3 Potential Timberwolves Threats That Are Less Scary After the Offseason

A year ago, the mantra for the Minnesota Timberwolves was continuity. After a 49-win season and a second straight trip to the Western Conference Finals, the Wolves brought back almost their entire roster, leaning on familiarity and experience together to improve the team.

That is not what happened. Instead, the team got stale, and talk of waiting for the Playoffs began as early as November. The Wolves limped through the season en route to their second straight season as a sixth seed with 49 wins.

This offseason, the Timberwolves took the opposite approach. Continuity was no longer the goal, as they traded both of their power forwards, Julius Randle and Naz Reid, to bring in LaMelo Ball and eventually Jonathan Kuminga, who had his debut press conference this past Thursday.

The Timberwolves improved their roster this summer. It remains to be seen if they've done enough to close the gap with the top of the Western Conference, but the expectation is that the Wolves are better now than they were a year ago.

That cannot be said for the rest of the West. Some teams, like the San Antonio Spurs with Tobias Harris, made additions to their roster. Other contenders made notable steps back, changing the landscape for a Timberwolves team trying to make the franchise's first NBA Finals appearance.

Oklahoma City Thunder

The Oklahoma City Thunder are deservedly the favorites to win the 2027 NBA Championship. They return the core of their team that has led the Western Conference in wins each of the last three seasons, won the title in 2025, and came within a game of making it back to the Finals last season.

For the first time in this era of Thunder basketball, though, they had to let quality players go from their roster because of the NBA's salary cap and second apron.

In a series of salary-dumping moves, the Thunder sent away Luguentz Dort, Isaiah Joe, and Aaron Wiggins. All of the trades are likely prudent moves, as OKC received draft compensation in return, but also made their team worse in the short term.

Dort, the Thunder's longest-tenured player, had been in the starting lineup since January of 2020 as one of the team's best defensive players. Joe and Wiggins were quality depth pieces who averaged 11.1 and 9.4 points per game respectively across more than 20 minutes per game.

The Thunder have a deep enough roster to make up for the loss of Dort, Joe, and Wiggins, but their overwhelming roster depth that made their team so special the past few seasons is no longer there.

Denver Nuggets

Since winning the championship in 2023, the Denver Nuggets have slowly been losing talent. It started with Bruce Brown, who signed with the Indiana Pacers the summer after Denver's title run. Then it was Kentavious Caldwell-Pope who left for the Orlando Magic.

Last offseason, Denver sent Michael Porter Jr. and his hefty contract, along with a first-round pick, to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Cameron Johnson. This offseason, they traded Peyton Watson to the Cleveland Cavaliers for a first-round pick to avoid the penalties and costs associated with the second apron.

The Timberwolves, over the past few years, have been proactive about avoiding the second apron without losing quality players from their roster for nothing. The Nuggets, on the other hand, have been far more reactionary, leading to Denver losing players without a plan to replace their production.

As it stands now, the Nuggets are a worse team today than the version that got embarrassed out of last season's playoffs. Jaden McDaniels called out Denver's entire team as bad defenders, and the Nuggets responded by letting the one player who McDaniels didn't name walk right out the door.

Los Angeles Lakers

The Los Angeles Lakers roster looks completely different than it did a season ago. Five of their top seven scorers are now on other teams including LeBron James who chose the Philadelphia 76ers in free agency.

They replaced the departing players with Quentin Grimes, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Collin Sexton, Jaden Hardy, and former Timberwolves draftee Walker Kessler, whom they negotiated a sign-and-trade for with the Utah Jazz.

Any team with Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves has a large amount of upside, especially as a Playoff team. With arguably the greatest player ever leaving LA, it is difficult to see how this year's team is better than last year's or the one before that who was eliminated by the Wolves in five games.

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