So much of what spurred the Minnesota Timberwolves to the Western Conference finals last season remains in place. Anthony Edwards is leading the way. Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels are locking down on defense.
Mike Conley has his hand on the steering wheel. Naz Reid . And yet, as Julius Randle , Donte DiVincenzo and Keita Bates-Diop ambled onto the stage on Thursday morning for their introductory news conference, it marked the beginning of a truly new era of Timberwolves basketball.
Advertisement For nine years, Karl-Anthony Towns was the face of the franchise, at the center of everything they did, both on the court and off. Now that a stunning trade has been completed with the New York Knicks , there will be an entirely different feel around the organization. “We don’t trade a person like KAT lightly,” president of basketball operations Tim Connelly said.
“We were very specific with what it would take. Quite frankly, the asking price was very high when you see what these guys accomplished last year.” When one of the biggest trades in Timberwolves history went down last weekend, it was easy to view the decision to move on from Towns as a financial one.
Towns was one of three Timberwolves players on max-level contracts, and he was starting a four-year, $220 million extension that will pay him $49 million this season. For the first time in quite a while, the Wolves were preparing to pay a huge luxury tax bill this season to keep together a team that was so successful.