The Ringer NBA Show - Discussing the Future of the Minnesota Timberwolves | Weekends with Wos

Episode Date: June 5, 2022

Wos is joined by The Athletic's Jon Krawczynski to discuss the Timberwolves future. They start by discussing the new ownership group, what to do with D'Angelo Russell, the Karl Anthony Towns–Anthony Edwards dynamic, and much more. Host: Wosny Lambre Guest: Jon Krawczynski Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Assistance: Benjamin Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome to a golf podcast unlike any other. This is Fairway Rowland on the Ringer podcast network. I am your starter, Joe House every week on Fairway Rowland. It is myself and our PGA tour correspondent on the ground, Nathan Hubbard, talking all things professional golf, amateur golf, amateur betting, professional betting, Amateur drinking, professional drinking by Birdie Buddies. If you want to hit them straight out there, please check out Fairway Rowland every week. Available on Spotify.

Back ladies and gentlemen to weekends. I'm your host, Big Wasa, aka Wazzy Lambray, and I'm joined by a very special guest and a dear friend. My man John Krasinski of the Athletic, welcome to the show, John. Was, what's up, my brother? Good to see you as always. Same, same, same. You know, the feeling is very mutual. You know, I'm here in San Francisco at the NBA finals,

the biggest event in the sport. So, of course, today, since we record on Sundays, the day of the game, I decided to talk about the Minnesota Timberwolves. Ain't no better time, boss. And naturally, we talk about the Timbles. But honestly, I just thought it would be stupid to do some game preview.

It's like everybody's going to watch the game tonight. Let's talk about. about some pertinent NBA stuff. And I thought, man, the stuff out of Minnesota right now is very interesting on like five different fronts, right? And the first of which being this interesting transition from the ownership of Glenn Taylor to A-Rod in them, who I called the A-Rod group.

And it's because like Glenn Taylor's still in charge, but then like who's making the hiring decisions. Who's in, like who ultimately says the okay on a draft? Like I just think the Minnesota thing is interesting. Plus they have, in my opinion, one of the most interesting young rosters in the league. So I just think it's something people should be paying attention to. At first, John, I want to ask you, who's in charge over there right now, this very second? You're right, Guaz.

let's just try to lay the groundwork as straightforward as we can. It's because it's one of the most unique situations I've ever seen in a franchise. Glenn Taylor right now is the majority owner of the Timberwolves. He continues to be it. He's owned them since 1994. Forever and ever, really for probably the last 15 years almost, he has wanted to find some younger owners to come in and buy a smaller stake at first, and then kind of ride shotgun for a few years and then let him pass the baton.

For most of the time that he tried to sell the Timberwolves under that kind of arrangement, most of the other guys are like, bro, if I'm buying the car, I'm driving the car. And so he couldn't ever find that. Now he did find that with Mark Glory, Alex Rodriguez. And those two came in and they said, yeah, Glenn, we will learn from you. We'll figure things out. We'll get our money in order. and we will go for,

we'll go for this. So they've bought in, they're only at 20% of the franchise right now. Okay. And they can buy another 20% at the end of December. And then by December of 2023, the plan is for them to take over majority control from Glenn Taylor. So it's a gradual process.

But because this is all sort of a succession plan lined up, they want to have a say. and who's the GM, who's the president of basketball operations, who's the coach, what kind of moves are being made so that when they take over majority ownership in 2023, they don't have to start from scratch. And so those two, Mark Lorry and Alex Rodriguez, really led the way on hiring Tim Connolly from Denver and recruiting him and coming up with the financial package to get him. And then Glenn still had to give the final sign off. He had to approve of all this. He's really kind of empowered those two to try and make some moves and do things to set it up the way they want it to be for when they inherit this whole deal. Yeah, because I think the Tim Connolly situation raised a lot of eyebrows around the league with people who closely watch this kind of stuff because the Denver part of it we don't need to get into. Like just the idea that there was no compensation tied to this guy coming to Minnesota.

They were basically like, if you get a deal, great. Go ahead. And he's known to be one of the most respected best executives in the game. But the price tag was interesting to me because they paid top dollar to get this guy in. We know the Kronkies. They don't get enough credit for this. Cheapest organization in the league. It's ridiculous.

They do everything on the cheap. And but Minnesota is not known as like What Balmer's doing with the Clippers Or what Dolan did when he gave Phil Jackson $12 million Or even you name it Some of the richest franchises in the league Minnesota's not known for that So what do you think was the impetus to like

Pay all this money to get Tim Connolly up in there? Yeah, it was two things was Which are both decidedly Against the grain for what we know of the Timberwolves. is when Mark Lorry and Alex Rodriguez came in, one of the things that they did right away, and this was kind of Mark Lurie's sort of lead voice on this and Alex Rodriguez was backing him was they said, look, we need to get a top flight president of basketball operations in here. That's a priority for us in the way that we're going to build out our franchise is by hiring

the best of the best and sparing no expense to get. them. This was even before Gerson Roses was fired. So even last summer at Vegas in the summer league, it was starting to get out there like, hey, these guys might look at bringing someone in like a heavy hitter. And you heard names like Pat

Riley and Bob Myers and Masayu Jiri and all these. And I will tell you like, as those names started circling, as that ambition started to come to the forefront, you talked to a bunch of people around the league over the last year. They'll be

like, yeah, right. Like, these guys ain't about that. They can talk all this stuff. They're never going to be able to go out and do that. A, they're not going to be able to lure someone to Minnesota. B, they will not be able to get Glenn Taylor to sign off on paying all this money. There's just no way. Well, they go through the whole situation.

I think they did, you know, really look hard at Messiah, Ujiri. They looked hard at a few others. Tim Connolly's contract was such that he was available to them. and they identified him as a top flight GM and said, hey, he fits the criteria for what we want, really well respected, you know, great scout, great talent developer. And also looks at it as he comes from a market similar to Minnesota.

Like they ain't getting LeBron James to come to Denver free agency. But and so like he knows how to be successful in a market like this. And so they went hard after him. and one of the reasons that they splash the pot for him too was to kind of send a different message out there like, yo, the Timberwolves are moving in a different direction. We're doing things differently than you ever thought we would. Like you could always count on the Timberwolves to mess something up to like not have ever have to be a threat.

We never had to worry about the Timberwolves in the league-wide scope of things. And so for them to go out and do this and go with the money that they did in the compensation package that they did, A, they got a guy that they really, really respect and like and think is one of the top five guys in the field. But then B, they sent a message like, these ain't your dad's timber wolves. Like we're going to move in a different way. And when we say we're going to do something, we're going to do it. And so I think it was effective in both of those fronts.

Yeah. And so, man, if you look at what. what Maasai was doing over there, which is putting together quality rosters on the cheap, never some ridiculous tear down, never any splashy free agents, unless you want to call like Kenyon Martin that or something. You know, like never these ridiculous moves,

but highly competitive. And Connolly goes in there and does the same shit. It's kind of crazy. Like he basically, he replaces, Masayu Jiri and puts together another top to bottom quality ass roster to the point where they're beating the

Clippers, who are the odds are in favor for the championship, conference finals, all of this stuff. What will Tim Connolly be expected to do here in Minnesota? Where do they think from your best sense,

obviously, where do they see themselves as far as the pecking order within the Western Conference? and what do they think Tim Connolly is going to provide to get them going in a direction that they think they deserve to be going? Yeah, well, so if you look at where they're at right now before the Tim Connolly hire, they went from 23 wins two years ago or a year ago to 46 this year, doubled their win total, got into the playoffs for the first time in four years, only the second time in the last 17 years.

Which is insane. When you have that kind of modest success, but success nonetheless, for the Timberwolves, like you could hang banners for that here. Like that's the, the bar is so low for them to, to get over that everyone would, it would, you wouldn't blame them for saying, hey, great job guys. Just stay the course. Keep doing this and we'll try to keep building. But what clearly, what the Connolly recruitment and signing says is that they are not happy

with just being okay, with just being in that seven, eight, nine, ten. range in the playing tournament range in the Western Conference, I think that they have a realization as much as their roster is very intriguing and there's a lot of really cool parts to it and they have a good coach and all of these other things. They know that the path from 46 wins to like 52 or 53 wins and home court advantage in the first round is a lot harder in some ways than the path from 23 wins to 46. And so Connolly's coming in here. sort of with a directive to, hey, we need you to build on this success. And we know that the Western Conference is going to be a lot tougher next year than it was this year.

And we know maybe the wolves won't have quite as much luck with injuries as they did this year. They were really, really healthy for most of the year. And that helped them kind of pile up some wins as well. And so Conley's going to have to come in and do what he did in Denver, draft well, maybe make a few smart trades. And I think that they, so his key in Denver was he got Yokic Murray and Porter, right? Like that was he assembled that core. Here you have Edwards and towns that are kind of the core.

Now he's got to kind of build a roster around those two to just maximize what they have there. And so they think his relationships, his eye for talent, all of that stuff is a cut above what they already had. And so that's the main motivator here is, man, this, climbing this mountain is only going to get harder from here. And so it's up to him to identify opportunities for them to take advantage of and build the depth around those two big guns and figure out the rest. You know, to my mind, John, I don't think there was much that separated

Minnesota this year and Memphis's team, honestly. They seem to be of equal talent and equal quality of a team that earned a damn two seed in the Western Conference this year, which is pretty impressive. And so, to me,

I wonder how they view their roster construction, especially this off-season because, again, I think Memphis is instructive here because they could have sort of jumped out the window last off-season. and said, oh, we've arrived, we've got this great young core.

Let's do something drastic to this instead. They're just like, let's bring Stephen Adams in here. Let's, you know, sort of round out the edges. Let's not go crazy. What approach do you think the timber wolves are going to take to this offseason? Yeah, I think Memphis is a good barometer for them to measure against because you're right. I mean, like, they believe that they should have won five of those games. if they had the experience and the toughness mentally to finish it off.

I mean, they had double-digit leads in all of those games late in the second half and couldn't close it out. They just were not used to being on that stage. And Memphis had a little bit more experience. And so they just kind of ultimately out-tuff them down the stretch. And so I do think that there will be a similar kind of pathway for them in terms of you hope that Anthony Edwards makes the same leap going into year three. that John Morant did. You hope that Carl Anthony Towns continues to kind of put everything together

and really, you know, become more of a two-way player as he did this year. And, and Jade McDaniels going into year three and a few of those guys. You can count on, I think, some of these guys really continuing to improve and make leaps. The big question that they have to answer is, what are they going to do with DeAngelo Russell? Is he a guy that you keep? Is he a guy that you extend? Is he a guy that you trade, you know, there's all, that that is the, the key decision that they have to make that could make this more than just a tweak of the roster and could change it into more of a significant change if they decide ultimately that, hey, we have to move on from him and see what we can get.

You know, let's stay on the DeAngelo Russell topic because I've personally never been a fan of his game. just the idea that like you need a screen to do anything. Like you can never do anything with the ball in your hands outside of some level of pick and roll operation. I just don't think that's enough to justify the sort of cachet he's earned around the league. And to me, you know, he's a guy who had about six weeks

of good basketball in Brooklyn, somehow fell onto an all-star team, and we were all expected to, you know, pretend that this guy is some kind of world beater. Wolves fans on Twitter were very vocal this year. They were like, well, actually, Waz, you're a casual because our best lineups actually happened with DeAngelo and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they were, you know, very cocky about the DeAngelo Russell situation.

But I don't think that bore out in the playoffs. He was a problem at, you know, many different moments. That damn off the dribble, step back, at the end of, I think that was game four. I forget which game it was. That image is seared into my brain. I got this terrible move and then just like doesn't even hit the rim. All right, I've been mean enough to DeAngelo Russell.

What do you anticipate they will do with him? Is it a trade? Because I don't see how you can be like, oh, this guy deserves some huge extension because he's a huge part of what we're doing going forward. Yeah, I mean, you know, here, I know I know we're not supposed to say these things on these pods and me being immersed in the wolves as long as I have been, I should have all the answers. I really don't know what they're going to do here because it's not an easy answer. So we'll start with, like, DeAngel Russell had a big role in the wolf's success.

So I really don't know what they're going to do. And because on the one hand, DeAndre Russell had a huge role in a lot of their success last season. In the regular season, he was really good. He especially defensively, he showed a side of him that I don't think anyone knew that he had. He was good from a leadership standpoint. He fit in well.

He chose his spots when to get his own shot, when to get Edwards and Towns and all them involved. All of that was great. And let's not forget, in the play in tournament against the Clippers, when Carl Anthony Towns was MIA, because of foul trouble, DeAngelo Russell was the guy who saved them. He had a huge game.

And so he has those capabilities to take a game over. But it is a roller coaster with him, man. And in the playoffs, that roller coaster was all the way on the downslope for most of the time. I mean, you're looking at point totals in those six games, 10, 11, 22 on 9 of 21, 10, 12, and 7 in the game 6, 7 points. did not play the final six minutes of the fourth quarter of a must win game six. Like you can't have a max player not and not be able to put him on the floor. John, but he's an all-star. He made an all-star team.

It's just untenable, man. And so I think he deserves a lot of credit for getting them to the playoffs, but certainly still had showed some limitations in the playoffs. And that's the big problem here because if you're the Timberwolves and you want to trade him, if you had lost to the clippers and he played really well and you didn't make the playoffs, maybe his value is a little higher, you know, but it might be a little bit difficult to go out there on the market and see what you can get for DeAngel Russell coming off of that playoff series where he just did not play well at all. And then, yeah, I mean, when you get

into extension talks with him, I mean, he's not a max extension guy. Like, that's obvious. What, what would he look for in terms of an extension? And is there some reasonable number? I don't know. Here's the third scenario was, which I mean, it shows how winding this road is, though.

They could go into next season with Russell on the roster in the final year of his deal. And if he plays it out and he plays well, then you look to keep him or if he doesn't, you say goodbye. And then they have 31 million coming off of the cap with him. They have Malik Beasley's 15 million coming off. They have Patrick Beverly's $13 million coming off.

And all of a sudden, you got all this cap space in the world. Interesting. Yeah. So that's why I'm saying like there are three clear paths that they could take. And they could all work out beautifully or they all could really not work out at all. And so I don't know what they're going to do. I would imagine that Tim Connolly is absolutely going to play the market and see what offers are out there leading into. the draft. And if there is something that they really, really like, I wouldn't be surprised

if they move him. But I don't think it's a case like they did with Andrew Wiggins, where it's, we're going to attach a lightly or protected pick and try to get off of him. I don't think they're going to do that with DeAngelo Russell. Andrew Wiggins, that's got to be very interesting for all fans to be observing right now. But, you know, and this is just a tangent, I don't think Andrew Wiggins could have made him into a lunch pail player on the wolves. It wasn't working here, was. It wasn't.

And you can't go from Savior to lunch pail God. Just like that just does, those two things are incongruent in when you're in that same space. You go to a team with four freaking Hall of Famers on it and they tell you to shut the fuck up, grab a rebound, and guard somebody. You kind of have to do it. Yeah. It's just different. So, you know, I think he's far ultimately found.

his destiny as like just straight up. I'll guard guys. I got some on ball creation for you. I can knock down the open three every now and again. And that's just basically what I do. I can't be, you know, the son of an ecosystem.

Yeah, I can't be. Yeah. It's so funny watching him and just remember in Harrison Barnes clank like 12,000 threes in the finals in 2016. It's just like, it's crazy. He's the Harry Barnes now. But I do want to get to the two big guys on the team, Anthony Edwards and Carl Anthony Towns.

And I think Towns had a better playoffs than it will be remembered. But those lows were just so glaring and just so like, does this guy have a mind for basketball? Like at certain points when you're watching and make these crazy mistakes, these ridiculous files. And like, you're just like, okay, like, I can't. center my universe if I'm the wolves around this dude. However, when I'm watching Anthony Edwards, I'm like, that's the guy. That's the guy right there.

Basically, the inability of anybody to stay in front of him. He doesn't even really know how to finish yet. Yet he still found ways to be effective near the basket. When the shot is falling, it's just like, everybody pack your stuff and go home. do the wolves see themselves as an Anthony Edwards franchise more so than a Carl Anthony Towns franchise

because I think when Jimmy Butler did his tirade and stuff he was basically like you guys are shining these kids asses they're not that good and so I'm out of here I'm tired of this crap I feel like Anthony Edwards

he's moved into that focal point how do they manage this Carl Towns thing because he clearly still thinks you know, he's the earth and the son of the franchise. How are they managing it going forward? Yeah, I mean, I think that this is kind of a unique situation for this kind of a thing, because you could see it developing in other places or there's plenty of other situations like this, including with other pairings in Minnesota, where it was two really good

players and, man, this is not going to work. Like, whose team is it? kind of a thing and this is going to be a soap opera and so you say this is toxic as step and kg no i don't think so is jac zinsky is reporting that on on the ringer weekend show i am not reporting that at all but but i am using that as the base as the baseline right i mean you had you had you had stephen kg you had jimmy and cat you had even like even in the cassel spreewell kg mix like they were not um against each other, but money got in the way of that with both Cassell and Spreewell wanting to be paid and all that and that really...

Spriewell couldn't feed his kids on eight million prior. He couldn't feed his family. Three years, 21 million. Couldn't do it. And so, but in this scenario, I don't, from what I've seen, I don't think that we're headed for that collision point right now because for a couple of reasons, one is right now, as of right now, do the wolves say this is Anthony Edwards team? No, he's not ready for that yet. He's just, he's not there yet. And that's okay. He's 20 years old. But Towns has been in the league,

seven years going into his eighth year. He is the most consistent player on this team by far. I think last year he started to show a lot more maturity and being able to handle a leadership role in a different way than he had earlier on his career that really did tick off Jimmy Butler. that really did check out. The charity is not his, you know how they call people old souls? Yeah. Whatever the opposite of that is what Carl Anthony Towns is. And so, like, yeah, I think for a lot of his career, that was true.

And I think that this year, I did see him grow up some and kind of come out of this fog that he was in. And so there's there's all that. But all of this is to say that Towns has lost a lot here. He's, they've lost a ton of games. He's taken a lot of shit for it. understandably so you're the franchise player when your team doesn't win you're going to take a lot of blame um but so he understands more than most that uh you need more than one good player on a team to compete in the western conference and that's why i think he and anthony edwards compliment

each other very well like aunt knows that he's not as good as carl anthony towns just yet but he knows that he has something to help this equation and like he's got a mindset in him that while Kat is the big brother and is the scrapper with the little brother, like he's going to come and jump into the fight and take care of some dudes if it goes off that way. And so I think like they get along well and I think that Towns is ready for help in a way that he probably wasn't before. And so like I think that all can work out. And so here's the other thing like coming to obviously like there's a lot of people,

whether it's in the NBA or even in Wolf's fans sometimes, we're like, man, they got to trade cat, make this aunt's team. Like, this is it. I wouldn't go that far. The second you trade cat, you're looking for a big who can shoot and sprays the floor and create room for Anthony Edwards. And so I just do think that they're going to continue to build around both of them in a way that can absolutely work.

And as long as they continue to make those two the focal points and make them both valued and both of them understand how much they need each other, I think it's going to work out just fine. I don't have really many concerns about that. Now, they got to get better around those two. They got to get more rebounding. They got to get more toughness. They got to get more shooting.

But those two, it's a pretty good one-two punch, especially if you get Ant to make a leap in year three like people are expecting. So I think they're good there. And I think both of those two are good. with being good there. And now it's a matter what happens around them. Man, I would have loved to get

into some of the more sorted details of that Gerson Rojas situation, but we're out of time for today. I do think, however, the Timberwolves are as exciting a young team as we have in the league. I really, really want to see

what Connolly is able to put together in the offseason because I think they're going to be really damn good next year after having tasted some success. Hopefully they don't go the route of the Atlanta Hawks and just like be completely like with the hubris and act like they achieve something and want more for themselves. John, man, thank you for coming on.

Tell the people where they can find you and your fantastic work. Yeah, appreciate it was. You can find me at theathletic.com in the Minnesota section. Timberwolves, do a little Viking stuff here and there as well. And you can find me on Twitter at John Krasinski, not the actor, the other one, J-O-N-K-R-A-W-C. Z-Y, N-S-K-I. But I appreciate you having me on, Waz.

I'm so happy for your success, man. You're a good friend. I can't wait to see you in Vegas. And you just keep blowing up, man. Listen, John, thank you. You're the sweetest guy in the biz. However, I need more success. More money, more everything.

More adulation, more accolade. I need more, John. Keep grabbing. Keep grabbing. It's all there for you, man. Just keep on grabbing. Thank you, bro. All right, that was our show for today.

Make sure you're checking out all of the other offerings throughout the Ringer, NBA podcast network. We'll see you guys next week. I'll see you guys on Wednesday with group chat. We're out of here. Peace.