The Timberwolves took off in 2023/24 as their young pieces showed tremendous growth and their core took a step forward together. In an interview with Darren Wolfson of KSTP, president of basketball operations Tim Connelly said he’s proud of what the team accomplished last season.
“We don’t want to be [in] a zero-sum game,” Connelly said. “It’s not one winner and everybody else is losers. We had goals — we didn’t reach the ultimate goal, which is to bring a championship to Minnesota. But our team played well. We had some playoff success that has been a long, long time coming and hopefully it’s something we can build upon.”
Connelly spoke extensively on the state of the Wolves’ roster and a few select players. I heavily recommend watching the interview in full, but here are some of the highlights:
On where the Timberwolves stack up in the Western Conference:
“The West is so brutal, it [depends on] a shot here, a shot there, who’s healthy. So much is [based on] matchups and health. We just want to continue to be at the big table. As long as we internally grow and keep holding ourselves to the highest standards, we’re pretty excited about the season.”
On conflicting accounts that surfaced during the Olympics regarding Rudy Gobert‘s health:
“I think Rudy’s good. He had a finger injury but I think he’s good to go.”
On whether the team wants to extend Gobert:
“We’d like Rudy to be here for a long time. We love his agent, he’s been a friend for a long time and is one of the best guys in the league. And certainly our goal with most of these guys is to keep them here as long as they want to be here. … Ideally, I think continuity is going to be one of the better strengths we have going into the season and we really like our core group.”
On how much rookies Rob Dillingham and Terrence Shannon Jr. will play:
“We don’t want to put too much on any young guy’s shoulders, but we’re gonna put a lot on their shoulders. Obviously, they’re going to have to prove they’ve earned those minutes. But where we are, we’ve become a pretty expensive team, so we’re going to have to find some spots for these young guys. We know it’s not always going to be pretty, but most importantly they buy into [Wolves head coach Chris Finch] … We’re not expecting perfection, we’re just expecting a commitment to do things the way we do them.”
On the team’s work ethic this offseason:
“Our gym’s been fantastic, we’ve had 11, 12 guys here all summer. This week, we told the guys to get out of town. It’s really exciting when you don’t have to beg guys to come back to the city. And I think everybody kind of got a taste for it last year and hopefully we can build upon it.”
On who will fill the backup point guard position:
“It’s up to [Finch]. Certainly, we think [our] guys are capable. [PJ Dozier] played full-time point last year in Europe. We drafted [Dillingham] to give him a real opportunity to earn minutes early on and we’re pretty confident he can do that. Again, nothing’s given. I think the depth and the competitive nature of our depth is what helped us get through some tough times the last couple of years.”
On the possibility of filling their open 15th roster spot:
“We could. There’s some flexibility there. We want to be cognizant of where we are relative to the tax. We also want to be cognizant of where we are health-wise going into the season. Of course we’ve talked about it, if the right player is there, we would fill it. But at the moment, we’re gonna sit tight and see what September looks like. I think there will be another deal-making window too where maybe a guy shakes out that we didn’t think would be available.“
Edwards will take another leap. Twolves will
At least make second round!
I don’t know if they are as deep as last year, but if even some of their core players step up it would be great.
KAT and Gobert are kind of where you expect are at their highest play level (aka good, but you can’t expect some kind of breakout). ANT who knows what his peak is? – and Naz always seems to always beat expectations. Mike is a vet who has been the PG this type of team needed.
That leave players like McDaniels, A-W and to a lesser extent Garza to get better. (Garza basically seems to manage trash time games, so I included him)
Gobert’s hometown Olympic roster benched him. Even they know he’s a boring player with no expansion to his game.