The peak of Timberwolves’ basketball came two seasons ago.
Fifty-six regular season wins, the best defense in the NBA by a longshot, a night-in, night-out standard of excellence that was met far more often than not.
Minnesota’s Game 7 rally past Denver in the Western Conference semifinals is forever seared into the minds of its fan base.
Its Game 2 dominance still resonates with basketball junkies near and far, as the Rudy Gobert-less Wolves held the Nuggets to just 80 points on 35% shooting on a night where defense became cool again.
Nikola Jokic was held in check to the tune of 16 points on 5 for 13 shooting. His primary defender that night? Kyle Anderson, who stripped the League MVP multiple times while also tallying nine rebounds and eight assists.
Minnesota was in imminent danger of being swept by Dallas in the ensuing Western Conference Finals. Trailing 3-0 in the series, the Wolves led Game 4 by two with five minutes to play.
Anderson had been begging Anthony Edwards to make the skip pass to the open corner shooter throughout the game.
This time, he decided to intervene.
Karl-Anthony Towns – who’d just drilled a triple the possession prior – was standing on the wing as the play developed. Anderson waved and clapped his hands to get the big man’s attention and direct him to the corner.
At this point, Edwards had taken a few probing dribbles to get near the paint on the opposite side.
“He’s out there. I was dribbling the ball,” Edwards recalled at the time. “I damn sure was about to shoot it.”
Until he made eye contact with Anderson, who was vehemently waving in Towns’ direction. That was where the ball needed to go.
Edwards obliged, passing it over the top of the defense to Towns in the corner. Anderson used his body to prevent Dallas guard Kyrie Irving from entering Towns’ air space, and Towns buried another triple to put the Wolves up by five en route to victory.
“Kyle made that play happen,” Towns said at the time. “He made a lot of plays happen.”
Perhaps more than anyone could’ve realized at the time.
Minnesota hasn’t been as good of a basketball team as it was during that magical 2023-24 campaign over the past two years. The Wolves frequently rely more on their raw ability to deliver wins over process and execution.
While the ceiling remains the same in the minds of many, the inconsistent outcomes are a byproduct of the approach. Despite being one of the healthiest teams in the NBA this season, Minnesota still finds itself sparring in the middle of the Western Conference playoff picture among teams that are not as good or not as healthy and, in some cases, both.
Minnesota currently ranks outside the top eight in the NBA in defensive, offensive and net rating. None of it screams championship contention.
Gone are the nightly displays of suffocating defense – a direct result of talented personnel, commitment to execution and hoops IQ merging at a glorious basketball crossroads to produce a defensive force no foe could replicate on that end, or withstand on the other.
The Wolves will sporadically summon the energy to crank the intensity level up to 10 for special occasions, but no longer evoke joy from making their opponents’ evenings a living hell for 48 minutes on the floor.
Not a lot has changed roster-wise between then and now, at least in the NBA realm. Gone are Karl-Anthony Towns and Nickeil Alexander-Walker, here are Donte DiVincenzo, Julius Randle and a host of young players.
The core largely remains intact. But the feeling is different. The edge, the professionalism, the unity and the joy have all frayed, just a bit – enough to lower Minnesota from truly elite to maybe just good.
Perhaps an old, familiar face is crafty enough to mend upon his arrival. Minnesota is set to sign Anderson after he clears waivers following the forward’s buyout from Memphis. After the Timberwolves – who didn’t have the available salary cap space to bring Anderson back in the summer of 2024 – aided the forward’s exit to Golden State via a sign-and-trade deal, a multi-year odyssey with numerous stops around the league have led Anderson back to Minnesota.
His lack of playing time and impact at recent stops in Miami and Utah will lead many to assume a reversion to past Wolves’ form isn’t in the cards for Anderson, but don’t be so sure. Opportunity didn’t exist in those situations for one reason or another – fit is a fickle mistress in the NBA – but the production didn’t depart from the forward’s career-long norms.
He’s still a versatile defender who can play make at a high level. Following the 2024 campaign, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch was asked how Minnesota could lessen the burden on aging point guard Mike Conley. He pointed to Edwards … and Anderson.
“We’ve got to get a better package around him, whether he’s at the one, whether he’s at the three,” Finch said at the time. “I think we can run more offense through him.”
If that still remains true, it’d be a salve for Minnesota, whose offense too frequently features only two outputs: transition or isolation.
Finch’s offensive system demands unselfishness and improvisation. Often, players prove themselves either unwilling or unable to execute it. During his previous Wolves’ tenure, Anderson was afforded the freedom to direct traffic.
“He’s just so smart. He finds the right spaces, he gets the ball to the right people. Handling, screening, he’s play-calling,” Finch said two years ago. “Yeah, I mean, it’s something.”
It’s necessary, more so now than ever before, with Conley officially aging out of a role and no real answer ever developed to replace him. It’s one void the forward could potentially fill for 15-plus minutes a night on a team that could use an eighth guy to solidify its playoff rotation.
Minnesota is operating under the assumption it’s getting the same guy that departed two years ago, and will adjust accordingly upon Anderson’s arrival.
Certainly, fifteen minutes per game isn’t enough to elevate an entire unit from good to great. But Anderson’s past impact extended far beyond his on-court contributions. The Wolves possess veteran leaders, but none as vocal as Anderson, who was willing to call out anyone, anytime, anywhere within the team setting.
If you didn’t deliver consistently on the effort and execution fronts, he’d tell you about it. And, well, this year’s team isn’t exactly the U.S. Postal Service.
Halftime or postgame butt chewings may no longer fall solely at the feet of Finch.
It’s not easy to enter a locker room mid-season and take leadership reins, but the task is more palatable when the situation is so familiar. Anderson knows these faces, and they know, love and respect his voice.
A year after inducing a Rudy Gobert mid-game punch, Anderson and the big man became as close as any two players on the team.
On many rosters, Anderson’s incoming impact would probably be marginal, at best. Perhaps that will ultimately be the case here, as well. But there’s a reasonable chance it’s more – Minnesota needs it to be.
Because, somewhere along the way, the Wolves lost their soul. Maybe Anderson — and his rare concoction of accountability, acumen and attitude — can help them find it.
For what ails these Timberwolves, that may just be the antidote.
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