I’ll start with the obvious: Minnesota basketball hasn’t always been good.
In fact, when taking in the span of the Timberwolves history all at once, it might be more apt to say that Minnesota basketball has rarely been good.
But that changed around 2018. There was the addition of two players no longer on the squad – Jimmy Butler and Patrick Beverley – who pushed Minnesota to show more intensity and ferocity. Then, right as their desire to win was hitting a fever-pitch, Anthony Edwards landed in their lap.
Since then Minnesota has been good, as a baseline. And the Wolves, now locked in a pitched series against the Los Angeles Lakers, are in a fight for something almost more important than a championship; they’re in a fight for their legacy.
Through most of the 2010’s, the Timberwolves lacked a real identity. They were young – rotating names through their roster such as Andrew Wiggins, Malik Beasley, Ricky Rubio, Zach LaVine and of course Karl-Anthony Towns – and at times they showed a good deal of promise, but they were never….well, anything.
Like, sure, they were bad, but not even in like a fun or notable way (except for the 2011 and 2015 seasons. Those were fairly miserable). They at times showed potential, but never enough to really stand out as a future contender, and a lot of times were just another team in the Western Conference.
Fast forward 15 years from the start of that decade, and the Timberwolves are a powerhouse. Coming close to 60 wins last year and falling just short of 50 this year, Minnesota tore through the first two rounds of the 2024 playoffs and left the entire national media with one message: The Wolves are here.
Now, Minnesota is looking to do one thing: win a championship and solidify their spot as a Western Conference threat. But they’re up against the clock.
New owners, Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore, are coming in, and while they’ve said they have no interest in moving the team to another market, it’s not clear how much we can take their word for it. Owners have lied about that kind of thing in the past, and you just have to ask a Seattle Mariners fan to get an understanding of how much A-Rod’s word means to him. If the Timberwolves want to win a championship while still in Minnesota, and reward the fans who stuck with them through the decades, it’s gotta happen fast.
No championships leaves Minnesota as one of those teams that had all the promise in the world but never capitalized. A championship in a market other than Minneapolis robs the city of the history that it went through for decades. Win gold in Target Center, and the Minnesota Timberwolves become the NBA’s next storybook franchise.