Report: Minnesota's Karl-Anthony Towns And D'Angelo Russell Could Be Traded This Off-Season. Is This A Smart Decision By Minnesota?

Since drafting Andrew Wiggins, the Minnesota Timberwolves were expected to form a dynasty in the NBA through the draft. From drafting Karl-Anthony Towns the following season to forming a young big three that included Zach Lavine, the Timberwolves were on pace to form a great offensive trio in the NBA. However, this, unfortunately, never happened. Instead, the Timberwolves have remained as one of the worst teams in the NBA and only made one playoff appearance with Jimmy Butler during this new era. With that said, how did the Timberwolves become this awful despite having a massive upside?

The Timberwolves brief rise and dramatic fall

In 2018, the Timberwolves appeared as a team to “look-out for” in the Western Conference. With a trio of Karl-Anthony Towns, Jimmy Butler and Andrew Wiggins, it made complete sense as to why this team had a huge upside in the NBA. In the first half of the season, the Timberwolves were among the best teams and had moments where they looked like valid title contenders. Unfortunately, Butler suffered an injury at the end of the first half of the season that sidelined him for a significant time. Ironically, this injury was the best thing that happened to Butler as he saw how terrible this team was without him. The Timberwolves went from being an absolute powerhouse in the Western Conference to a lottery team once Butler was sidelined. To make matters worse, the Timberwolves, who had an excellent record in the first half of the season, almost missed the playoffs but made it after winning their last game of the season.

In the following season, Butler, to no surprise, was livid and wanted to be traded immediately as he felt that the rest of the roster did not care to win basketball games. His approach to speaking his demands was unprofessional but was also entertaining and understandable. The Timberwolves, who traded a good chunk of their future for Butler, ended up ruining a great opportunity and were left with no choice but to comply with Butler’s demands. This chapter of the Minnesota Timberwolves is one that they hope to forget as they had a real opportunity to make a significant jump in the Western Conference but miserably failed. However, in the 2019-20 season, the Timberwolves decided to make a dramatic change to their roster that would send a familiar face to a new beginning.

Last season, the Timberwolves made a significant trade that sent Andrew Wiggins to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for D’Angelo Russell, who happened to be Karl-Anthony Towns’s close friend. Even though Minnesota had been abysmal that season, this trade showed huge upside for the following season, considering how great Russell was in the 2018-19 season.

The duo of Towns and Russell was expected to be special as Minnesota finally had two All-Star calibre players to build around. However, this has not been the case. This season, both Towns and Russell missed significant time and barely played together as a duo. If this team were healthy, the Timberwolves would be a lot better but not good enough to compete for a playoff spot. This shows that regardless of their “star” players being available, it doesn’t matter much considering that this team would again fail to make a winning difference in the Western Conference.

It’s safe to say that the Towns era needs to come to a close in Minnesota. Towns is an extremely talented player who has played with a dysfunctional organization for too long. Even though he did say that he does not want to quit on the team that drafted him, he needs a new beginning in his NBA career for the sake of his legacy. However, according to Evan Massey, reports have surfaced that Minnesota is “headed towards major changes this off-season.” Massey further states that a source titled, HoopsAnalysisNet revealed that Karl-Anthony Towns and D’Angelo Russell would be on the trade block this off-season! While there have not been any confirmations of this being true, it would make complete sense as to why the Timberwolves would want to explore a route of trading two of their best players.

The downfall that Minnesota has experienced will go down as one of the biggest disappointments in NBA history. Drafting Andrew Wiggins was supposed to have been the beginning of a great future, but unfortunately, it ended up leading to lottery picks that, for the most part, led to even more failures. Even though drafting Karl-Anthony Towns was a positive, the Timberwolves could not make his time in Minnesota meaningful. To save both Russell and Town’s legacy, the Timberwolves need to trade both of them as soon as possible! Even though this team is still relatively young with potential, it feels as if this team has been young with potential since drafting Andrew Wiggins in 2014.