The 10 Best Offseason Moves in Minnesota Timberwolves History

For several NBA franchises, the exercise of ranking the 10 best offseason moves ever would focus on free agency. That is, after all, the most exciting time of the year for the NBA rumor mill and the many fans who care more about the player movement and the drama than the relative monotony of regular-season action.

The Timberwolves, however, don't have a signature signing like Shaq to the Lakers, KD to Golden State, or LeBron to Miami -- or even something along the lines of Jalen Brunson to the Knicks.

But there are plenty of trades to choose from for the Wolves. In fact, eight of the moves on this list were trades orchestrated by the front office.

Here the groundrules and criteria that were followed when constructing this list:

1. No draft selections

Mostly because this is best-served as a standalone analysis of Wolves history, we're not considering straight draft picks here. Obviously, drafting Kevin Garnett, Anthony Edwards, and Karl-Anthony Towns are the three best draft picks in team history. But that's a conversation for another day.

2. No re-signings

This gets sticky, too: the above-mentioned superstars all signed extensions before ever hitting the open market. There were also re-signings of players who tested the market or were restricted free agents. But those don't count for this list.

3. Balancing the value of the trade versus the on-court impact the move had

This is mostly challenging when it comes to, say, the Jimmy Butler trade. The deal was good value and it led to the first Timberwolves playoff appearance in 16 years. Ultimately, however, Butler forced his way out of Minnesota and basically ushered in another rebuild for a team that should have been a contender. It's tough to evaluate, but both the value and impact of the initial trade and the final result do matter and need to factor into the ranking.

4. Context matters

The playoff drought being broken in large part due to Butler matters. So does the impact that a couple of the other players on this list had on specific iterations of the Wolves in exact moments of time in franchise history. You'll see what I mean.

Okay, let's get into it.

No. 10: Patrick Beverley trade in 2021

Already, we have to cite No. 4 in the above criteria. Beverley played only one season with the Wolves as a 33-year-old non-star. But don't miss the importance that Beverley had on the 2021-22 Wolves team: it was Chris Finch's first full season in charge, Minnesota's first playoff appearance in four years, and only the second in 19 seasons since Kevin Garnett was traded to Boston.

Beverley was the heart and soul of a frenetic, high-risk defense that relied on turnovers and a certain level of smoke-and-mirrors as they finished No. 13 in the league on that end of the floor. He was the defensive support in the backcourt starting alongside D'Angelo Russell and also had his best scoring season since 2017-18 that year with the Wolves.

Also, the price was right. The Wolves only gave up lottery bust Jarrett Culver and Juancho Hernangomez—the latter of whom had an ongoing dispute with the Wolves' front office regarding how his shoulder injury was handled during the Olympics. He bounced between three teams in 2021-22 and was out of the league after playing in 42 games for the Raptors in 2022-23.

No. 9: Sam Mitchell signs in 1995

Sam Mitchell was a member of the inaugural Timberwolves squad as a 26-year-old rookie in 1989-90 after playing parts of four seasons in various other pro leagues, both domestically and abroad. He played in 244 out of a possible 246 games across three seasons in his first stint with the Wolves before being traded to the Pacers, whom he played for three seasons.

But in 1995, Mitchell signed back with the Wolves in free agency. The following season, Kevin Garnett led Minnesota to its first-ever playoff berth. And in 1997-98, the Wolves had their first regular-season winning record and took Seattle to a win-or-go-home Game 5 in the first round of the playoffs.

Mitchell started roughly half the season that year and averaged 12.3 points per game, his highest total since his first year in the league. More importantly, however, Mitchell served in an important mentor role to a young Garnett, who was named an All-Star for the first time in 1996-97 at just 20 years old.

That started a run of 10 consecutive All-Star appearances for Garnett in a Wolves uniform and eight consecutive playoff berths for the Timberwolves.

No. 8: Rick Adelman gets Kevin Martin via trade

Future Hall-of-Fame coach Rick Adelman came to Minnesota following the 2011 lockout and suffered through 26- and 31-win campaigns over his first two seasons with precious little backcourt scoring. Between young Ricky Rubio, aging Luke Ridnour, inefficient Alexey Shved, and whatever one might get out of J.J. Barea on any given night, Adelman needed some help. (Don't forget the five-game Brandon Roy cameo at the start of the 2012-13 season.)

Enter Kevin Martin, who played his first two seasons in the league under Adelman in Sacramento and was also acquired by Adelman's Rockets in 2010, playing for the legendary coach for another year and a half in Houston.

Adelman knew he'd get reliable scoring and shot creation out of the 30-year-old Martin—two things those Wolves simply didn't have outside of prime Kevin Love. Flip Saunders had just replaced David Kahn in the front office, and the Wolves got the deal done by only giving up Ridnour and a second-round pick.

Ridnour was traded twice more and played only two more seasons as a backup before retiring. The Wolves went 40-42 in 2013-14 but saw their post-All-Star Break momentum halted with a torn ACL suffered by Rubio. Infamously, the Wolves had the point differential of a 48-win team but instead finished 10th in the Western Conference.

No. 7: Trenton Hassell is signed off the scrap heap

While Trenton Hassell may have had the least impressive career of anyone on this list, his acquisition cost was less and he had a significant impact on the only Timberwolves team to advance out of the first round of the playoffs in the first 34 seasons of the franchise.

Hassell was a second-round pick who had played a rotation role on two bad, post-Jordan Era Bulls teams before joining the Wolves via free agency in the summer of 2003. He came off the bench in eight of the first nine games of the 2003-04 season but quickly became a starter, and his role grew due to the oft-injured Wally Szczerbiak and Troy Hudson.

Hassell was the defensive stopper, tasked with guarding the opponent's best perimeter scorer—and he played the role extremely well as the Wolves advanced out of the first round for the first time in franchise history and got all the way to the conference finals before losing Sam Cassell to injury and falling to the eventual champion Lakers.

There was very little offense to Hassell's game; his career-high scoring season was 9.2 points per game in 2005-06, but he made it onto the Defensive Player of the Year ballot in 2004-05 and was the best perimeter defender on the No. 6 defense in the league that was within range of the Finals. He played four seasons with the Wolves before he was traded to Dallas.

No. 6: Tom Thibodeau lands Jimmy Butler on draft night in 2017

This is a tough acquisition to rank. After all, the Wolves won 47 games and immediately broke a 16-year playoff drought with Butler in the fold. But Butler also sabotaged the team the following offseason for reasons that still remain a bit murky, which led to the firing of Tom Thibodeau and another mini-rebuild.

The cost was relatively steep, too: Zach LaVine, Kris Dunn (who had just been the No. 5 overall pick the year prior), and the No. 7 pick (Lauri Markkanen) in exchange for Butler and the No. 16 pick (Justin Patton).

Although he never became a key player on a winning team, LaVine ended up making two All-Star teams. And it took Dunn years to be a consistent rotation player, but he's been one of the better guard defenders in the league over the last half-decade or so.

Patton played in one game for the Wolves and was out of the league in four years due to recurring injuries, and Markkanen is now a borderline star for the Utah Jazz.

Overall, it was a fair price to pay for a 27-year-old three-time All-Star and All-NBA Third Team player, which keeps the move in this range on the list. We have to consider the desolate place from which Butler (and Thibodeau, and Taj Gibson, et al) rescued Wolves fans, even if it did all come crashing down.

No. 5: Latrell Sprewell is traded to the new-look Wolves

The Timberwolves had already acquired Sam Cassell earlier in the summer of 2003 (more on that later) and in late July, they added four-time All-Star Latrell Sprewell in a four-team trade.

The price was right: the Wolves only gave up backup center Marc Jackson and the contract of Terrell Brandon, who hadn't played the year prior and was included for salary cap purposes. Sprewell was still an impressive scorer, having put up 16.4 points per game in 2002-03 with the Knicks and only two seasons removed from his most recent All-Star selection. But he'd largely worn out his welcome in The Big Apple, and the Wolves were on the hunt for more wing creation, defense, and athleticism.

Spree came to Minnesota and and started all 82 games for the Wolves in the 2003-04 Western Conference Finals season, averaging 16.8 points per game and providing solid perimeter support for a top-six defense.

He played just one more year with the Wolves, who won just 44 games in 2004-05 as Sprewell's production declined, Cassell battled injuries, Szczerbiak was inconsistent, and Saunders was fired midseason. Then came the infamous "I have my family to feed" comments from Sprewell, and he never played in the league again.

No. 4: Kevin Love draft night trade in 2008

On draft night in 2008, the Wolves were only two years removed from drafting Brandon Roy and immediately trading him to Portland for Randy Foye, who was selected with the very next pick in the draft. It was a weird trade, and all Roy had done was win Rookie of the Year and become an All-Star in Year 2. So it was understandable for Wolves fans to be a bit anxious after the O.J. Mayo-for-Kevin Love deal.

And over the next year, it looked even worse; Mayo averaged 18.5 points per game and finished second in Rookie of the Year voting, while Love averaged only 11.1 points and 9.1 rebounds per game. But Love quickly proved the Wolves correct, becoming an All-Star and winning the Most Improved Player award in Year 3 after putting up 20.2 points and 15.2 rebounds per game.

Love added two more All-Star appearances and two All-NBA Second Team berths over the next three years as the Wolves slowly improved as a team. He put up a 30-point, 30-rebound game and became a prolific three-point shooter as well, winning the contest at the 2012 All-Star Break.

Ultimately, Love was traded to the Cavaliers for Andrew Wiggins after Saunders took over the front office in 2014. It was necessitated due to angst over former front office boss David Kahn's contract mismanagement. Wiggins was that year's No. 1 overall pick and Cleveland was desperate to pair the recently re-acquired LeBron James with another star. Love won a title with the Cavs, and Wiggins eventually won one with Golden State.

No. 3: Wolves Swindle Wizards for No. 5 pick in 2009

David Kahn had only been running the Wolves front office for a matter of weeks when he emphatically won a trade with longtime Wolves coach and executive Flip Saunders, who was running the Wizards.

In exchange for the No. 5 pick in a loaded draft, Kahn gave up Randy Foye, an undersized and defensively challenged combo guard, and Mike Miller, who was a 29-year-old sharpshooter coming off his worst scoring and shooting season in years. The Wolves also received three big men in the deal, two of whom were shipped elsewhere as Kahn continued to wheel and deal—only Oleksi Pecherov played for the Wolves that year, his final season in the league.

Things get a bit complicated here, too, as the Wolves, who already had the No. 6 pick, infamously used their selections on Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn. The next four picks went like this: Steph Curry, Jordan Hill, DeMar DeRozan, Brandon Jennings. Ouch.

Again, the trade itself was fantastic value, and the Rubio pick was fine, even if he didn't end up being a superstar. It's hard to penalize the move itself, even if the follow through was brutal.

No. 2: The Rudy Gobert trade

The Wolves won 46 games and landed the No. 7 seed in 2017-18. Tim Connelly was hired following the season and just over a month later, he'd pulled off a massive trade to land Rudy Gobert.

The cost was immense: four first-round picks, one pick swap, Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Leandro Bolmaro, and the recently drafted Walker Kessler. But the goal was clear: immediately raise the floor of a smoke-and-mirrors defense from the year prior and ensure that budding superstar Anthony Edwards would see the playoffs on an annual basis.

That's exactly what happened. The Wolves scuffled a bit the next season as Gobert battled nagging injuries, ultimately landing the No. 8 seed and losing in five games to Denver. But the following season, Minnesota won 56 games, the second-most in team history, and advanced to the Western Conference Finals. They reached the West Finals again the following season and the second round last year and have already extended Gobert's contract once.

Yes, the cost was high, but it's highly unlikely that the Wolves would have seen the conference finals at all over the past few seasons without Gobert, much less twice.

No. 1: The Sam Cassell trade: Wolves finally acquire a second star for Garnett

After years of cobbling together role players and whiffing on draft picks around one of the league's best player in Kevin Garnett, the Wolves' front office finally got aggressive.

President of Basketball Operations Kevin McHale kicked off the summer by trading for Sam Cassell. All they did was give up role players in Anthony Peeler and Joe Smith, and they also got center Ervin Johnson back in the deal, who ended up as a starter in the run to the 2004 West Finals.

Cassell was a prolific scorer as a point guard, averaging 19.1 points per game over the previous six seasons split between New Jersey and Milwaukee. He had been part of the Rockets' championship team in 1995 and brought pedigree, scoring and leadership to the Wolves.

The Wolves won 58 games and made it to the conference finals as detailed above, and Cassell was easily the second-best player on the team en route to his first All-Star selection. He put up a career-best season from outside the arc, shooting 39.8 percent from deep; he never shot over 37 percent in any other season and bested 36 percent only twice. He also had a career-high scoring average, putting up 19.8 points per game.

Cassell's injury in the second round of the playoffs led to him playing in just four of the six games in the Western Conference Finals loss to the Lakers and averaging only 16 minutes per game in the series.

He was unceremoniously traded to the Clippers following the 2004-05 season—the Wolves actually attached a pick to Cassell in a trade for Marko Jaric, who flamed out quickly in Minnesota—where he started 75 games for an LA squad that pushed Phoenix to seven games in the second round of the playoffs.

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