![]() ![]() ![]() Some of the “clunky” aesthetics, as Connelly called them, can be attributed to a new team learning how to play with one of the league’s most unique players. And I think coach and I are pretty confident and convicted that that’s a pair that can be really good together.” ![]() “I think all in all there was a lot to like,” Connelly said. The 30-year-old’s counting stats were down significantly in every key category this season, an ominous sign for a player with three years and $131 million left on his contract.īoth Connelly and Finch said on Thursday that the Wolves remain committed to the two-big plan, believing the experience this season coupled with a full offseason program and training camp will help them smooth out the wrinkles they saw in 2022-23. Finch said this summer he expected Gobert’s transition from Utah to Minnesota to be “seamless.” At the time, the Wolves believed that acquiring the league’s best rebounder and rim protector was just what they needed to vault into contention after getting bludgeoned on the boards by Memphis in the 2022 playoffs. (The latter was a far more tragic and long-lasting impact than a mere knee injury, but another circumstance completely beyond the team’s control).įrom the moment the Wolves made the trade for Gobert in July, there were immediate doubts about the price they paid to get him and the fit with Towns in the frontcourt. This wasn’t a case of Ricky Rubio tearing his ACL just as they were taking off in 2012, or Flip Saunders dying suddenly from lymphoma as he was starting to rebuild the team from scratch in 2015. ![]() But I’m also extremely proud of our players and coaching staff, because I can’t give Finch and his staff enough credit for what they did this year under less-than-optimal circumstances,” Connelly said on Thursday.īut the Timberwolves were more than just victims of bad luck. “The goal when you start the season, obviously, is to be better than last season, and we didn’t achieve that. They have a 21-year-old star in Edwards and a 22-year-old two-way stud in McDaniels, both of whom made big leaps in their third season in the NBA. They made back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time since 2004. Their 42-40 record was just the third time in the last 18 seasons that the Wolves finished above. In many ways, that adversity overshadowed real positives. “Bad things after bad things after bad things just happens to us,” Anthony Edwards said after the Wolves were eliminated by the Denver Nuggets in Game 5 of the first round. Jaden McDaniels certainly did not plan on a cement wall being behind a curtain that he punched, which caused him to miss the playoffs. No one planned on Karl-Anthony Towns missing 52 games, Taurean Prince missing 28 and Naz Reid missing 14. No one planned on it being as difficult as it proved to be to integrate Gobert into a new team. When the big moves were made last summer, no one in the organization planned on needing two Play-In games to qualify for the eighth seed in a conference that was more wide open than any time in recent memory. Those two moves ratcheted up the expectations for a team coming off its first playoff berth in four seasons, and the weight those bore on everyone in the organization could be seen on the faces of coaches, players, executives and staff members all season long. He made them before they swan dived into the deep end of the Western Conference pool by trading five players and four first-round draft picks for Rudy Gobert. The external ones are ones that can oftentimes be more of an anchor.”įinch made those comments before the Wolves made a splash by luring Tim Connelly away from the Denver Nuggets to run their front office. We talked about it a lot in film and in practice and what it would take to be there. “But we always expected to be in the playoffs all season long. “We’re going to have expectations,” he said. ![]()
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