Will the Timberwolves’ Turnover Hamper Their Championship Aspirations?

When you tune in to a Minnesota Timberwolves game this season — whether at Target Center, a bar, or your couch at home — almost everything will feel different than last year.

The broadcast will air on DAZN, a digital streaming platform replacing FanDuel Sports North. The broadcast will show players wearing freshly rebranded jerseys and playing on a new court.

You won’t see Julius Randle pull up from the midrange or Naz Reid crossing someone over. Instead, you will see LaMelo Ball hoist a 35-foot triple or toss a lob to Jonathan Kuminga or Joan Beringer. You won’t see Joe Ingles waving his white towel in celebration; he is playing in Australia. You also won’t see Mike Conley pulling a young player aside to give them pointers; Conley signed with the Boston Celtics.

Much of what you have grown accustomed to seeing during Timberwolves games will be different this season. A summer of change has the hype at almost unprecedented levels inside and outside the organization. A palpable buzz is leaking from Mayo Clinic Square in downtown Minneapolis as the regular season inches closer. While all the flashy new additions warrant excitement, there’s also the threat that all of this newness will hamper Minnesota’s championship aspirations.

Four months ago, significant change felt necessary. The Wolves needed to improve their roster after their second-round exit to the San Antonio Spurs. A fine-tuning move, such as acquiring a low- or mid-level point guard, didn’t seem like enough.

Randle’s fit in Minnesota had grown stale. The Wolves were moving forward without a starting-caliber backcourt partner next to Anthony Edwards as Donte DiVincenzo began rehabbing his torn Achilles, which he suffered in the second round, and with father time at Conley’s doorstep.

Tim Connelly, who knows he must keep switching things up until his team wins it all, entered the summer knowing a big move was possible. However, he wasn’t necessarily chasing one.

“We have a lot of confidence in our guys,” Connelly said in May. “But it would be disingenuous for me to sit up here in front of this crew and say we are happy with the sixth seed, we are happy with not being a home-court playoff team, we are happy our last three closeout games have been lopsided. We have to be realistic about what we have, which is way more good than bad, but know we are not good enough right now.”

With Ball — a significantly better, more consistent passer than Randle — quarterbacking Minnesota’s offense this season, the Wolves believe the 25-year-old guard can unlock offense for his teammates at a high rate; a rate the Wolves didn’t consistently achieve last season.

With Edwards in the prime of his career and at the center of Minnesota’s offense, the Wolves are no doubt gunning for a championship this season. A team doesn’t make the kind of move Connelly made for Ball, call Kuminga 94 times for a potential one-year rental, and pay the luxury tax if they don’t have their sights set on deep postseason success.

However, recently, when an NBA team undergoes a big change in the offseason, players need at least one season to fully get in sync with each other at a rate that can spark a championship run. The last time a team became champions in the first season after a big move was in 2020, when the Los Angeles Lakers won it all during Anthony Davis’ first year.

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The Wolves will inevitably face adversity this season. Ball and Edwards have been working out consistently together in Minneapolis this summer, producing many smiles and highlight-reel plays.

Still, Edwards knows that will not always be the case this season.

“It’s definitely going to be ups and downs,” Edwards told Taylor Rooks at Fanatics Fan Fest in July. “First year together, maybe a lot of downs. But we are just going to celebrate both of them. Celebrate the ups, celebrate the downs, and just go with it.”

Finch wants his players to have more fun this season than they did last year, so Edwards and the Wolves embracing the lows and keeping their spirits high will help in that mission. Those down points — whether they are confined to one game or bleed over multiple weeks — will happen eventually. What matters is how Minnesota responds.

Last year, the Wolves were a moody team that fell apart when things went wrong, despite ample veteran leadership in their locker room from Conley, Ingles, and Kyle Anderson, who was added late in the season. Minnesota must mature this season, and it will do so without veteran leaders to replace those three.

Finch said that is intentional.

“We purposefully haven’t added a bunch of veterans to the team this year,” Finch told Britt Robson in an exclusive interview. “My approach with Ant or with Jaden or with all these guys is, if we’re going to take the diapers off, let’s take the diapers off. Like, it’s your team now. What you say and the way you say it, and setting the tone from the first days of practice; that stuff matters. And it’s time. It is seven years in the league.”

While the Wolves grind through learning on-court fits, they’ll do so with reshuffled responsibilities among their star players. Edwards and Jaden McDaniels must grow as leaders, each in their own way, and do so in a way that can hold this team together through adversity.

Naturally, Ball will also need to lead, and he can do that with the consistently positive energy he brings. Rudy Gobert is the oldest player on Minnesota’s roster. He’s already a veteran leader but will need to take on more leadership responsibility.

The Wolves have enough talent to be a legitimate threat in the West and earn a top three seed at regular season’s end. But it took a summer of change from Connelly to put these pieces together, forming a team with a high ceiling that looks much different than last year.

That change was necessary for the team’s long-term trajectory. And it has many fans settling inside Target Center or in front of a TV to catch the action. But that change could also hold the Wolves back, especially if players don’t fill new roles and mature as a unit.