Just a year and half removed from crippling their franchise by making the worst trade of all time the Timberwolves look like one of the best teams in the league. Not only are they stacking regular season wins but they also pass the eye test when they match up against the best teams in the league.
Last year the Timberwolves struggled for a bunch of different reasons. They had D’Angelo Russell playing point guard, KAT was hurt, Rudy had a poor season defensively and Ant didn’t seem to buy into the team. But the addition of Mike Conley, and other key players getting healthy seems to have made all the difference and now that they are rolling they are reminding me of the last team to build a regular season juggernaut around Rudy Gobert, the 2021 Utah Jazz.
I know you are probably thinking something along the lines of “what a powerful mind to make a connection between those 2 teams” but it was really quite simple as 40% of the starting lineup is identical.
Now if you told Timberwolves fans that their team reminded you of the 2021 Utah Jazz they would probably be offended because that Jazz team is regarded as a pretty fraudulent 1 seed. Even in the moment when they were tearing through the league at an almost 60 win pace they were not taken very seriously by fans and media who frequently compared them to the 2015 Hawks (an actual fraudulent 1 seed who tore through the league at a 60 win pace) and when the 2021 Jazz lost in heartbreaking fashion to the Kawhiless Clippers in the second round of the playoffs everyone who called them a paper tiger felt like they nailed that prediction.
However I strongly believe that that Jazz team could have won it all if Donovan Mitchell didn’t injure his ankle against the Pacers late in the season. He played through it once the playoffs started but he was clearly hampered and it was getting worse the deeper into the playoffs they got. It impacted not only his offense but it made his already less than stellar defense even worse which contributed to the meltdown in “The Terrance Mann game” now you might be thinking “but the Clippers lost Kawhi Leonard” and that is true but losing Kawhi in a weird way actually helped the Clippers beat the Jazz because it forced them to switch to using Reggie Jackson’s and Paul George’s speed to break down the Jazz defense rather than Kawhi’s more methodical version of the offense.
I have now spent more time defending the the 2021 Jazz than I meant to when the point of this blog is that this Timberwolves team is a much improved version of that Jazz team so even if you think that Jazz team WAS fraudulent the differences between that Jazz team and this Timberwolves team should allow them to succeed where the Jazz failed.
Anyway I’m going to go through the Wolves and the Jazz rotation players and talk about why this Wolves team is better
Center
Timberwolves: Rudy Gobert – Jazz: Rudy Gobert
Rudy is a constant for both of these teams. Both teams rely on him to anchor their defense by guarding the other teams best interior scorer and playing elite help defense to cover for his teammates’ mistakes. On offense he sets bone crushing screens (screen setting is super underrated as a skill and Rudy is so good at it that the Jazz tried to turn screen assists into a widely accepted stat) to free up ball handlers and is reliable catching lobs at the rim.
After looking like he was perhaps washed up Gobert is back to playing Defensive Player of the Year level defense which is a huge reason that the Timberwolves are 20-5. Now in 2021 Gobert was near if not right at his physical peak and although he is moving much better this year than he did last year there is still some notable decline. The good news for the Timberwolves is that the decline is a very small decline and what they have around Gobert is more prolific than what those Jazz teams had. The gamble they’ve made is that their young core of players will grow around Gobert and allow him to extend his prime as a defensive stud.
Power Forward
Jazz: Bojan Bogdanovic – Timberwolves – Karl Anthony Towns
Bojan Bogdanovic was the best Jazz free agent signing since Carlos Boozer and he fit really well as the power forward on a Jazz team that was all about getting up a ton of threes on offense and letting Rudy take care of the defense. Bojan averaged 17 points per game and shot 39% from 3 on 6.4 attempts per game. Bojan could create his own shot in the half court if the Jazz needed him to bail out a bad offensive possession or if he had a mismatch he could exploit. For a power forward he wasn’t much help on the glass and when he got cooking with the ball in his hands the defense didn’t have to worry too much about him hitting a cutter. On defense he would compete and move his feet but he was a little too slow to guard fast guys and little too small to guard big guys.
KAT at power forward is 5 inches taller than Bojan which even though KAT is not a great defender when you are 7 feet tall and athletic even if you lack the instincts and discipline of a great defender your size allows you to cause some problems for people. Securing defensive rebounds and holding teams to just 1 shot per possession is critical to having a great defense and KAT is a much better rebounder than Bojan. Kat is probably a weaker perimeter defender than Bojan but the Timberwolves have multiple really good perimeter defenders so unlike the Jazz they don’t have to rely on their power forward to get down in a stance and guard the other team’s best wings.
On offense the KAT is by far the better player. With Bojan if the night called for it he could get you 25 points if the night calls for it KAT can go and get you 40. He averages more points on more efficient shooting. He’s better from 3 he’s better from 2 and he’s better from the line. It’s actually pretty unfair to compare these 2 because KAT was the number 1 overall pick in the draft and Bojan was the first pick of the second round who then stayed in Europe for 3 seasons so KAT should be better than him and I mean no disrespect to Bojan when I say that KAT is a massive upgrade at the 4.
Small Forward
Jazz: Royce O’Neale – Timberwolves: Jayden McDaniels
“They’ve got Kevin Durant but we’ve got Jayden McDaniels”
-Anthony Edwards
As big as the upgrade from Bojan to KAT is the upgrade from Royce O’Neal to Jayden McDaniels is even bigger.
O’Neale was a UDFA who fought his way into the league and turned himself into an adequate 3 and D role player. On the Jazz he was the 2nd best defender on the team after Gobert and was regularly tasked with guarding the other team’s best players, a task that he took on with pride but was ultimately routinely over matched in those match ups. Just because you are the best perimeter defender on a team full of bad perimeter defenders does not make you Tony Allen even though the Jazz were treating him like he was supposed to be Tony Allen. Royce played big for his size as a defender and rebounder but he was limited by his 6-4 frame which is more shooting guard size and not small forward/power forward hybrid guy.
On offense Royce shot 39% from 3 on 4 attempts per game almost all of which were spot up open threes since besides Rudy he was the guy teams would opt to leave open on the perimeter where part of made the Jazz work was the Royce made teams pay for leaving him open. Besides shooting open three the Jazz didn’t ask Royce to do much more on offense.
Jayden McDaniels is like Royce O’Neale if he was bigger, more athletic and better at basketball. At 6-9 he is able to actually credibly defend the other team’s best wing, he has the speed and athleticism to keep up with twitchy point guards like Kyrie Irving and enough size to go toe to toe with Kawhi Leonard. On offense he is a little raw but he has some juice off the dribble and he is an above average shooter. Right now his counting stats do not leap off of the page but I think the Timberwolves are hopeful that he is nowhere near his ceiling and that he can eventually grow into being a Paul George type player which is obviously on the high end of outcomes for him but even if he just stays as what he is right now he’s a big upgrade from Royce O’Neale on both ends.
Shooting Guard
Jazz: Donovan Mitchell – Timberwolves: Anthony Edwards
So unlike the last 2 comparisons this one is tricky because even though Ant’s stock is maybe at an all time high and Mitchell is flying a little under the radar after back to back disappointing playoff runs I still think right now Donovan is better than Anthony Edwards but since the comparison is to the 2021 Jazz you have to compare 2021 Mitchell to 2023 Ant and when that is the comparison I think 2023 Ant comes out on top.
2021 Mitchell averaged 26.4 point per game on 44/39/85 shooting splits, he also 5.2 assists and 4.4 rebounds per game.
2023 Ant averages 24.6 points per game on 45/38/85 shooting splits with 5.1 assists and 5.4 rebounds.
So offensively their numbers are incredibly similar. Style wise they are both athletic guards who can run pick and roll, attack the paint and also hit pull up jumpers and 3s. I think Mitchell has the better handle and better feel overall as a pick and roll ball handler and playmaker (even though the assists are similar) and Ant is more physically dominant and over powering. So the real advantage for Edwards comes on the other side of the court.
When Ant is locked in he has the ability to be a lockdown defender next to Jaden McDaniels. Like a lot of players who are the number 1 option on offense he doesn’t lock all the way in on defense all the time but having McDaniels and Gobert to cover for him allows for Edwards to get by for large chunks of the game coasting on defense and then locking in when it matters.
Mitchell is listed as being 6-3 but in reality is more like 6-1 and although he has the wingspan to be a good defender he has never shown in his 7 year career the ability or the desire to be an impact defender even though that is kind of what he was originally drafted to be.
So even though Mitchell is one of my favorite players ever I have to say that 2023 Ant > 2021 Mitchell especially on defense which is a great sign for this team.
Point Guard
Jazz: Mike Conley – Timberwolves: Mike Conley
In 2021 Mike Conley finally made the All Star team mostly thanks to the Jazz’s great record and some really good advanced numbers from his minutes lining up with Gobert. All those reps with Gobert paid off because this Timberwolves turnaround started as soon as Conley arrived.
As far as who Conley is in 2023 vs 2021 it should be hard to argue that he would be better now at 36 than he was at 33 but if you look at his stats he does not appear to have declined at all. His points per game is down but that is just because he is taking fewer shots. In 2023 He is a more efficient shooter from everywhere on the floor than he was in 2021 which is downright incredible. He really deserves to have his name mentioned with Steph Curry and Chris Paul as small guard who are defying father time.
Now in 2021 the issue with Mike Conley was not his offense but his defense and I am sad to report that aging 3 more years has not made Mike Conley a better defender. In Utah his 6-0 frame made him a target for switches and in the playoffs he just couldn’t guard anyone and when the Timberwolves are back in the playoffs Conley will be targeted once again.
Now what the Timberwolves have that the Jazz don’t have are actual good defenders around Conley so hopefully Mcdaniels and Edwards can take on the tough defensive assignments and allow Conley to hide in the corner on defense.
The Bench
Jazz: Jordan Clarkson – Joe Ingles – Georges Niang – Derrick Favors – Timberwolves: Naz Reid – NAW – Kyle Anderson – Troy Brown Jr
The Jazz’s bench duo of Jordan Clarkson and Joe Ingles was lethal in 2021 as they were both finalists for 6th man of the year which Jordan Clarkson won. The idea behind the Jazz’s bench unit was that those guys could come in and the offense could just keep humming. They continued to not worry too much about defense (no disrespect to sneak pretty good defender Joe Ingles) prioritizing shooting over anything.
The Timberwolves bench doesn’t have the offensive firepower and shooting of the Jazz bench but similar to Jordan Clarkson in 2021 Naz Reid has been maybe the 6th man of the year so far. Now he is doing it in a far different way being a backup center who is kind of the 3rd string center but the energy and scoring Reid brings off the bench has been essential to the Timberwolves so far.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker could prove to be a major difference maker for the Timberwolves in the playoffs. The Jazz never had an athletic defensive minded guard (that Quin Snyder trusted) they could sub in for Mike Conley when he was getting toasted out on the perimeter. NAW is 6-5 athletic and competitive and on top of that he is shooting well from 3 now that he is getting the opportunity to play real minutes again.
Kyle Anderson is pretty similar to Joe Ingles in the sense that he is a good connecting player who blends in with whatever lineup he is injected into. He can pass and score well while playing at his own pace. The real weakness for him this year is that he has been dismal from 3 but last year he shot 41% from 3 albeit on just 1.5 attempts per game whereas Ingles was getting up over 6 threes a game.
In 2021 the Jazz had 3 very good 3 point shooters coming off the bench to keep raining threes on their opponents. These Timberwolves have some decent shooters off the bench but it seems like when they get Naz Reid and friends in the game they change up their style and I like that this Timberwolves team has more than one pitch they can go to if they need to put a team away. Out of everything that these 2 teams have in common the bench might be the most different. That Jazz team might have been deeper with 2 6th man of the year candidates but the Timberwolves bench is more versatile and that will come in handy in a playoff series where 1 or 2 starters are at a matchup disadvantage.
The last 2 years of the Mitchell/Gobert Jazz are remembered for getting blasted out of the playoffs by teams that could go small and play 5 out with a dynamic ball handler breaking down the defense forcing Gobert to help at the rim and then spraying the ball to corner and getting a wide open corner three or if any of the guys on the perimeter rotated to cover Rudy’s guy then the ball would swing around the perimeter until it found a different open shooter.
The narrative that came out and that has followed Gobert was that he is not a playoff defender and he can be played off the court on defense and I am here to say that those narratives are specific to that Jazz roster.
The idea that he is not a good defender in the playoffs is false. Gobert’s rim defense is elite no matter what the circumstances are and it is what allowed the Jazz to have excellent regular season defenses with a roster with 0 other plus defenders and he has been solid in playoff matchups where he had to go up against other great to good centers like Nikola Jokic, Steven Adams and Jonas Valencuinas, but what he cannot do is guard the rim and the three point line at the same time so when Luka Doncic or Reggie Jackson are blowing past Donovan Mitchell and Royce O’Neal 4 seconds into the shot clock it forces Gobert to make a decision between helping at the rim and leaving his man open or allowing an uncontested layup. Since Gobert is usually guarding the worst three point shooter the math says contest the layup and live with the shot but no matter what he chooses the offense being created by this action is too efficient for even a team as offensively prolific as the 2021 Jazz to keep up with there is not a rim protecting big man that could thrive defensively in a situation like that.
Gobert’s shortcoming in this situation is that when the opposing team goes small to get as much shooting on the floor as possible he needs to be able to either dominate in the post (lol) OR get offensive rebounds and putbacks to make sure that the Jazz’s offensive can be as efficient as what they are giving up on the other end and he just isn’t good enough at those specific things
So the four guys around Gobert were too weak defensively and Gobert was too weak offensively for them to survive against 5 out lineups (if you have a fantastic memory you might think something along the lines of “I thought you said that Jazz team could have won it all but now you are acting like they were structurally unsound” and based on what I have written so far that would be a logical conclusion and my rebuttal to your hypothetical rebuke is that this roster was uniquely vulnerable to that five out style and if they had just dodged the Clippers they might have been home free. Also I said that they were hurt by that Donovan Mitchell Injury. Even with the weaknesses that I’ve mentioned this Jazz team was up 2-0 on the Clippers and had leads late in the next 4 games, with a fully healthy Mitchell they might have had enough to overcome it.)
Now the Timberwolves have the personnel to cover for those weaknesses. In the blurbs about Ant and McDaniels I’ve covered how their on ball defense is a significant upgrade from Mitchell and O’Neal so what I’ll focus on is how having KAT will make it so the Wolves will be able to punish those smaller lineups.
KAT is who people generally look at as a potential trade piece for this Wolves team but I think that his size and offensive ability will be super important when teams try to go 5 out. There’s no version of a playoff series where Terrance Mann is locking down KAT and with both Gobert and KAT on the floor they should be able to destroy small teams on the boards. So even though sometimes the multiple big lineups can be a little clunky at times and you’ll see games where KAT’s plus/minus numbers make it seem like he is killing them, the offensive versatility he offers will be important when it matters.
Also important to note that almost all the good teams that they would have to face in the west will be playing a center. And the most notable center of them all Nikola Jokic just earlier this week in an interview on the Curious Mike podcast said that the Minnesota double big lineup is frustrating to face and after their title run many of the Nuggets said that the Timberwolves were their toughest opponent which is subjective but kind of means that they were the second best team in the league last year (I laughed a little bit typing that but I’m gonna leave it in there) basically what I am saying is that they got a bad draw getting the Nuggets in the first round and that if they are a top seed this year they should be able to get deep into the playoffs before having to face the Nuggets or anyone on that level.
This is perhaps the best Timberwolves team ever. Hopefully they can do what those Jazz teams couldn’t do.
The Dishwasher 
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