Could another lost season be a blessing for the Minnesota Timberwolves?
The Minnesota Timberwolves are well on their way to missing the playoffs for the 15th time in 16 seasons. The only season in which they did make the playoffs, they had Jimmy Butler on the roster. He quickly ran out of town the year after.
The Wolves have the worst record in the NBA, at 7-21, and don’t have much hope of turning their season around in the immediate future after it was announced that the team was going to be without D’Angelo Russell, the team’s third-leading scorer and starting point guard, for 4-6 weeks after he sustained a knee injury.
Russell was averaging 19 points and five assists per game this season, before the injury, and played a vital role for the team without Karl-Anthony Towns in the lineup. Unfortunately for the Wolves, this injury to Russell couldn’t have come at a worse time.
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Towns have finally returned after sitting out for a few weeks due to health and safety protocols and the table was being set for a rebound. With Russell out, it all but cancels out the return of Towns. Minnesota doesn’t have much hope for a late-season playoff push – sitting eight games out of the 8th playoff spot in the Western Conference – and the 2020-21 NBA campaign is setting up to be another lost season.
The only good news is that if the Wolves are going to be bad, there might not be a better draft to be bad in. The 2021 NBA Draft class is projected to be far superior to the 2020 draft class and there is a legit No. 1 overall talent, Cade Cunningham.
If the Wolves are going to be the worst team in the NBA in a lost season, this might be the year to do it. Cunningham is the type of player that can change the fortunes of a franchise and could be a huge game-changer on this roster – but, again, we’re getting too ahead of ourselves right now.
We’re not even half-way through the 2020-21 NBA season. Though it is never too early to talk NBA Draft, it is to project teams and selections. Nevertheless, this lost season could end up opening the opportunity for the Wolves to land a generational player.
Perhaps I’m being a bit too optimistic and Minnesota still ends up messing up in the 2021 NBA Draft, and this season is just another chapter in a long book of failures on the part of this franchise. Or, in a few years, this roster could be one of the most talented teams in the Western Conference.
Either way, Wolves fans should embrace this era. Good or bad, it will come with the hope of high draft picks on the roster. At the end of the day, there’s nothing more than any middling franchise could ask more of from the basketball gods.