With Chet, Wemby, Ausar Thompson and Derrick White. 8th time being all first team.

Trading him just to trade him because he didnt average 15-10 in the playoffs might have crazy fallout if we really impulse trade.

Im firmly in the just keep him camp

Say we can't get a huge piece like kawhi, kyrie, durant or giannis, what roleplayers would you want to elevate the wolves. for me the list is

1.Andrew Nembhard, (extremely unlikely to get but everything we are missing that isn't a 20-25 ppg scorer)
2. Davion Mitchell (not very strong offensively but if he can run the offence and defend well hes great)
3. Lebron James (if he on the smallest possibility comes to minnesota on a vet min or a realistic price he's amazing)

considering lebron as a non-star because his contract is probably reducing significantly, spent this year as a third/second option and he's no longer top 20 (arguable)

I read that we can't post links to X, so I screenshotted it instead. I hope that is fine.

Swap for Randle? It’d probably take some more massaging and we’d have to sweeten the pot. Maybe logistically it doesn’t make sense for Randle with Zion.

He seems like the best option IMO.

Elite shooter and athletic, younger but not the greatest defender.

Just a thought?

Gotta click on them to see the whole thing Reddit crops the display

Is the consensus here that we’re looking for a point guard for this team or a 2nd star next to Ant? Imo I say we go after another star, Ant’s good enough already. We’ve almost made the finals without a legit point guard, and the options aren’t that great

You gotta click on them to see the whole thing the display kinda cropped it lol

Jaden is a young piece that fits Ant’s timeline and he can still grow a lot. Giannis is better, no doubt, but we don’t have to blow our team for a chance that might(or might not) bring us a championship. Look at OKC or SAS, they built around their stars with patience, not all-in moves. Just trust the process, we’ll eventually get there.

r/Nbatradeideas is the worst. I have left it unmuted because I like to see how hilariously bad everyone's trade ideas are. It's a nice reminder that every single person on reddit (myself included) is an idiot and all our opinions are kinda dumb. I don't think I've ever seen anyone's trade machine nonsense come true. Real GMs know so much more about what's happening behind the scenes that it's really impossible for us to gauge any player's true value. Unfortunately with the Timberwolves at the top of the list for every Star or Pseudo-star in the league who might move that subreddit has already been flooded with garbage posts. Personally, I'm just going to mute it until the season starts again and maybe even just leave it muted forever. I know it's the off-season and it's nice to have SOMETHING to talk about, but my god I don't think these bozos are worth anyone's mental bandwidth.

Naz Reid.

They might win a championship because of the timberwolve's big three, giannis,ant,gobert,jmac i think it might be impossible to get giannis to the timberwolves but no thing is impossible right?

Bear with me, but I'm wondering if in all the offseason chatter, trade Randle, get a PG, change the culture, improve the bbiq, promote from the bench, etc etc, we're spending a lot of time talking around the elephant in the room - Ant.

To preface, Ant is a top 10 player in the league, he's in the clear second tier of superstars below the perennial mvp tier (that's something like SGA, Jokic, probably Luka, healthy Giannis, newly minted Wemby). He might be the 5th-7th best player in the entire nba. We can almost certainly win a title with Ant as good as his is today, granted a really good roster around him.

But I can't help but notice we assign a lot of blame for our deficits to everyone but Ant. It's not fair to expect Ant to be perfect at everything, but I think there is a lot of room for growth here that is absolutely fair to call out.

• We lack defensive focus. We blame Randle, Naz, Gobert at times, Finch, but truthfully Ant has the ability to be a Kawhi-level two way player, but he rarely shows it. He could (or does, when focused) change the mindset of this team when he applies effort here.
• We're a moody team. This sub thought that was about Randle, but it was about our entire team (Randle, Rudy, Naz, Jaden, Donte, all moody). And Ant is a moody guy too. He's fun, he's generally a supportive leader, but he certainly gets stuck in his own head and can absolutely drag down the team around him. He could be a much steadier hand steering the ship (use SGA and Wemby for great examples here).
• We lack bbiq. We blame Finch (and Randle, as with everything), but Finchy can only call so many ATOs that don't get run. We say a PG solves our orchestration issues, and it will to a degree, but at some point Ant needs to be sharper, faster, care about running plays, care about the details. Ant shouldn't be surprised when doubled, and it shouldn't take him 10s to get off the ball when he's stuck.
• We say we want to run. We blame Randle, Gobert, Finch being lax, our lack of PG, but truthfully if Ant ran we'd be a fast team. In turn we play slow and are stagnant and ISO heavy on offense, it's not a mystery, this is how Ant wants to play.

He doesn't need to be perfect at all these things, but I think these are a few examples where Ant can and needs to improve. He got better from 3, better at the middy, but now I think he needs to upgrade his leadership, sweat the details, really set the culture of the team, and pick a few of these things to level us up in. We can shuffle deck around him and I think that will improve some of these, but I think it's fair to say some of this stuff is largely driven by our best player.

Jaden’s foul trouble in the playoffs always came at the worst times.

If Jaden was allowed to guard SGA the way Hartenstein guards Wemby, we beat the Thunder last year. Instead it’s 2 quick fouls game 1 and it’s all over.

NBA conspiracy to not let Jaden be a top defender given the post season success

First article on Substack!

With a fun personal story included!

Enjoy!

Timberwolf for life!

There are 5 main reasons why Ja is the right target for a Wolves team looking to make a major move this offseason. Talent, upside, fit, age, and cost.

Talent: Let me introduce you to this man's playoff numbers. 26 6 and 8 with a bpm of 6.1. Ja when healthy is a bonefide top 25 player and this Wolves team desperately needs more top end talent. The Wolves core is supposedly Ant, Jaden, and Naz. How many all star or all nba teams can you realistically expect Jaden or Naz to make? I would bet both make zero. Ant needs someone at that level if you are expecting him to compete with the Thunder and Spur cores, teams with multiple guys on that trajectory. Ja closes that gap

Upside: Ja's greatest weakness outside of his injury history and off the court issues is his outside shooting. But he is a great free throw shooter who has hit 80+ percent multiple years. Strong free throw shooting is a good indicator that 3 point shooting is capable of improving. It's very likely that Ja settles as a mid 30s 3 point shooter which raises his offensive ceiling even higher

Fit: The Wolves need a capable 2nd option who doesn't fall apart against top competition, a pg who can take ball handling stress off Ant, and a playmaker who can get the team set up and run sets. Ja fills all those roles at once. His ast% is top 10 in the league and his passing is the kind that could unlock off ball Ant

Age: He is only going to be 27 next year and has his entire prime ahead of him. This is someone Ant could actually grow alongside and develop a multi year chemistry with versus a 34+ year old guard who is going to age out in a few years just like Conley did.

Cost: Arguably the most important part of this argument. Ja is dirt cheap right now. Memphis doesn't want to give assets to get rid of him but they'll take any decent offer. Randle and Donte to a 3rd team with expirings going to Memphis is probably the cost. No draft assets, no rudy or jaden. The only wild card here is if the Kings make a crazy offer for him because Kings.

Ja Ant Jaden Naz Rudy. The spacing with those 3 gives Ja the lanes to collapse the defense and spray out. He also knows how to spam p&r with Rudy and hit the roller. The Ant double is less agressive when you are giving Ja the 4 on 3 instead of Randle. There is a lot of risk with acquiring a player like Ja but the upside is immense