Antonio, Finch was blistered on social media, in general for the fourth straight final stanza collapse (albeit two of them wins anyway) and in particular for a lineup featuring four unreliable shooters – McLaughlin, Kyle “Slo Mo” Anderson, Shake Milton and Gobert – alongside either KAT or Naz to start the second and fourth quarters. In those two stints, comprising 6:30 of playing time, the Wolves were outscored by 15 points in an eventual one-point loss.

Granted, the offense couldn’t be synergistic with that group, which is why Finch put them out there with his team up double-digits each time. Conley was out, making NAW the starting point guard and McLaughlin the backup. Because J-Mac is hot-and-cold as a shooter, Finch also put Slo Mo out there as another playmaker and savvy decision-maker. He could have substituted Troy Brown for Milton – and did against the Thunder – but Milton played very well with J-Mac and Slo Mo, and crucially, Ant and Naz in the first quarter.

A review of the two rotations reveals that the alpha scorers among the quintet –KAT in the second quarter, Naz in the fourth – were as costly as the iffy shooters. KAT had his shot blocked driving into traffic twice and turned the ball over via a bad pass and an offensive foul, all in less than four minutes. Naz’s sins were mostly defensive lapses and a failure to secure rebounds. Would they have performed better if there was less onus to score thrust upon them? Yeah, probably.

A surprising amount of fans who apparently root with their heart more than their head, called for Finch to be fired; many citing a through line between the Wolves epic late-game failures in the 2022 playoffs against Memphis and this current dollop of dysfunction. That the Wolves “fell” to 34-12 and hadn’t lost more than two in a row all season was not a context they wanted to countenance.

Why revisit this? Because as one whose bias is that Finch has been the best coach in franchise history, I think a reckoning is nigh with the way he regards and deploys Slo Mo.

Despite all that, Slo Mo retains great value. He is a vocal leader who demands accountability on the court and behind closed doors. Nobody on the roster, including McDaniels, is a better on-ball defender against the vast spectrum of NBA forwards. He remains a phenomenal tactician out of the court – because his three-point accuracy has essentially disappeared, he is shooting them less frequently than at any point in his 10-year career, but is trying to compensate with the highest free throw rate of his decade in the NBA.

In other words, nobody knows better than Slo Mo the ways he’s become a liability. When he did hit a couple of threes about a month ago, he truthfully noted he had to keep doing it to keep defenses honest – but hasn’t done it since then. Finch treasures his wisdom and desire and offers a full-throated endorsement of his play whenever his name arises.

But here’s what the numbers say: In the 1,049 minutes Slo Mo has been on the court this season, the Wolves have scored 107 points and given up 106.2 points per 100 possessions, for a net rating of 0.9 (sometimes the math is a bit off). In the 1,180 minutes Slo Mo is on the sidelines, the Wolves give up nearly two more points per 100 possessions, 108.1, but score a whopping 11 points more, at 118, for a net rating of 9.9.

The eye test bears this out. On a boatload of offensive possessions this season, the Wolves have adroitly moved the ball to the point where they have found a player wide open behind the arc. But too often, that player is Slo Mo, and his response increasingly has been to dribble forward to bring defenders toward him in order to either draw the foul or make the assist. That’s why his assist percentage is at a career high – and also why his turnover percentage is likewise a career high.

In those fateful rotations when Slo Mo was on the court with three unreliable shooters and a scoring big man against San Antonio, he couldn’t pull his weight. In the second quarter he was fouled and missed two free throws, then missed a 7-foot floater taking a smaller guard into the lane. In the fourth quarter he missed a 15-foot pullup jumper and had his layup blocked by gigantic rookie Victor Wembanyama. When Finch subbed in more scoring, he immediately missed another short midrange. (He did have a dime to Naz and a nifty pass to Gobert that Rudy couldn’t convert.)

Finch’s loyalty is understandable, and admirable in the sense that Slo Mo has a lengthy track record of value and may yet see his way clear of the doldrums. But as of now, he can no longer be regarded as a net asset on offense, and it is on Finch to respond accordingly.

We heard that a lot over the years with Joe Mauer, this son of St. Paul, now a first ballot Baseball Hall of Famer.

A catcher winning three batting titles? Only him. A home run on his first swing in 2009, his MVP year, after missing all of spring training injured? Same. Moving almost seamlessly to first base after a concussion ended his catching career? Yep. All with same low-key approach and personality, start to finish.

This might be the most Joe Mauer thing ever: While his family and friends sweated out the hours before the voting results were announced Tuesday, Mauer spent part of the day in the basement of his suburban St. Paul home, playing wiffle ball with his five-year-old son, Chip. To those with long memories, it recalled that classic Twins television commercial where Mauer batted against Joe Nathan in his parents’ basement, wrecking the joint until mom Teresa ordered the two knuckleheads to “take it outside.”

“It’s been a lot of fun, a whirlwind of emotion,” Mauer said on a Zoom call with reporters from the basement office. “I was anxious and excited to hear the results. I was so thankful to receive that call.”

Mauer received 293 votes from members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), four more than the 75% threshold (289) required for election. BBWAA members with 10 consecutive seasons covering Major League Baseball are eligible to vote. Mauer joined Rod Carew and Kirby Puckett as the only Twins to be elected on the first ballot.

Mauer also became the fourth Hall of Famer from St. Paul, joining Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor (his last manager) and Jack Morris. All four grew up within a two-mile radius and played in some of the same parks at different times.

Catchers are vastly underrepresented in the Hall; Mauer is only the 20th to be inducted, fewer than any position except third base (19, with Adrian Beltre this year). Among catchers, only Johnny Bench and Pudge Rodriguez were first-ballot selections before Mauer. Insane but true: It took three-time MVPs Yogi Berra two tries and Roy Campanella seven to get in.

“It’s been a crazy couple of months,” Mauer said. “I’m glad I don’t have to do that next year or the year after that.”

Mauer usually picks up his kids from school, but skipped that chore Tuesday to avoid drawing attention, another classic Mauer thing. As the day went along, his basement filled up with more family – his wife Maddie, 10-year-old twin daughters Emily and Maren, brothers Jake and Billy, and of course Teresa. Mauer’s father, Jake Jr., passed away last year – exactly one year and seven days before the announcement, by Mauer’s count – and his grandfather Jake Sr. in 2020.

“Too bad his dad Jake wasn’t around to see this,” said Terry Ryan, the general manager when the Twins drafted Mauer first overall in 2001.

Ryan recalled the process that led to Mauer’s selection. Most Twins fans know the story: At the time, the Twins considered Mauer, pitcher Mark Prior and first basemen Mark Teixeira for the top pick. Teixeira broke his right ankle in February of that year, leaving Prior and Mauer, the three-sport star at Cretin-Durham Hall who had an offer to play quarterback at Florida State University.

“Mike Radcliff had seen (Mauer) a number of times before his eligibility year,” said Ryan, name-checking the late Twins scouting director. “Living so close to the Metrodome and so forth, we had an opportunity to see about every game.

“It came down to Prior and Mauer. But Mauer being a local guy and a left-handed hitting catcher, the bat that he possessed, those skills are hard to find in the amateur world and even in the pro world. It came down to the final day, and Mike said he’d like to take Joe Mauer. I always let the scouting director make the pick, because they’ve got the most information and the most feel, and we ended up taking him.

“The good thing about it was, he wanted to be a Twin. It wasn’t like we had to beg him to sign. We were going through a tough time in that area. We also had a very good left-handed hitting catcher in (A.J.) Pierzynski. People wondered why we didn’t take Prior because we were in desperate need of pitching as well. We still liked the fact that Joe was the local guy and we had a lot of makeup on him. His ability was through the moon. His makeup was through the moon.”

Mauer hurt his left knee in his second big-league game, sliding to try and catch a foul ball in the Metrodome. He had surgery to remove damaged cartilage, and the knee remained problematic his entire career. Still, in 10 seasons as a catcher, Mauer made six All-Star teams, won five Silver Slugger Awards and three Gold Gloves in addition to his three AL batting championships.

Again, only him.

Two foul balls off his mask in a 2013 game here against the New York Mets changed his career course. Except for a one-pitch cameo in his final game in 2018, Mauer never caught again. Post-concussion vision issues affected his timing at the plate. Moving to first base, he batted over .300 only once after topping that mark seven times catching. He finished with a .306 career average, .328 as a catcher.

The Twins also did Mauer no favors in the move to Target Field in 2010. When it became apparent balls didn’t carry as well to left-center as they did at the Metrodome, turning potential Mauer home runs into warning track outs, the Twins never adjusted the outfield distances to compensate. (This would have involved moving home plate farther from the field boxes, reducing the park’s intimate feel – an issue with certain Twins officials.)

But Mauer never complained, just kept showing up every day. The eight-year, $184 million contract Mauer signed in the spring of 2010 to avoid free agency made him an easy target for fans frustrated with the Twins’ repeated postseason failures; the club never won a playoff game with Mauer on the roster. The “bi-lateral leg weakness” fiasco in 2011, when the Twins tried to finesse Mauer’s slow recovery from off-season knee surgery instead of being straightforward, didn’t help.

None of that mattered to Hall of Fame voters outside Minnesota, who rewarded Mauer for what he was – one of the best catchers of his era, and a person of high character. Mauer continued his charity work with Gillette Children’s Hospital in St. Paul and the Highland Friendship Club for people with developmental disabilities into retirement. The Hall is a better place with Mauer in it.

“He fits right in,” Ryan said. “Anyone who criticized Joe just didn’t know him, in my opinion. He was just a quality human being, a quality player, a quality teammate.”

The record was 13-2 and the calling card was an unexpected ace in the hole: Defense. Fueled by gleeful teamwork, the Wolves were a workout machine when the other team had the ball, especially after the feeling-out periods of the first half. Through the third and fourth quarters, Minnesota’s brute size and syncopated hustle had opponents hurrying shots and searching futilely for a safe space to catch their breath. In the third quarter alone they allowed 20.9 fewer points per 100 possessions than they scored. For the entire second halves of November, their defensive rating was 5.5 points per 100 possessions stingier than everybody else. Autopsy reports on their 13 victims couldn’t determine whether they ultimately succumbed to exhaustion or suffocation.

As we get set to embark on the final week of January, the Wolves are in a spirited three-way struggle to retain the first-place perch in the Western Conference that they seized in November and have yet to relinquish. They are essentially tied with two of their November victims, the defending champion Denver Nuggets and the upstart Oklahoma City Thunder. Despite being on the road, they will be favored against their next three opponents, all of whom sport losing records. 

But their performance against the woeful Charlotte Hornets at home on Monday night signals that all bets are, at least temporarily, off. That dazzling personality, once shiny with sweat equity and celebratory grins, is in danger of being reduced to a pillar of salt by the old demons of hubris and immaturity. 

The signature wins in November against the then-previously undefeated Nuggets and Boston Celtics announced that these Timberwolves were different from the other 34 versions of the team throughout the course of franchise history. And as recently as last week’s column, I credibly wrote that that was still true. As of Wednesday morning, they still have the best defense (measured by points allowed per possession) and are tied for the second-best record in the NBA. 

But in the dozen games played thus far in 2024, the Wolves are sowing doubts about whether they have enough poise, character and perspective to appreciate what it will take to sustain the joyous trajectory of this season and truly become a team worthy of being cherished. 

But it was hard not to notice that the team’s abiding sense of purpose had inexorably slackened, replaced by sporadic bouts of galvanizing teamwork that were short-circuited through careless passing on offense and overconfident indifference at the defensive end. They gave up 40 first quarter points to a Detroit Pistons team with a record of 4-36. Even after regaining the lead, instead of a second-half suffocation, they let the hapless Pistons hang around — Detroit finished the game making more than half of their field goals and 40% of their three-pointers.

The next night, at home against Memphis, the injury-riddled Grizzlies raced to a 12-point lead and still led by 5 heading into the fourth quarter before the Wolves stepped on the gas and walloped them in the final stanza. That was followed by the Wolves blowing a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter at home against the Thunder in a matchup of the teams with the two best records in the West. 

In other words, the fiasco Monday night had been presaged since the onset of the new year. It was easy to provide excuses. The Wolves had just endured the most rugged stretch of what basketball-reference.com had deemed the toughest schedule in the NBA less than two weeks ago. Despite the hiccups, they hadn’t lost to a team with a losing record since the third game of the season in late October. In a make-or-miss league, they possessed a superb defense able to compensate for their offensive inefficiency. 

It took a flagrantly embarrassing performance to at least temporarily detonate this gloss of optimism. 

The Charlotte Hornets came to town with the worst net rating—meaning the worst differential between the points they scored and the points they allowed per possession—of any team in the NBA. They had lost 18 of their past 20 games since December 11. Their offense was ranked 27th among the league’s 30 teams. Their defense was ranked 28th. 

The Hornets starting shooting guard and highest-salaried player, Gordon Hayward, has been out since late December with a calf strain. Even more onerous, the Hornets two 7-footers, Mark Williams and Nick Richards, were out, leaving a starting lineup of two players 6 foot 7 inches P.J. Washington and Miles Bridges, to guard Wolves big men Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns.

None of this mattered, except for what it did to the Wolves mindset. When the Wolves looked at themselves in the mirror before Monday night’s game, they did not see themselves as a team that had blown three fourth quarter leads in the past two weeks; they did not see a team who commits the third-most turnovers in the NBA, causing it to languish in the bottom half of the league in offensive rating despite copious firepower on its roster. 

Instead, what they saw in themselves came from figments of their childish imagination. They saw themselves as a team that could beat Charlotte without maximum effort or a full commitment to reestablishing their identity as a defensive behemoth nobody wants to face. They wanted to pre-assume the credit without putting in the work. 

At the end of the first quarter, the score was 34-32, Minnesota. The Hornets undersized frontcourt and bottom-four offense had scored just as many points in the paint, 14, as Minnesota, with the same shooting line, seven baskets in nine attempts. In fact, both teams made 13 of 21 shots overall in the period—a gaudy 61.9% accuracy. 

But shoddy defense against an undermanned, significantly less-talented opponent was not the top thing on the Wolves’ radar. No, KAT was going wild — 22 points in the first quarter. So what if his primary defensive assignment had 13? 

In the second quarter, KAT had 22 more points, a whopping 44 points in a single half, easily a Timberwolves franchise record. And, in all seriousness, it truly was a phenomenal display of shooting — eight-of-nine from three-point range, eight-of-12 from the foul line and six-of-eight on two-pointers. It was spectacular, and created a carnival-like atmosphere within Target Center.

Few people noticed that KAT also had five turnovers in one half of action; or that, for all of KAT’s fireworks, Charlotte was matching the Wolves nearly bucket for bucket. The Hornets shot 25-for-40 (62.5%) compared to Minnesota’s 24-for-38, albeit with fewer three-pointers or free throws than the Wolves.

Coach Chris Finch noticed. After the game he minced few words.

“What I said at halftime is, why don’t we start getting back to who we are and play some defense and not let this game fall down to a point where we miss a bunch of shots, then they make a bunch of shots, and now we’re behind. That’s what I said at halftime,” Finch spat, clearly peeved that his warning was prescient down to the details – and still unheeded.

A scoring spurt at the end of the third quarter had built the Wolves lead up to 15 – specifically, 107-92. It was becoming another night in the NBA – a first-place team turning it on late to rout a doormat opponent down the stretch. 

Except Finch had known better. KAT cooled off – he made two-of-10 shots in the fourth quarter, including no treys on three attempts and no trips to the foul line to finish with a franchise-record 62 points. His teammates did little better, sinking four-of-12, with just one trey and five made free throws for a total of 18. 

As the Wolves missed a bunch, the Hornets made a bunch. Six-of-10 from behind the arc, eight-for-13 from two-point range, two-of-two from the foul line – for 36 points. Final score, Charlotte 128, Minnesota 125.

The first question Finch was asked is, how did the game slip away?

“It was an absolutely disgusting performance of defense and immature basketball, so it really didn’t slip away. It had been there from the jump. That’s what happens when you have that type of approach,” he said.

He went on to describe all the different schemes he invoked to try and jumpstart the defense, along with imploring them to “get up on the shooters. Yeah, the messages weren’t getting through.” 

When beat writer Jace Frederick observed that the Wolves seem to let down whenever KAT and Anthony Edwards begin the game with a barrage of points, Finch replied, “You’re spot on … Obviously we are going to try and feed the hot hand. But at some point we’ve got to go back to making the right play, doing the right things. There’s a lot of ways to be immature.” 

That’s Ant’s cue. While KAT was pouring in 44 first-half points, Ant had 0, and took just one shot. Yes, he had fice assists and rang up five more before taking his second shot more than halfway through the third quarter. Ten assists is great. Your top scorer turning down five or six obvious shot opportunities seems like faux teamwork to highlight your passing. It wasn’t a surprise that from the tenth dime onward, he was three-for-10 from the field with just one other assist. 

“He’s getting off it, making a lot of the right plays,” Finch allowed. “But he’s got to stay aggressive offensively and for some reason he didn’t.” Acknowledging that it is natural to feed KAT when he is hot, he added, “But we still need for him to be a scorer, and from that, make the right plays.” 

It is no coincidence that this pratfall occurred during the first game that sage veteran point guard Mike Conley has missed, due to rest and a slight hamstring pull. And it was heartening to see Ant and Conley in deep conversation when the media entered the locker room Monday night. 

But the clock is ticking. The Wolves are already labeled around the league as postseason underachievers – whether you are talking about ancient franchise history, what Gobert has done here and in Utah, or the failure of KAT, Ant, and the rest of the roster to parlay regular-season success into meaningful playoff advancement. 

Finch knows he has to accelerate the learning curve and affixed his boot to the team’s rear. “We totally disrespected the game, ourselves, and we got exactly what we deserved,” he said. 

Can the Wolves grow up enough to thrive in the crucible of playoff hoops? That is suddenly the dramatized storyline for this team in the final 40 games of the regular season. They need to absorb the fact that they have been exposed as psychologically vulnerable, with an immature approach to the season-long grind that shortchanges their impressive skills and corrodes the thrilling defensive prowess that got everybody so excited in the first place. 

But the hit to their egos needs to be a bruise, not a virus. Their dedication going forward needs to be thorough and sincere, not performative. The prescription for what ails them isn’t that hard to parse: Sustain your focus, thrive in your role, sweat the small stuff, and the nearly invisible stuff that high-character teams address. Bottom line, don’t disrespect the game, or yourselves, and learn how to deserve the winning you claim is your top priority. 

The jury is out.

The game’s distinctively gritty ballet of brawn, brains, speed, sinew, teamwork, tenacity and competitive durability as the world’s best athletes match their mettle was in full resplendence over a 20-second span where the Wolves defense tried to stop the interplay of three Clippers whose careers have already guaranteed them entry into the Hall of Fame. 

The Wolves were contending with more than James Harden, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. A fourth pre-certified Hall of Famer, Russell Westbrook, and ace sixth-man Norman Powell, who scored 24 points to finish second on the Clips in scoring that night, were also on the court. 

But it was the aforementioned trio that, pushed to the brink by the scrambling Wolves, dazzled with brisk ball movement borne of chessboard connivance. There were six passes, a bevy of screens, a couple of up-fakes and three drive-and-kicks. The Wolves countered every maneuver with synchronized sweat equity, flying around with choreography crisp enough to make it seem as if they always knew where the ball was going. 

The play ended with George catching a pass from Harden after Harden had drawn four defenders to him on his drive, then immediately shooting and making a three-pointer from the corner as Mike Conley chased out to him for a spirited contest of the bucket. It may well be the toughest three points the Clippers score all season.

For years, occasionally verging on decades, fans would go to Timberwolves games to watch the opposing stars in action, in the flesh, almost casually vanquishing the hapless home team. What happened on Sunday was another pinch-me reminder that these Timberwolves are different. 

The Clippers came into Target Center as the best team in the NBA over the six weeks since the first of December. In winning 17 of 20 games, they had generated the league’s best offensive rating—124.2 points scored per 100 possessions—because all of those future Hall of Famers had set their enormous egos and histories as the alpha star over to the side and played with an unselfishness derived from the thirst to cement their legacies with a championship season. That’s why, despite owning a 15-2 record at home at the time, the Wolves were underdogs by tip-off on Sunday.

But I repeat: These Wolves are different. There is nothing casual about the way opponents have learned to regard this squad. Even Hall of Fame talents are taxed to their limit and, more often-than-not, come away losers anyway. On Sunday, the final was 109-105 Minnesota. The Clippers scored just 112.9 points per 100 possessions, double-digits fewer than their average since Dec. 1. But for what increasingly has to be considered an elite Wolves defense, it was a tad worse than business as usual.

That’s what is driving their remarkable success. Per the calculations at basketball-reference.com, they have played the toughest schedule in the NBA thus far, including 17 of their last 18 games against opponents with winning records. Yet we are two games away from the midpoint in the 2023-24 season and the Wolves have the second-best winning percentage in basketball at .718, derived from 28 wins versus 11 losses. Their next two contests are against teams with losing records and key players out with injuries. Win them both and they are on a 60-win pace at the halfway mark. If they happen to lose one, the pace is 58 wins, which would tie them for the best record in franchise history with the 2003-04 team that made it to the Western Conference Finals.

Offensive efficiency has been an obstacle. Minnesota currently ranks 20th in points scored per possession, largely because (again, per basketball-reference.com) they are tied for last with the Detroit Pistons, who have won four times in 40 games thus far, in their frequency of turnovers per play. 

Ah, but the defense. As has been true for nearly the entire season, the Wolves allow the fewest points per possession of any team in the league. And if you drill a little deeper to look at their level of dominance relative to other teams this season, their performance is even more impressive. 

Granted, the team has only played 39 of its 82-game slate, and a lot can happen over the next three months. But the Wolves are on pace to have, statistically at least, one of the three or four most dominant defenses of the past decade. As of Tuesday morning their defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) was 2.2 points stingier than the next-best team. Only two teams over the past decade—the 2019-20 Milwaukee Bucks and the 2015-16 San Antonio Spurs—had a wider differential over every other team. Judging the Wolves defense against the NBA average, they are currently 7.1 points better. Only three teams—those Bucks and Spurs plus the 2013-14 Indiana Pacers—have a wider margin between their individual team excellence and the collective league average. 

Rudy Gobert is the obvious catalyst for this defensive superiority. Having already earned three Defensive Player of the Year awards playing drop coverage during his nine seasons with the Utah Jazz, Gobert has combined that rigor for protecting the rim with a willingness and capability to roam outside the painted area and confront ball-handlers in the midrange spaces just inside the perimeter. Utah rarely, if ever, ran schemes that expanded his range, and his flexibility in broadening his palette of skills at the expense of relying on his forte, rim protection, has been the skeleton key that has unlocked an entire new identity for the Wolves. 

More importantly, Gobert’s ability to guard in space rebuts the notion that opponents who feature a “space and pace” attack on offense can play him off the floor. The Wolves cede 104.3 points per 100 possessions when he is on the floor, the best mark of any player in the regular rotation. Their robust won-lost record indicates that they can provide an effective counter to whatever the opponent likes to do among the panoply of offensive schemes deployed throughout the NBA. 

On Sunday, half of his four blocks were out in the midrange area, he hauled down 18 rebounds and his overall activity impacted what the Clippers wanted to do in a variety of ways, including getting just 36 points in the paint. 

Clippers coach Tyronn Lue noticed. “Ant (Anthony Edwards) was a monster. Rudy was huge for them. They played well.”

Lue is one of the few NBA voices that doesn’t allow Ant’s prolific and crowd-pleasing offensive skills to overshadow an appreciation for his defense. In his pregame remarks, he offered an anecdote on how Ant had made such an impression on the defensive side of the ball.

After Ant was chosen for the USA’s World Cup team this summer, he was originally expected to be simply a regular part of the rotation and perhaps not even a starter. Instead, he became the undisputed leader of the team. Lue, who was an assistant coach for the USA squad, was asked about that elevation by Law Murray from The Athletic. 

“When he came into the gym, first day we had practice, he let everyone know he was an alpha and he was going to attack guys and be great defensively. And that’s what won him over with our staff and the USA people, just coming in and competing at a high level and attacking right away. That’s the way he tried to separate himself and he did that,” Lue said.

“People talk about offensively how good he is. They don’t talk about how high-grade his defense is…We talk about guys getting into the ball on pick and rolls; getting there before the screen hits you. He’s the best I’ve seen in terms of just getting into the ball and being physical.”

High praise indeed. But Ant backed up Lue’s raves from those press conferences before and after the game. He was in fact “a monster.” His 33 points led all scorers, but he stuffed other categories on the stat sheet with nine rebounds, six assists, and two steals (also, alas, five turnovers). The Wolves were +13 in the 38:13 Ant was on the court, which means they were -9 in the 9:47 he sat. 

In addition, Ant’s defense was “high grade” to a level that deserves parity with his potent offense on Sunday. Points scored and allowed per possession in a single game is not generally a great barometer—the sample size is too small and there is potential for a lot of “noise” in the numbers—but when they pop like the totals produced by the Wolves when Ant was on and off the court, they are difficult to completely discount. 

In the advanced box score of the game at nba.com, the Wolves scored 120.8 points per 100 possessions and allowed just 105.3 points per 100 possessions when Ant was on the court. When he sat, they managed just 94.1 points per 100 possessions and gave up bushels of baskets—147.1 points per 100 possessions.

It is not surprising that Ant would shine competing with the star-studded roster of the Clippers. Lue’s description of his alpha mindset with the USA team extends to the way he elevates his game to meet the challenge of guarding the premiere scorers in the NBA, a pattern that has been evident since he first came into the league. 

The Clippers deep collection of stars may be unselfish, but each still possesses enough extraordinary talent to conquer most individual defenders in mano a mano isolation settings. According to nba.com, they lead the NBA in both the frequency of isolation plays and total points scored out of those plays. 

Prompted by a question from Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic in the postgame locker room, Ant made no secret of his desire for the joust against the best the league can offer. 

“It’s one of the best things in basketball, going against the Clippers,” he drawled, a big smile on his face. “I look forward to playing against them all the time, because regardless of whether I’m in front of Kawhi, PG, or James, they are going to try to ‘iso’ you. So you’ve got to take pride in that challenge and try to stand ‘em up.”

Earlier this week when I was on my regular podcast with host Dane Moore, he accurately observed that “Ant doesn’t really learn or adjust until there is failure.” There is a downside to that, of course: it forestalls apparent improvements that the evidence shows could and probably should be made. 

But there is an upside, too. At the age of 22, Ant is proving to be a phenomenon mentally as well as physically. It is undeniable that he possesses “a healthy ego,” but the pejorative connotations that are often imbued in that phrase don’t apply to him. He thinks the world of himself and sets the bar incredibly high because of that unshakeable attitude. It takes him longer, and requires more tangible evidence, to convince him that something he is doing doesn’t work.

But his learning curve isn’t being stunted. He has made broad improvements across myriad aspects of his play every succeeding season he has been in the league. Along the way, evidence that might foretell ongoing failure for most players may simply be a speed-bump in his development. 

Meanwhile, all the evidence indicates that a desire to win is Ant’s steadfast top priority. And on that count, failure isn’t happening to him and the Wolves thus far this season. 

Even casual college basketball fans know who they are – one the charismatic all-everything point guard for NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament runner-up Iowa, the other the Minnesota-born-and-raised floor general for 11-time national champion UConn.

With the Minnesota Lynx badly in need of a dynamic playmaker, their fans would give anything to see either one in their favorite team’s uniform. That’s a proposition unlikely to happen this season, maybe ever. Even if Clark and Bueckers declare for April’s WNBA draft, which isn’t a certainly (more on that later), both are expected to go quickly in the first round, long before Minnesota’s turn with the seventh pick.

So in a recent conversation with Cheryl Reeve, Lynx President of Basketball Operations and head coach, we revisited the controversial notion of “tanking,” i.e. a team deliberately fielding a less-than-competitive roster and taking its lumps in the hope of landing a high draft pick. (The 2013-14 Philadelphia 76ers normalized this strategy as “The Process.” We’re still waiting for it to produce an NBA title.)

With WNBA free agency approaching later this month, it’s worth asking: Did the Lynx screw up by playing it straight and trying to win? Six seasons removed from the most recent of their four WNBA titles, the 19-21 2023 Lynx persevered through a 0-6 start and multiple injuries to make the playoffs, losing a first-round series to Connecticut. But was it worth it?

Absolutely.

Here’s the thing: Even if Reeve and her staff held their collective noses, signed a bunch of backups and watched them lose night after night, there’s no guarantee the strategy would have brought Clark or Bueckers to Minneapolis.

Even if everything fell “right” for the Lynx, what would it get them? A spot in the draft lottery and the maximum number of balls in the drawing for the No. 1 pick. Nothing more. Plus, what if Clark or Bueckers decided to take advantage of their COVID seasons and stay in college for 2024-25? Then the Lynx would have gone through all these gyrations for nothing.

To Reeve, if the Lynx tried their best and still stunk, so be it. But deliberately trying to lose? Not acceptable to anyone, from ownership on down.

“All the variables you mentioned, you can sit down and go, sure, OK, let’s tank,” Reeve said. “That’s not a guarantee you’re going to get the No. 1 pick. That’s not a guarantee that player’s coming out. There’s not a guarantee of this, that or the other. That’s why I say I believe in these things naturally occurring if that’s supposed to happen.

“In 2010, when we were in the lottery, don’t you think Maya Moore was a player people would have tried to tank for? Do you know how badly we wanted to be in the playoffs in 2010? And so we tried all the way to the end. We were a non-playoff team, but we got lucky in the lottery. We weren’t the worst team in the league (they were second-worst, tied with Los Angeles at 13-21), but we ended up with the No. 1 pick. I believe in that. I believe in, that’s supposed to happen.”

Instead, the Lynx spent the first season after future Hall of Famer Sylvia Fowles’ retirement developing their young core players. Adjusting to a new perimeter-based offense without a low-post option took time. But by season’s end, several important players had taken big strides.

Forward Napheesa Collier returned from childbirth to become a transcendent star, averaging 21.5 points per game, finishing fourth in the MVP balloting, making the All-WNBA First Team and All-Defensive second team.

“If that doesn’t happen, maybe we’re in the lottery,” Reeve said. “That’s a big-time success story for Phee (Collier). And to do it coming off the challenges after childbirth … I know she’s really, really proud of herself for that.”

Guard Kayla McBride averaged 14.3 points, her best season since 2018 with Las Vegas, then signed a two-year contract extension to remain with the Lynx. Draft picks Diamond Miller (12.1 points, 3.5 rebounds) and Dorka Juhász (6.0 pts, 6.5 rebounds) established themselves as productive players with room to improve.

“When you look at Diamond’s rookie season, while she had some successful moments, I think she would look at it and go, `God, I’m so much better than this, I’ve got so much more to do,’” Reeve said. “We’ve showed her other players that are now great players that their rookie seasons weren’t what they wanted to be. Candace Parker (the league MVP as a rookie in 2008) is a rare one.”

Going into free agency and the draft, the Lynx need a point guard and another post player. They have six players under contract for 2024, per the website herhoopstats.com Collier, McBride, Miller, Juhász, guard Tiffany Mitchell and forward Jessica Shepard. The Lynx also retain the rights for valuable reserve forward Nina Milić.

Lindsay Allen, Reeve’s most reliable point guard last season, is an unrestricted free agent. So are Rachel Banham, Bridget Carleton, Aerial Powers and Natalie Achonwa. Powers, who rarely left the bench late in the season, and Achonwa, out all season due to pregnancy and childbirth, probably won’t be back.

Expect the Lynx to sign a serviceable point guard in free agency. Teams can begin negotiations Jan. 21, with signings commencing Feb. 1. With the WNBA collective bargaining agreement expiring after the 2025 season, don’t expect any free agent to sign for more than two years.

Skylar Diggins-Smith is the best point guard out there, though Chicago seems a likely destination. (She’s from South Bend, Indiana, about 90 miles east.) The Lynx could simply bring back Allen, who missed the last 10 games plus the playoffs with a broken thumb, forcing Reeve to play Mitchell out of position.

“Last year was the roughest year at the spot for us since Lindsay (Whalen’s) retirement,” Reeve said. “It’s a position in our league that’s not a strong one right now … It’s not a strong suit of our team, but neither is it for nine teams. So it’s not like we’re going to get clobbered every night at that position, which is important.

“When you say we need a point guard, I think what you’re speaking to is a generational point guard. They just don’t grow on trees. Serviceable, that’s been our way, and we’ll continue to do that.”

The Lynx finished last season with four post players (Collier, Shepard, Milić and Juhász), and Reeve prefers to add a fifth in a post-heavy draft. Reeve loves players from UConn; they’re tough, smart and know better than most how to navigate defenses that take away their strengths. UConn’s 6-3 Aaliyah Edwards would be optimal if she’s still around at No. 7. If not, South Carolina’s 6-7 Kamilla Cardoso or Tennessee’s 6-2 Rickea Jackson could be intriguing. (Kansas State’s 6-6 Ayoka Lee, the Byron, MN product, projects as a second-round pick.)

“We look at post depth in every draft,” Reeve said. “When you’re picking seventh, you may get yourself (someone who can be) a starter at some point. You’re probably getting somebody who is, maybe at worst, a reserve player in this league with great value who can eventually start.”

Wherever Clark and Bueckers end up, maybe the Lynx will get lucky and one or the other will ask to be traded to Minnesota in a few years. (Clark grew up a fan of Moore and the Lynx.) That’s how former GM Roger Griffin acquired Whalen from Connecticut in 2010, setting up all the success that followed. It’s certainly a more palatable option than what the 76ers did a decade ago.

“Offended is not the right word, but I don’t know how practical it is, the whole tanking thing,” Reeve said. “It’s just so rampant in every sport because it’s maybe what (fans) think people do. I don’t know. It’s really fascinating to me, because it wasn’t the case even five years ago.”

If you like to watch gun-slinging basketball among the shining stars of the sport, the shootout between the Dallas Mavericks and the Minnesota Timberwolves was the ideal snifter of peppermint schnapps to cap your Sunday night viewing.

Four of the most ingenious scorers in the NBA – Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving for the Mavs, Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns for the Wolves – took turns contorting themselves into one-on-five, mano a quintuple-mano battles for supremacy. When it was over, Ant and KAT had accounted for 56% of the Wolves 108 points – and were left for dead in the sagebrush after the Mavs duo rang up 60% of the 115 points for Dallas.

In other words, Minnesota played right into the hands of its opponent. Only the Los Angeles Clippers use more offensive possessions and score more points on isolation plays than the Mavericks. And that’s with Irving having missed 16 of the team’s 37 games due to injury. Add in the absence of Doncic’s favorite lob partner, rookie center Dereck Lively II, and you knew the Mavs best chance of overcoming the Wolves top-rated defense was with a heavy dose of superstar innovation.

The Wolves also run a fair bit of isolation offense, but they’re not especially good at it. They rank eighth among the 30 NBA teams in isolation frequency and 10^th in points scored with that play type, but generate only .93 points per isolation play, which is 17^th in the NBA. (Dallas is 7^th at 1.02 points produced per isolation play.)

More to the point, Doncic and Irving are arguably two of the top five isolation scorers in the league, both with career marks well over a point per play. By contrast, Ant has never registered a point per isolation play in any year of his career, and KAT’s point production in isolation has dipped below 1.0 in the two years since Rudy Gobert joined the Wolves and shifted many of KAT’s minutes to the power forward position.

What works for the Wolves on offense is ball movement, especially when coupled with player movement off the ball. The most dramatic statistic in that regard is a simple one: Their record is 15-0 when they register at least 27 assists. On Friday night in Houston, they had six different players score in double figures, rang up 31 assists, and scored 122 points. On Sunday in Dallas, they had three players in double figures (Naz Reid added 11 points to Ant’s 36 and KAT’s 24), produced 22 assists and scored 108 points. Their record when generating less than 27 assists fell to 10-10.

Of course those two developments don’t have to hinder the flow that Finch desires – depending on how you define it. It so happens that Gobert and point guard Mike Conley have a long and productive history going back to their time together in Utah beginning in 2019 successfully running the pick and roll. Conley led the NBA in points per play as a pick and roll ball handler (with at least three plays per game) after coming over to Minnesota in a trade last February.

But Finch has never been a big fan of the pick-and-roll play, which he has previously said is too predictable. Last season, the Wolves were 22^nd in the frequency of plays featuring the pick and roll ball handler, but 11 in points scored per play. This season that frequency has dropped to 28^th, but in fairness to Finch has also been terribly inefficient, ranking 25^th in the NBA in points per play.

When it comes to the pick-and-roll play featuring the roll man, the Wolves were 17^th in frequency and 12^th in efficiency last season. That has been bumped up this season to 14^th in frequency and 6^th in efficiency. That’s not too shabby, and deserves even greater emphasis.

Which brings us to Ant. He happens to be the most efficient among qualifying Wolves players as the pick-and-roll ball-handler (although his mark of .94 points per play is still mediocre). But whether it is the pick and roll or his ability to magnetize defenders and then feed the corners on drive-and-kick actions or simply get off the ball quickly with a simple pass that perks up the pace and fosters a ball-movement mindset, his proclivity to pass is a key ingredient in the Wolves success.

Again, simple statistics tell a simple story. Ant missed three games entirely and played less than four minutes in another. But of the 31 games in which he has been a full participant, the Wolves are 11-7 when he attempts 20 or more field goals and 11-2 when he attempts less than 20. The team is 10-2 when he creates more than five assists and 11-8 when his dimes are five or fewer.

The focus is on Ant here because Ant in the dominant figure around which the Wolves offense revolves. But it will require a team-wide commitment if the Wolves are ever going to rack up points with a generosity of spirit required for an offense efficient enough not to sabotage Minnesota’s top-ranked defense and become a legitimate force in the crucible of the playoffs.

For example, many viewers of Sunday’s game pointed out that Ant and KAT were resorting to “iso” ball by default, especially given the off-night by Jaden McDaniels, who shot 1-for-10 from the field and didn’t make a three-pointer in five attempts. But McDaniels planted the seeds for his poor performance with his own early lack of ball movement.

His first four shots were all self-initiated off the dribble and highly contested. Two of them were attempted with at least 12 seconds on the shot clock and the other two had time for at least one other pass. He had said before that when the opponent sticks a weaker defender on him that he believes he can and should punish the matchup. This happened early Sunday, as Irving and Doncic were often guarding him.

But the reality is that when it comes to scoring plays, McDaniels should be the fifth option among the starters. Ant and KAT are established shot-makers who can get their own bucket, and Conley and Gobert need to flex their tandem pick-and-roll prowess (and vary that play type with other partners). It is a luxury to have someone as capable offensively as McDaniels be that fifth option – that player the opponent ignores who can burn them with a catch-and-shoot from the perimeter or put it on the deck and get to the rim before they recover. But trying to get his own via forced, low-percentage shots hurts the entire offense.

If McDaniels had been more patient, moved the ball and waited for the offense to come to him for an easy hoop or two, would he have hit the full handful of open treys he clanked in the second half? Maybe, maybe not. But it couldn’t have hurt him or the Wolves.

After the Dallas game Finch bemoaned not putting the ball in Conley’s hands more often down the stretch to benefit from his sage decisions. Amen to that. The high pick-and-roll between Conley and Gobert has got to be the Wolves most efficient set play. Conley can circle around Gobert’s typically airtight screen and then either follow him toward the rim for a midrange floater (with his off hand, the right) and step back and launch a three-pointer. Since joining the Wolves 59 games ago, his accuracy from behind the arc is 43.9% (45.3% thus far this season) with a true shooting percentage (TS%) of 63.3 (63.5 this season).

His partner, Gobert, has unreliable hands borne of sporadic hand-eye coordination, but adhering to a steady diet of rolling layups and put-backs on the offensive glass boasts a below-his-norm but still impressive 63.0 TS% this season.

Sunday night in Dallas, zero points from the Conley-Gobert tandem stood out in the first game of the season the Wolves lost after leading in the fourth quarter. Gobert had trouble holding on to the ball and Conley missed a pair of open threes, but their usage rates of 9.1 and 8.2 respectively, in the quarter was more about neglect than dysfunction.

You want to see Ant share the ball? Put him out there with the two quickest decision-makers on the roster. The previous two seasons, the “Iowa Ants” second unit – comprised of Ant and Iowa G-league alumni Naz, J-Mac and Jaylen Nowell, along with veteran Taurean Prince – was a kinetic blast and the chemistry between Naz and J-Mac was crucial to the whole shebang.

The sample size is scant and that’s part of the problem. Two years ago, the Wolves had a net rating (points scored per 100 possessions minus points allowed per 100 possessions) of plus 9.9 in the 120 minutes Ant, Naz and J-Mac shared the floor. Last season it was plus 12.8 in 164 minutes. Thus far this season it is plus 9.3 in 17 minutes.

To be clear, there are solid arguments against this trio sustaining this majesty over a larger sample size. The other two second-unit players would be Kyle “Slo Mo” Anderson and Nickeil Alexander-Walker (“NAW”). Slo Mo’s shooting woes have affected the team’s offensive efficiency in the pick-and-roll and overall. J-Mac’s inaccurate shooting is the biggest blemish on his resume. And the TS% of NAW and Ant himself are among the lowest on the team.

Opponents will play off Slo Mo and J-Mac, daring them to shoot. Everyone must compensate with their virtues, which are quick, shrewd ball movement, keen timing moving without the ball, and raucous pace that still avoids excess turnovers. One immediate upgrade: Naz’s opportunities as a roll man have been cut more than half this season, from 2.3 per game last year to 1.1. Yet his quickness has made him more efficient this season – 1.21 points per play compared to 1.14 last year. How many times have we all seen J-Mac deliver a perfect pocket pass in stride to a streaking Naz, both out of the pick-and-roll and through “flow?”

The alignment gives Conley more rest, and puts more responsibility on KAT, Conley and Rudy (and yes, McDaniels too) to carry the first unit, as Ant would sub out earlier and return with the bench guys. Is it a gamble of sorts? Absolutely. But especially after the schedule eases at the end of this week, it is worth finding out if the current roster already has the ingredients for a capable second unit that can put a little zest in the offense.

Gun-slinging against the Mavs, who are chronically mediocre on defense, wasn’t a ridiculous fallback strategy on Sunday. But on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Wolves play a road back-to-back against the Orlando Magic and the Boston Celtics. Orlando, with the fourth-ranked defense in the NBA, has Jalen Suggs as a wing-stopper for Ant. Boston, ranked second on defense, features Jrue Holiday and Derrick White fronting the best crew of wing defenders in the NBA.

Load the gun with dimes, or face the likelihood of shooting blanks.

Ah, the doldrums have finally arrived for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

They’ve been lurking, dressed up scary, in the ethereal robe and scythe of the death character, for a week or two now. Some jittery Wolves fans think that they’ve whacked the New Year’s cherub and the team may never win again in the 2024 calendar. But it’s just the doldrums, the mysterious malady that penetrates and enervates every team roster at some point, with roots and timing that are a mixture of logic and random happenstance, like the flu.

In the months of November and December, the Timberwolves won 23 games and lost only 5, the best record among the 30 teams in the NBA. But combining the trio of games to open the season in late October and the first couple here in January yields a record of 1-4. Put it together and the Wolves are currently 24-9. As of Friday morning, only the Boston Celtics are better.

Other reassurances are at the ready. The Wolves defense still cedes fewer points per possession than any team in the NBA. They are a dozen games through a brutal 16-game gantlet against opponents with winning records and are a resilient 7-5 in that span. They hadn’t lost two in a row until the 32^nd and 33^rd games of the season. They were overdue for some doldrums.

Put another way, with 40% of the season in the books, the Wolves have proven they can be special and perform like a legitimate contender for a championship. But the track record prior to these first 33 games never included circumstances where the doldrums could be so expensive, where “taking care of business” became such a high-stakes endeavor. The Wolves have yet to prove they can remain special, in a brutally competitive Western Conference where slippage can’t provoke panic, or, nearly as damaging, flights into false bravado and nonchalance.

The latter is what Wolves Coach Chris Finch was referring to after Wednesday night’s loss to the New Orleans Pelicans, when he said, “We’ve got to get our desperation back. We haven’t played with a lot of pop and purpose since we went to Sacramento (and beat a good Kings team by a dozen points two days before Christmas). We’ve kind of been in second gear since then. So this performance had been coming for a while.”

The absence of pop and purpose has been most obvious during the frequent periods where the Wolves fail to both move the ball via passing and move without the ball to get open for passing, which spaces the floor and forces defenses to react. Failure to do these things results in a chain collision of lapses and obstacles that put enormous pressure on accurate shooting and quality defense.

For the past few years, the Wolves have been routinely plagued by too many turnovers on offense and an inability to get back in transition or end opponent possessions by corralling rebounds on defense. Inert offense focused on isolation plays and questionable shot selection feed into those flaws.

“I want them to make the play that gets (their teammates) involved,” Finch said after a Tuesday practice the day between losses to the Knicks in New York and the New Orleans Pelicans at home. “It feels right now like everyone is trying to get themselves going – Ant and KAT trying to get off to strong starts.

“A lot of our turnovers are the result of poor spacing and poor spacing is the result of people holding (on to the ball).” When there is “indecision – not knowing what your teammate is going to do with the ball,” Finch continued, “Now you start milling around.”

That stasis and lack of spacing makes it easier to guard shooters and intercept passes. Turnovers rise and the shots that do go up are better defended and reduce accuracy. Along with the turnovers, those missed shots create transition opportunities. As the Wolves scramble back in transition, assignments are compelled on the fly and it is harder to box out to get defensive rebounds.

How bad has it been? Over the past dozen games – all against foes with winning records – the Wolves have committed more turnovers per game than anyone in the NBA, rank just 18^th in assists-per-game and are thus dead-last in assist-to-turnover ratio. That they have won seven of those games is a tribute to their defense, which is fourth in points allowed per possession despite the pressure of turnovers leading to transition.

Finch has always favored a “flow” style of offense built around precisely the things the Wolves aren’t doing – moving the ball and moving without the ball. Asked how much he is emphasizing these elements, he replied, “Every day. You should come to film (sessions). We have spent a large part of the season fighting the defense, not playing with enough trust in what we are doing and not taking what the defense is giving us.”

Finch is the type of coach who prefers to keep reiterating what is needed and hope that patience pays off. The reality is the offense needs Ant and KAT to generate enough firepower to complement the team’s defense, which is now its identity and calling card. That said, a team that has Ant and KAT in the starting lineup should not rank 20^th among 30 teams in points scored per possession.

“We need those guys to do what they do well,” Finch stipulated. “We need Ant to be an iso (isolation) scorer. We need KAT to be a tough cover at all different levels of the floor. (But) we don’t need them to do it every single time down. They have the burden of creating good offense for themselves and for their teammates. We have not been able to strike that balance consistently yet, and until we do we aren’t going to take a step forward.”

Center Rudy Gobert echoed those sentiments at the same Tuesday practice, but held the entire roster accountable for the bad habits.

“When the ball sticks our turnovers get higher, our attempted shots get harder, our offense gets worse and the defense gets worse because the other team gets easier shots,” he said simply.

“It is very important for us to put in the work every day and keep being sharp mentally, testing each other and just have that obvious unselfishness. Do things for our teammates, whether it is just space or run the floor, set a screen, communicate, all of the things that you don’t see on the stats but that come back to you within the game,” Gobert continued. “When you move the ball early it comes back to you and that is when we move from being a pretty good team to being a great team.”

When Finch refers to “fighting the defense,” he’s talking about players – mostly Ant and KAT, but wingmen like Jaden McDaniels and Kyle Anderson are also guilty – deciding to try and dribble through a crowd of defenders rather than simply moving the ball early.

As the best player on the roster and fulcrum of the offense, Ant’s regression from his galvanizing role in fostering ball movement earlier in the season to heedless dribble-penetration over the past few weeks has been especially injurious. Yes he deserves credit for bumping his assists up every season even more than his turnovers (although he is averaging a whopping four turnovers per game over the last dozen contests). And yes, as the “go-to” volume scorer, his efficiency is going to take a hit.

But among the NBA’s top 20 scorers thus far this season (Ant currently ranks 12^th) Ant’s true shooting (TS) percentage (which weighs the value of three-pointers and free throws along with standard field goals) of 58.4% is tied with Jalen Brunson of New York for the lowest in the group.

The irony here is that Ant has done a variety of things to improve his efficiency and has indeed raised his TS percentage for the third straight season. His accuracy has never been better at the most efficient forms of scoring. At the rim – which is zero to three feet away from the hoop per basketball-reference, the source of these stats – he’s making 71.1% of his shots. From three-point territory, he’s shooting 38.5%. And at the foul line, he is converting 84.5% of his free throws. All those marks are career highs.

But the frequency of his shots from the most efficient places has declined. Not his free throws – his 6.9 trips to the line per game are a career high. But Ant’s frequency of attempts at the rim and behind the three-point arc have never been lower in his overall shot mix. Just 20.4% if his total field goal attempts this season have been from 0-3 feet, compared to 28.3% for his career. And his treys comprise just 34.5% of his shot mix, compared to his career frequency of 41.5% from long range.

In place of those efficient shots are midrange jumpers. Ant loves his midrange game and it is dazzling to watch. And relative to the rest of the NBA, he is accurate: 39.5% from three to10 feet, 40% from 10 to 16 feet, and 42% from 16 feet out to the three point arc. But that amounts to a true shooting percentage barely over 40% and those midrange attempts, from three feet out to the arc, comprise 45% of his shot mix, which is one-and-a-half times his career midrange frequency of 30.3%.

Ant has also increasingly taken on KAT’s bad habit of squabbling with the refs. Many of his drives to the basket now include a shouted “hey!” meant to call attention to his contention that he has been fouled. It is a terrible stratagem that predictability works against him. The shout either infers the ref isn’t paying heed to what is happening and needs an audio focus, or is an instant protest over the lack of a whistle. Either way, it is a challenge to the ref’s authority, and a belittling of the ref’s competence. Good luck with that.

Consequently, the team came out on Wednesday against the Pels passing early and often. While the emphasis was an encouraging sign that they were ready to renege on a bad habit, the rhythm and flow of the movement was stilted and forced, like someone trying to recite an innovative rap lyric he or she didn’t write. The sparkle and spice that occurs when a team is organically sharing the ball, to the point that the passes are so crisp and well-timed you are shocked when the shot doesn’t splash, was rarely in evidence. Baby steps.

But necessary baby steps. Because more than any other stat, elevated assist totals spell winning for the Wolves. When they generate 30 or more assists, they are 9-0. Games where they deliver between 27 and 29 assists are 5-0. Below 27 assists in a game and their record is 10-9: 3-3 when they produce 25-26 dimes; 4-3 at 22-24 assists; and 3-3 for games with less than 20 assists.

Move the ball, move without the ball. Watch the doldrums disappear.

In the And One Newsletter today: Jordan McLaughlin’s required inclusion in the player rotation.

To take advantage of my 34 years covering Minnesota Timberwolves basketball, I figured a good theme for this would be rating the five best and five worst trades the franchise has made in its 35-year history. The scope leaves out anything involving simply money or unknown draft picks (although the later value of unknown draft picks included in the deal was considered). That created a pool of nearly 100 transactions over the decades.

This is a necessarily subjective endeavor. I suppose you could chart win shares or some other metric to measure the value of the players the Wolves relinquished versus what they obtained — and there were times when I checked the stats on various players to see how they stacked up to the eye test. But in the end, a team makes deals at different points in their arc of development — the abiding goals of winning games and garnering the loyalty and patronage of their fan base are always paramount but maybe prioritized differently. These circumstantial and aesthetic factors, put through my own filter, also were counted as I sorted through the nearly 100 machinations of personnel throughout Wolves history. 

So, on with the show.

The raw deals

5. A Payne in the rear

On Feb. 10, 2015, the Wolves acquired forward Adriean Payne from Atlanta in exchange for a protected first round pick that eventually conveyed in the 2018 draft. Payne starred for four years at Michigan State, coached by Tom Izzo, a close personal friend of Flip Saunders, who was serving as both general manager and head coach of the Wolves in the wake of Rick Adelman’s resignation. 

Mired in what would become a 16-66 season, Flip bought Izzo’s bill of goods on Payne and punted a precious draft pick, ignoring the fact that Atlanta had already given up on Payne, who they had played a total of 19 minutes in their first 53 games, despite taking him with the 15th overall pick that summer.

The rest of his career amounted to 43 minutes with the Orlando Magic. Atlanta eventually used the Wolves pick on Kevin Huerter, a reliable three-point shooter who was integral to both the Hawks 2021 playoff run and Sacramento’s renaissance last season.

4. Roy for Foye, oy vey!

During the 2006 NBA draft on June 28, the Wolves had done the right thing by selecting forward Brandon Roy with the sixth overall pick. But before the night was over, general manager Kevin McHale had flipped Roy to the Portland Trailblazers in exchange for guard Randy Foye and cash considerations. 

Why did this happen? If you believe ESPN, it was because Portland had shrewdly broken up a planned trade between Minnesota and Houston. According to McHale that night, they were leery of Roy’s history of knee problems, always wanted Foye, and just extracted a little cash out of it in the process.

3. The low point of Trader Jack’s ruinous reign

“Trader Jack” McCloskey was supposed to be the savior of a Wolves franchise already notorious for front office ineptitude. His roster machinations had helped propel the Detroit Pistons to back-to-back championships in 1989 and 1990 and he was eagerly snapped up by Minnesota when his contract expired in the summer of 1992.

It wasn’t enough that the Wolves used their sixth overall pick in the 1990 draft — the second year of their existence – on mediocre center Felton Spencer. They then proceeded to use their seventh overall pick in the 1991 draft on a slightly better center, Luc Longley. One of the obvious ways for McCloskey to improve the franchise would be to pare down that redundancy. Nobody expected the forehead-slapping clown show that ensued.

McCloskey got rid of Spencer on the night of the 1993 draft. But the trade was for Mike Brown, another center, who was 30-years-old and had started only 70 games in his previous seven NBA seasons. 

McCloskey continued spending more time on the senior doubles tennis circuit and officially announced his retirement in February 1995. 

2. The unintentional booby prize

Less than two months after he was hired as President of Basketball Operations for the Timberwolves, Gersson Rosas had his “welcome to the NBA” moment during the 2019 draft in June. The plan was to nab point guard Darius Garland with the sixth overall pick. But that entailed trading up from the Wolves draft slot, 11th overall, by including power forward Dario Saric in a deal with Phoenix. 

Except that the Cleveland Cavaliers defied the Wolves and conventional wisdom by choosing Garland with the fifth overall pick, despite taking point guard Collin Sexton in the first round the year before. Rosas pivoted to swingman Jarrett Culver, raved about his defensive tenacity and work ethic, claiming that is who he wanted all along. 

If Garland had been available it would have been a good trade. But Culver was a bust, a deer-in-the-headlights performer overmatched in the NBA, where he no longer performs. Meanwhile, Saric has continued to be a fairly valuable stretch power forward who plays physically and can hit a three-pointer. He would have been helpful on the roster that first year when Rosas had the Wolves chucking treys by noted clankers Treveon Graham, Shabazz Napier and Noah Vonleh. And Cam Johnson, who the Suns chose with the 11th pick, is an even deadlier outside shooter who played for the USA in the World Cup last summer.

1. Sacrificing a Hall of Famer for a bunch of mediocrity

I was there, so I know the frustration. After seven straight losses in the first round of the playoffs, an inspired trip to the conference finals and then three disheartening seasons out of the postseason, the Wolves were finally ready to trade their superstar and launch a major rebuild. 

Never should have happened.

On the last day of July in 2007, McHale and company traded Kevin Garnett to the Celtics for a pretty good offensive power forward (Al Jefferson) a workable swing man (Ryan Gomes), a talented chucklehead (Gerald Green), a decent backup point guard (Sebastian Telfair), a fading shotblocker (Theo Ratliff) and draft picks that became Wayne Ellington and Jonny Flynn. 

KG did not push for this trade, and, initially, publicly protested it. Then he went on to help the Celtics win a championship his first season there. His retired jersey hangs in the rafters at TD Garden in Boston. The Wolves did not field a basketball team with a winning record for more than a decade after the trade, the worst in franchise history. 

The shrewdest swaps

5. Hero ball and a steady regulator

After six straight first-round playoff losses, by the summer of 2003, owner Glen Taylor and the Wolves were ready to gamble on major trades that could get them to the next level. The transaction that was most successful in this regard was McHale dealing Joe Smith and Anthony Peeler to Milwaukee for Sam Cassell and Ervin Johnson on June 27. (Getting Latrell Sprewell for Terrell Brandon and Marc Jackson a month later was only a little less substantial.)

4. Diamond in the draft

The Wolves had just taken Anthony Edwards with the first pick in the 2020 NBA draft, but many in the fan base were focused on another activity on that November night. A three-team trade between the Wolves, the OKC Thunder and the New York Knicks had been completed. 

The marquee name was longtime fan favorite Ricky Rubio, coming back to Minnesota after stops in Utah, Phoenix, and, without ever playing a game for them, OKC. The Wolves also received late first-round picks in that 2020 draft from the Knicks (23rd) and the Thunder (28th). In return, they dealt center-forward James Johnson, the 17th pick in the 2020 draft (who became Aleksey Pokusevski) and 2024 second rounder to the Thunder, along with Matthias Lessort and a 2023 second rounder (who became James Nnaji) to the Knicks.

3. Spread the Love, hold the Mayo

On draft night of 2008, the Wolves and the Memphis Grizzlies pulled off a blockbuster eight-player deal. The Wolves had taken guard OJ Mayo third overall. The Grizzlies had selected forward Kevin Love two picks later. Those were the principals. The Wolves filled in the edges with Greg Buckner, Marko Jaric and Antoine Walker. The Grizzlies sent Mike Miller, Brian Cardinal and Jason Collins along with Love to Minnesota. 

Miller was supposed to be the plum that enriched the swap enough to make it Mayo for Love. But Miller had a bizarre career in Minnesota, eschewing the gun-slinging that had won him a Sixth Man of the Year award in favor of too many passes and proclivity for seeming injured and limping to the sidelines, only to magically return moments later.

He also deserves a hat tip for being attractive enough to Lebron James and his return to Cleveland that the Cavs traded Andrew Wiggins and other assets to Minnesota even though Love made no secret that he was soon opting out of his contract in Minnesota. That send-away deal is an honorable mention among the Wolves best trades.

2. The first All Star

One of the all-time great quotes in my time covering the Timberwolves was when then-head coach Bill Blair was getting ready to Xerox notes for his coaching staff as he talked about Donyell Marshall, the rookie selected with the 4th overall pick in the 1994 draft the previous summer. As the scanner methodically moved back and forth across the paper, Blair dismissively gestured toward it and said, “Donyell would have trouble guarding this copy machine.” 

That was a problem because the ink was still fresh on Marshall’s nine year contract. (This was before the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement limited the length of rookie signings.) Although still not officially in charge of personnel matters, McHale found a brilliant exit strategy, giving up on Marshall after 40 games via a mid-season, straight swap for forward Tom Gugliotta on Feb. 18, 1994.

1. You already know the answer to this

On Feb. 9, 2023, the Wolves traded point guard D’Angelo Russell to the Los Angeles Laker in a three-team deal. In return, the Wolves received point guard Mike Conley and combo guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker (NAW) from the Utah Jazz, a 2024 second-round pick from the Lakers and a 2026 second-round pick from the Jazz.

As of Friday morning, the Wolves are 21-6, the best record in the Western Conference. This trade is one of the top three reasons why.

For decades now, the Miami Heat have been regarded as the epitome of grit, sweat equity and overachievement in the National Basketball Association.

The Golden State Warriors have won more championships, the Memphis Grizzlies have done yeoman work spit-shining their own “grit and grime” trademark and the Heat are often saddled with circumstances seemingly at odds with their style –including occasionally superior star power and the fact that they operate in a city renowned for its nearby beaches, drugs, and all the other accoutrements of hedonism. But anyone who follows the NBA is aware of “Heat culture.”

When Lebron James was bereft of the championship pedigree required to cement his status as an all-time great, he went to Miami to join homegrown (from an NBA standpoint) star Dwayne Wade and the impeccable hierarchy of general manager Pat Riley and head coach Erik Spoelstra – then proceeded to appear in four straight NBA Finals, winning two rings.

Six years later, Jimmy Butler – who burnishes his blue-collar credentials as loudly as anyone in basketball – had forced himself off of three different teams, including, most flagrantly, the Minnesota Timberwolves, while complaining about the team’s lack of commitment to the dirty work of hoops. In the summer of 2019 he got his wish and became a part of Heat culture. Although there are no championship trophies since then, Miami has been to the Eastern Conference Finals, three of the past four years and to the NBA Finals twice. In that time, Butler and center Bam Adebayo have been surrounded by castoffs and undrafted players who blossomed into laudable performers who know their roles and are steeped in Spoelstra’s unremitting standards for hard, disciplined play.

Monday night in Miami, the Heat had their three best players healthy and on the court for the first time since Nov. 8. Their top shooter, Tyler Herro had been out for 18 games with a sprained ankle and Adebayo hadn’t played in December due to a bruised hip. Their opponent was the Timberwolves, who for decades were the anti-Heat, mired in a culture of ineptitude and dysfunction. But slowly, steadily, they are shedding that stench. After making the playoffs as eventual fodder for better teams the past two seasons, the Wolves came to Miami with a record of 19-5, easily the best start in the 35-year history of the franchise. The healthy Heat would be a good, sturdy measuring stick for the sustainable legitimacy of this charmed Timberwolves season.

The game was epic.

The Heat struck first, with an opening nine-minute blitzkrieg featuring five steals that comprised the bulk of Minnesota’s seven turnovers, leading to 14 points. By contrast, the Wolves forced a single turnover that created zero points; the main reason why Miami doubled the score, 24-12 over that span. Minnesota played on even terms the rest of the period, but the 33-22 margin was their largest first quarter deficit of the season.

It got worse in the second period. Through the first 10 minutes, the Heat were shredding the Wolves’ top-rated defense, sinking two-thirds of their 15 shots overall, including half of their six three-pointers, and all five of their free throws. The lead became 17 points, 63-46, until the Wolves shaved it to a dozen by the halftime buzzer. Herro, Butler and Adebayo accounted for 40 of Miami’s 66 points, the most in the first half by a Minnesota opponent in the 2023-24 campaign.

Head Coach Chris Finch, who received a technical foul arguing a call on the last play of the half, delivered a stern verdict in the locker room.

“I didn’t like the spirit about us, I didn’t like our competitiveness and I didn’t like our physicality. And they were dictating on all three of those fronts,” said the coach.

Finch wanted a change in attitude and preparation, a culture-shift that would out-Heat the Heat. And as has been the case the vast majority of the season, the Wolves delivered.

Nearly halfway through the third period, the lead was still a dozen. But the Wolves defensive intensity was noticeably different – each team had scored only seven points. Then Anthony Edwards nailed a pull-up three-pointer from the left slot. And when Adebayo took his first break of the half, Ant and Naz Reid each beat their man off the dribble for layups and the lead was five. Herro hit a jumper but Karl-Anthony Towns countered with a finger-roll to culminate another drive. Blocks by Naz and Kyle Anderson in the final two minutes keep the Heat down to six heading into the fourth quarter. It was a thriller.

Once more the Wolves defense enveloped their opponent like a boa constrictor, allowing the Heat a measly point over the first three-and-a-half minutes while Minnesota scored 10 themselves – culminated by a Mike Conley pullup three-pointer in transition – to seize the lead. Naz and Conley each hit treys around a Heat two-pointer to bump the lead to five, but Heat culture kicked in and Miami countered with a pair of treys of their own to retake the lead with six minutes left in the game. The teams stayed within four points of each other the rest of way.

Highlights were plentiful.

Jaden McDaniels blanketed Herro, blocked his shot and then Ant retrieved the short rebound and drove the length of the court for a layup. Ant broke a 97-97 tie with a baseline dunk off a KAT feed, followed by a monstrous Rudy Gobert block of Adebayo’s floater in which Ant won the scramble for the loose ball and surged down the court for another resounding slam.

Despite exhausting themselves trying to surmount the Wolves defense, the Heat kept finding ways to keep it close but the Wolves wouldn’t relent. KAT nudged his former teammate and nemesis Butler away with a shoulder and then canned a sideline jumper; on the next possession he grabbed the offensive rebound over Butler and fed Gobert for a dunk. The final was 112-108, the Wolves’ 20^th victory in 25 games, tied for the best record in the NBA as a Tuesday morning.

The vise is turned slowly, then surely. In the first quarter that defense is sub-mediocre, ranking 17^th in the NBA by allowing 112.4 points per 100 possessions. The second quarter is relatively better, bumping them up to 10^th despite just a slight tightening down to 112.2 points allowed per 100 possessions.

The second half is where the clamps are set, windpipes are squeezed, and opposing arms and legs inexorably turn to jelly. Over the first 25 games of this season to date, the Wolves have allowed just 98.4 points per 100 possessions in the third quarter. That is a whopping seven and a half points fewer than the next-best team allows in the third quarter. And in the fourth quarter – winning time – they are again the NBA’s number-one defense, allowing 104.4 points per 100 possessions.

That steady grind is why, with just two games to play before the season is one-third completed, the Wolves have allowed 2.4 points per 100 possessions fewer than any other ball club.

As I wrote last week, the Wolves are now undergoing a month-long litmus test, facing 16 straight opponents with winning records between Dec. 11 and Jan. 10. After losing the first of those games to New Orleans they have reeled off three consecutive wins using a familiar template. Their 119.9 points per 100 possessions allowed in the first half of those games is 20^th best in the NBA over a three-game stretch for each team. But in the second half, against teams currently ranked 14^th (Miami), 5^th (Dallas) and 1^st (Indiana) in offensive efficiency in the NBA, the Wolves are yielding 92.6 points per 100 possessions, while scoring 127 points themselves, for a second-half net rating of 34.5 points per 100 possessions.

The flipside to this, of course, is that the Wolves are merely a little above average in the first halves of this season, and a distinctly bad team in the first quarters, with negative net ratings that are getting worse as the competition stiffens. Asked about the chronically slow starts after the victory of the Heat, Finch replied, “It’s concerning. We’ve got to be better. It had been our offense and (tonight) our defense let us down too. But all credit to the guys for fighting back.”

Now that Ant is putting a troublesome hip pointer behind him and weeks-long injuries to McDaniels and backup point guard Jordan McLaughlin have healed enough for them to play, Finch can deploy his player-rotations exactly as he wants them, barring foul trouble. What we have learned is that Shake Milton and McLaughlin are the odd men out among the top 11 in Finch preferred nine-player rotation, and that Troy Brown Jr. will play limited minutes.

Thus far these are obviously the right decisions, legitimized by the quality performances – collectively and individually – of the three primary backups. We’ve discussed Anderson (Slo Mo) plenty and there is currently plenty to say about the other two so we’ll limit it to them.

Begin with Reid, whose playing time and usage have both grown during the team’s seven December games (six of them victories). Because of the aforementioned injuries to others, he ranks fourth in minutes and second in scoring for the club this month and is shooting 50% overall in December, 38.3% from long range and hasn’t missed on a dozen free throws. The Wolves are plus 53 in the 181 minutes he has played and plus 11 in the 155 minutes he was on the bench.

When Finch and President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly signed Naz to a three-year, $42-million contract, they lauded him as a “skilled big” that has turned out to be more prescient praise than anybody (except maybe Naz himself) could have anticipated. At both ends of the court, he is balancing the best of both worlds as someone who is simultaneously burly and fleet. He is guarding so efficiently on the perimeter that it is not unreasonable to ask if he could log time at small forward (although when I did ask, Finch dismissed it, saying, “He’s a really good power forward; let’s leave it at that”). And now that he is splashing threes at a career-high rate, he’s burning opponents who close out hard on him but blowing past them for layups. In fact, he’s also routinely shocking defenders by getting to the cup when facing up at midrange. For a team that has had trouble generating offense with its second unit, this upgrade is a godsend.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker, or NAW, is also surpassing reasonable expectations. After a wretched start in the team’s first handful of games, NAW has become invaluable for his versatility – effective as both point guard and shooting guard, as a starter or a reserve. Finch, who is one of NAW’s biggest champions and lobbied for his inclusion in the trade that also brought Conley here this past February, continually cautions NAW about doing too much with the ball. He has effectively heeded this call for restraint and has become a sage supplement to Conley (when replacing McDaniels) or Slo Mo (when coming off the bench) as a secondary ball-handler and playmaker.

But there are no restraints on his effort. He is an ace defender who collapses space on the man he is guarding, nimble and fearless negotiating his way through screens, and one of the best on the roster at switching and facilitating rotations on defense. He’s dogged, rugged and pliable. He’d be a natural for Heat culture, but he and the Wolves are glad he’s become a vital piece in their own burgeoning, but thus far wildly successful, cultural project.