Timberwolves Can't Ignore Sobering Reality Check From Chris Finch

The Minnesota Timberwolves have undergone a large amount of change in the past 12 months. Usually, teams with as much playoff success as the Wolves have had in the past three years look to make small additions around the margins of their team in hopes of not breaking what is already working.

Not the Wolves. After getting blown out by the San Antonio Spurs in Game 6 of the Western Conference Semifinals, a year after the Oklahoma City Thunder crushed them in the Western Conference Finals, it was clear that some level of change was necessary to vault Minnesota past those two teams.

Early on in the offseason, the Timberwolves sent out both of their power forwards for LaMelo Ball. The move shifted the team's playstyle away from the double-big roster construction that the Wolves have had a large amount of success with after trading for Rudy Gobert during the 2022 offseason.

It also allows Anthony Edwards to move back to his more natural shooting guard position, with Ball set to take on the primary on-ball role as the team's starting point guard.

The changes stand in stark contrast to last year in September, when the Wolves were focused on how continuity was going to be the reason that their team would be different from the year prior. That idea ended up looking foolish as the situation grew stale and regressed instead of building itself up.

Part of that continuity was veterans Mike Conley, Joe Ingles, and eventually Kyle Anderson, who all left the organization during free agency this summer.

"But we purposefully haven’t added a bunch of veterans to the team this year," Finch said to MinnPost's Britt Robson for their annual preseason interview. "My approach with Ant or with Jaden or with all these guys is, if we’re going to take the diapers off, let’s take the diapers off."

The message here from Finch could not be any clearer. It was also the case that, at some point, players like Edwards, McDaniels, and others would need to step into the primary leadership roles, and that time is now here.

While that trio of veteran players was valuable for the Timberwolves both on and off the court, and there are likely to be speed bumps along the way without them, the young core of the Timberwolves roster needs to sink or swim on their own without the crutch of the vets telling them what to do.

Asking more from Anthony Edwards

Edwards specifically, as the superstar and franchise player, will be tasked with taking on more of the leadership responsibilities. In the past, a young Edwards has leaned on his vets to keep the locker room together. Now he is the one who will need to keep everyone moving in the same direction.

That new role for Edwards, combined with the changing roster, could be a cause for some uncomfortable moments early on in the season if not handled properly by the players and coaching staff.

"Yeah, there might be more volatility on our team," Finch told Robson. "We don’t know how the new players are going to integrate and measure up against expectations. Which is the biggest thing. And somehow it feels like everything keeps getting harder and harder in the West — in the league in general."

Finch laid out plainly the reality of the situation that the Timberwolves find themselves in. They have a retooled roster that, for the first time during these three years of winning playoff series, will feature multiple changes to the starting lineup.

While some teams are less formidable than they were last season, Finch's point still stands. If the new-look Timberwolves roster is unable to integrate quickly, Minnesota will quickly fall behind in a Western Conference with at least five other teams looking to make a deep playoff run.

The Wolves, both as a team and a franchise, no longer have the luxury of screwing around for most or all of the regular season. They will need to begin working out what the identity of the team is, which lineups work together and which don't, and what adjustments need to be made along the way.

The training wheels are off, and there are no more crutches to lean on. It is time to see if their young players, specifically Edwards, who enters his age-25 season, can live up to their lofty potential and talent.

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