Was it really less just a few days ago that the Minnesota Timberwolves seemed primed to make a serious push up the Western Conference standings for the first time in this season? 

The Wolves had won a season-high five straight games to close out January with a  record of 27-21, just a half-game out of 6^th place that would provide them with a hall pass to skip the play-in tournament and avoid the ignominy of potentially not even qualifying for the postseason. Better yet, they were just a game-and-a-half out of 4^th place, a spot that would ensure home-court advantage for the first round of the playoffs. 

Seven of their next eight games were at home, the first three against eminently beatable opponents, beginning with the Washington Wizards, owner of the worst record in the NBA and in the midst of their second 16-game losing streak of the season. Then a day off and a matchup against the Sacramento Kings, a team whose star player, De’Aaron Fox, had enervated the franchise by asking for a trade. Another day off and then a contest with a Chicago Bulls squad who had won just two of its previous 10 games. 

Even the ever wary and weary Wolves fans had to concede there was an available window that just might permit some sunshine to permeate their dusky hopes. 

Hah.

It was suddenly time for the remarkable good health the Wolves enjoyed for most of the past two seasons to go kaput. That strained groin muscle forward Julius Randle had pulled 10 minutes into the game against the Utah Jazz to close out January was going to keep him on the sidelines for a while. And superstar guard Anthony Edwards, who didn’t miss a game in calendar year 2024, was hollowed out of the picture by an illness. 

Randle and Ant were added to the absence of guard Donte DiVincenzo, hobbled by a torn ligament in his big toe back in late January. And then Naz Reid jammed his fingers in the first half against the Wizards and became the last of the Wolves’ top four scorers to tap out of action. 

OK, but the Wizards were still posed to be an inconsequential obstacle, eh? Six wins in 47 games. Not one, but two 16-game losing streaks already this season. Yeah, the Wolves had played cat-and-mouse with them, grabbing the lead for only 49 seconds near the end of the first half, but never really letting the game get out of hand. And when Minnesota went on a 16-5 run in the fourth quarter to go up by three with 7:27 left to play, the natural order of things re-clicked into focus.  

For a brief moment. Then the downtrodden Wizards stirred for a 9-0 run of their own to make it 99-93 with just a little under four minutes left to play. They never trailed again, icing the victory when forward Kyle Kuzma twice isolated on the Wolves best on-ball defender, Jaden McDaniels, and turned both possessions into buckets. 

Then the Kings came to town, reeling from the announcement that Fox had indeed been traded just hours before, too soon for the players Sacramento had acquired in the deal to make it to Minnesota. Rotation player Kevin Huerter had also been dealt. 

As for the Wolves, Ant was suited up and mostly ready to go. Naz, his jammed fingers taped, was alongside him in the starting lineup. Rudy Gobert, Mike Conley and McDaniels filled out a quintet that logged 200 minutes together as a unit last season, allowing just 102.1 points scored per 100 possessions. But the short-handed, in-transition Kings scored at a rate of 177.8 points per 100 possessions before the first wave of substitutions arrived a little more than nine minutes into the game. 

But once again the score stayed agonizingly close into the fourth quarter, the teams separated by no more than six points in the final five minutes. And once again the Wolves stumbled – the final was 116-114, Sacramento. 

Citing “bad chemistry” for a team’s underperformance is usually the hallmark of lazy analysis. “Chemistry” itself is an ineffable and elusive thing that is prone to a wide array of definitions. I regard good chemistry as a synergy, a cohesion greater than the sum of its parts, arising from a shrewd assembly of complementary pieces that are further catalyzed by shared confidence, faith and trust. The less those elements exist, the more likely it is that the synergy will be stymied.

Do the Wolves suffer from poor chemistry? If you examine how the team performs when it matters most, the answer is yes. 

The NBA defines “clutch” situations as the times when the teams are within five points of each other in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime. It is when the outcome of the game is more or less a tossup, there for the taking – or the giving away. 

Over their first 50 games of the 2024-25 season, amounting to a total of 2,410 minutes played, the Wolves have outscored their opponents by 151 points. They have been pretty consistent in earning that advantage, going plus 36 in the first quarter, plus 39 in the second quarter, plus 35 in the third quarter, and plus 43 in the fourth quarter. They are minus 2 in their two five minutes (10 total) of overtime. 

Too often, however, they fall apart in the clutch. 

Specifically, in 107 minutes of clutch play, they have been outscored by 55 points. Remember, by definition, clutch minutes can only occur near the end of the fourth quarter or overtime, which makes the disparity in the team’s performance with the game on the line rather than when the pressure is less intense, even more dramatic. 

Here’s the math: Overall, the Wolves outscore their opponents by 41 points in the 610 minutes comprising their 50 fourth quarters and two overtimes. But since they are outscored by 55 in the 107 clutch minutes, that means they outscore the other team by 96 points in the 503 minutes of their fourth quarters and overtimes that aren’t clutch situations. 

Failing to deliver in the clutch has had a significant impact on the course of their season. Thirty-one of the Wolves’ first 50 games this season have included some clutch minutes – the most in the NBA. The Wolves’ record in those games is 13-18, compared to their 14-5 mark in the 29 games that aren’t close near the end of the game. They lead the NBA with 13 losses in games in which they have led in the fourth quarter.

Because the clutch minutes vary from game-to-game, blinking off when a team pulls away by more than five points (and back on if the narrow margin returns), the Wolves are tied for fifth in the 30-team league for the sheer amount of clutch minutes at 107. The sample sizes vary wildly – from the mere 35 minutes logged by the terrible Wizards and the 48 minutes teams are able to contest the dominant Thunder, to the 117 minutes played in the clutch by the Houston Rockets. Consequently, offensive and defensive ratings (the amount of points scored and allowed per possession) can be skewed.

That said, in their relatively robust sample size, the Wolves rank 24^th in defensive rating, allowing 116.8 points per 100 possessions, and 27^th in offensive rating, scoring just 100.5 points per 100 possessions. Their net rating – points scored minus points allowed per 100 possessions – of -16.3, is better (or less worse) than only the Wizards and the Utah Jazz, the two teams with the worst overall won-lost records in the NBA. 

Put simply, the two teams who perform worse than the Wolves in the clutch perform terribly in a lot of non-clutch time as well. In fact, among the bottom nine teams in clutch-time net rating, only the Wolves have a winning record overall. (The Milwaukee Bucks, 21^st is clutch net rating at minus 6.9, but with an overall record of 26-22, is the next worst clutch performer among “winning” teams.) 

On a team-wide basis in the clutch, the Wolves are grossly underperforming the rest of the league and their own non-clutch play at both ends of the court, which is why this feels like the fault extends not only to the players logging the most clutch time, but to the way President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly has constructed the team and the way Coach Chris Finch has operated it. 

That said, Edwards is the team’s unquestioned go-to star when it matters most and his performance on offense reflects the team’s incompetence at that end. For example, the Wolves overall shooting percentage and accuracy from three-point range both take a dive in clutch situations. They are 46.3% shooters from the field overall (16^th in the NBA) and 40.7% in the clutch (22^nd). And from behind the arc, they fall from 38.3% accuracy overall (3^rd best) to 25.3% (28^th) with the pressure on. 

As the dominant locus of the offense, it is not surprising that Ant (who has logged 102.5 of the 107 clutch minutes, missing only the Wizards game due to illness), is likewise tumbling, from 44.6% overall to 39.4% in the clutch from the field, and from 42.1% overall to 28.2% in the clutch from long range. 

There is a lot more to be said about clutch minutes – Naz has just two three-point attempts, missing both, in his 23.6 clutch minutes and owns a ridiculously skewed net rating of minus 43.9. Conley is 2-13 from the floor and 1-8 from three-point territory in his 46.3 clutch minutes, yet he only played clutch minutes in 17 games and the Wolves were 10-7 and a mere minus 4 in plus/minus during his time on the court.

My take on the clutch minutes fiasco is that it is a symptom of the Wolves lack of chemistry thus far this season, in which dysfunction has made them less than the sum of their parts. And there are a lot of reasons why it has occurred. 

Begin with the major trade that happened just before training camp. I don’t disagree with it, for reasons discussed in multiple prior columns, but the timing was harmful. It disrupted the unique harmony Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns had created (designed by Finch) in the “double-bigs” lineup. It compelled not only the readjustment of supplanting Karl-Anthony Towns with Randle as the starting power forward, but altered the way Naz, McDaniels, Conley and even Joe Ingles would be deployed. 

Another reason why the Wolves aren’t thriving in pressure situations this season is because there is more ambient pressure on them in general. Last year’s 56-win campaign was a season-long party, made even more piquant by its unexpected excellence. This season, the team entered with the NBA’s second-highest salary, including big raises kicking in for Ant and McDaniels, plus an extension for Gobert. Randle and Naz have player option years on the table next season. 

The overall expectation was, if not a return to the Western Conference Finals, a standard of play that was among the elites in the conference. The fan base had a taste of consistently marvelous play, ticket prices spiked. Ant was supposedly “the face of the NBA.” It was, and is, a lot. 

Then there is the deployment of personnel. To accelerate familiarity and quicken research, Finch hewed to an eight player rotation, and even with the recent onslaught of injuries and absences, leans in that direction. But the grizzled veterans Conley and Gobert, both stellar pros who deserve respect, are having off-years and don’t deliver as reliably, especially in the clutch. 

Meanwhile, first-round lottery pick Rob Dillingham has shown enormous promise – and inconsistency. Finch, under the same gun of delivering last season’s caliber of play, plays tug of war with his support and faith. Josh Minott had an excellent preseason, barely played the first couple months, and is now in the doghouse for defensive lapses. Luka Garza has been “developing” forever but isn’t reliable. Right now Jaylen Clark is the development success story because Finch prioritizes ball pressure and he’s been delivering. 

There is, of course, a chicken-or-egg quandary to young player development. Can the Wolves sustain expectations and capably bring these bright talents along? That’s tough under any circumstances and particularly thorny at the moment, when injuries open the rotation but provide a narrower margin for success. 

Already this season we have had the notorious spat when Randle wouldn’t deliver the ball to Gobert and Rudy pouted and acted out; Ant calling out his team for lackluster play just before Thanksgiving, and Finch caustically getting on his troops after a losing streak in January. In all of these cases, the team rebounded admirably. It remains a collection of high-character individuals. Folks in limbo, like Randle, Naz, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Joe Ingles, have been pros willing to adapt to uncomfortable changes. 

But adjusting to those changes hinders synergy. Ditto injuries, which, to be fair, the Wolves have mostly been lucky with the past couple seasons. Ditto the pressure of repeating last year’s standard. The NBA is rife with teams that made a leap and then took a step back. 

The wider lens is that all this can change, in a blink or inexorably, until you see the blooms. Just a few days ago, the Wolves seemed primed for an 8-game winning streak. Now it is comparatively bleak. But this too could change. 

We’ll know it has if they suck it up in the clutch and begin winning tossups.

Britt Robson

Britt Robson has covered the Timberwolves since 1990 for City Pages, The Rake, SportsIllustrated.com and The Athletic. He also has written about all forms and styles of music for over 30 years.

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Despite what the NBA standings wish to insist, not all wins are created equal. 

On Saturday afternoon, the Minnesota Timberwolves played their most complete game of the season, thumping the Denver Nuggets by 29 points, a longtime rival that had won eight of their previous nine games. 

The Wolves led wire-to-wire, increasing their advantage in every quarter, dominating at both ends of the court. They exploded for 40 points in the first period and limited Denver to just 13 in the final stanza. They scored a whopping 37 points off 19 Nuggets turnovers. Denver’s three-time MVP Nikola Jokic was strikingly helpless in all three of his rotations, his team outscored by 24 points in his 32:24 of playing time.

On Monday night, against an Atlanta Hawks team missing its three best players, and four of its top five, the victory was grotesque. Gazing at the ragtag starters opposing them – backup center Onyeka Okongwu was the only one even on the roster last season – the Wolves immediately went into cruise control and were still up 13-2 five minutes into the game. 

The Hawks eventually brought in two capable subs, but the caliber of the foe didn’t provide as much resistance to the Wolves as their own arrogant nonchalance. They were shorn of purpose, discipline and the legitimate effort bruited by ball clubs who give a damn in order to keep their edge to face more rugged competition. 

Consequently, a 17-point lead was fumbled down to six by the end of the third quarter and it was still a two-possession game with less than two minutes left to play. After the final score came in 100 – 92, Wolves Head Coach Chris Finch was clearly peeved during the postgame presser. 

“We made it close, they didn’t make it close. That was a totally unacceptable second half of basketball,” Finch began. Asked for specifics, he replied, “Sloppiness, turnovers, approach.”

Finch actually gave his players a little too much credit when he said, “I thought we played really well to start the game, collectively. But yeah, we (don’t play hard) against short-handed teams and we bullshit. And it starts with our top guys.”

That would be Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle, the alpha leaders in committing to the shrug on Monday. Ant logged all 12 minutes in that dreadful third quarter, jacked up nine shots (making three) while doling out just one assist. Randle missed both his shots, had zero assists and three of his five turnovers in his 8:20 on the court in the third period. 

Ant’s disinterest matters more. Where Randle is a laudable but seasonal ornament on the roster – acquired as a means to facilitate the Karl-Anthony Towns trade last September, it will be awkward if he is still with the Wolves for the 2025-26 campaign. Ant is a cornerstone, a charismatic talent who has become appointment viewing for a nation of basketball fans. His habits, attitude and dedication set the meter on the Wolves resilience and reveal skylights in any preconceived ceiling on their achievements. 

On a night when he was a wet match against the dry tinder of inferior opponents, it was disappointing to hear Ant keep his distance from any meaningful self-critique after the game. 

Rebutting Finch’s scathing portrayal of the second half, and third quarter in particular, Ant said, “I don’t think it was (that) we weren’t taking them seriously. I just think we weren’t making shots.” 

But what about the nine turnovers in the third quarter?

“Trying to be aggressive,” Ant replied, but knew it was a weak response, so he pivoted to, “I don’t know, man. It’s part of the game. I can’t sit here and downplay the Hawks like they (were) just trash.” 

Finch understands that this is a critical point in the Timberwolves season. He noted during his postgame press conference that the team’s play that night had “already been addressed in the locker room.” Or, as Ant put it, “He came in and cussed us out.”

But that’s because the team has been maddeningly inconsistent. Per John Schuhmann, the excellent writer and analyst at NBA.com, before Monday night, the Wolves had been three games over .500 on six occasions this season and had lost every time. It took a decrepit Hawks outfit to help finally hoist them to four games up in the win column, at 25-21. 

Finch himself noted that he is grading his team’s play on a curve, which is why when it comes to simply beating the Hawks, in terms of, “What we’re trying to be as a team, where we’re trying to go, that not good enough.” 

A proper thrashing of a weak opponent would have sustained the momentum generated from the way the Wolves blew out the Nuggets on Saturday, as they go into Phoenix Wednesday night to play a Suns team that has won eight of 10 is just a half-game behind the Wolves at 24-21.

Finch’s exasperation Monday night was almost certainly heightened by the fact that the Wolves entered the Hawks game closer to realizing their goal of being a legitimate championship contender than at any point during this lackluster season. 

With 14 games played and two yet to go in January, the Wolves rank in the top 10 in both offensive rating (10^th) and defensive rating (eighth) for the first time in a calendar month since an abbreviated four-game slate in April 2023. The last full month of games-played where they were top ten occurred back in March 2022, before the Gobert trade. 

Obviously, since Rudy Gobert’s arrival, the Wolves defensive rating (fewest points allowed per possession) has been a monthly fixture in the top 10. The current reason for optimism is not only that the offensive efficiency (points scored per possession) has risen to better balance the team’s virtues, but that three of the primary catalysts for that rise are the trio of “second timeline” players on the roster: Ant, Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid. 

Ant’s majestic skill set will always serve as a ballast for the Wolves at the offensive end of the court and while we can rightfully carp on a lazy game or two this month, the issue is more pertinent on the defensive side of the ball. 

That said, even by Ant’s standards it has been quite a month. He has splashed at least seven more three-pointers than any other NBA player in January, due to 42.9% accuracy on ten attempts per game. 

Yes, Ant has a career-low shooting percentage on two-point shots this season, but in January he has buttressed that aspect of his game by getting to the free throw more than anyone but the Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo and making more free throws than anyone but Oklahoma’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. (even though Ant is shooting 84.2% at the line this month, SGA is 106 for 109, or 97.2%).

And yes, Ant leads the Wolves with four turnovers per game in January. But he also leads the team in assists this month, at 5.4 per contest. 

Naz also is well-known for showcasing an array of potent skills on offense, but he too has upped it a notch in January, mostly by joining Ant in the bombardier club. Among players who have launched at least 50 treys in the month of January, nobody has been more accurate than Naz, who has gone 42-for-75, which is 56%. That puts him 51^st in the NBA in the number of three-point takes, and 12^th in the number of three-point makes. That has fueled his average of 16.4 points per game while logging just 26.8 minutes per contest thus far this month. 

The revelation here is McDaniels, whose comprehensive ascendance during the month of January is the single greatest reason for optimism about these Timberwolves during the remainder of the 2024-25 season. 

Few things were more discouraging than watching McDaniels spend the first three months of the season being appropriately ignored by defenses, who loaded up the gaps while guarding Ant and thus granted the Wolves wide open looks on three-pointers in the corner for Jaden. In the 32 games of the 2024 calendar year this season, McDaniels launched 119 treys and made 36, a measly 30.2%.

In January, boom! With a seismic show of aggression that Finch primarily credits to McDaniels himself, Jaden started moving without the ball, moving the ball when he got it, and making quick decisions – the three tenets of Finch’s flow offensive philosophy.

His corner treys are about the only things that hasn’t improved thus far in January – he is shooting 31%, 11-for-35. But on three-pointers above the break, he is 11-for-20, a robust 55%, giving him a monthly accuracy of 40% from distance in January so far. 

That’s just the beginning. Because he’s being aggressive – taking the corner pass off the bounce to get to the rim or draw defenders and dish – McDaniels is determining his own shot selection, to marvelous results. Through December, he sank 53% of his two-pointer. Thus far in January, it is 61.3%. Throw in his 86.4% accuracy at the free throw line and you get a gaudy true shooting percentage of 63.4. For Jaden McDaniels, whose true shooting percentage in October, November and December were 50.2, 52.4 and 49.1, respectively. 

Meanwhile, Finch has begun to tinker with occasionally taking McDaniels off the ball on defense against the other team’s best shooter, and choosing some spots to play him at power forward in smallball lineups with Randle or Naz as the other big. This has unlocked his ability to roam more effectively for rebounds, steals and blocks, while providing with more non-exhaustion energy otherwise spent trying to wear out ace opposing scorers. 

(A cautionary note: Donte DiVincenzo is already out with a significant toe sprain, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker had to be helped off the court late in the game Monday with, as of Tuesday afternoon, was an undisclosed leg injury. If both of those staunch wing defenders are out, McDaniels may soon be back to logging more duty as a wing-stopper, limiting his versatility.)

Nevertheless, McDaniels is making his mark on the boards. Here are his rebounding per-game averages by month: October, 2.8. November, 4.0. December, 5.8. Thus far in January, 6.6. That puts McDaniels third on the team, behind Gobert and Randle, in rebounds per game this month. He is first in steals and second in blocks. 

Best of all, as mentioned, Ant, Naz and McDaniels are all second-timeline players, meaning that they are the supposed core of the future Timberwolves when the first-line veterans such as Gobert, Mike Conley, and presumably Randle are gone. 

Ant and McDaniels are both signed through the 2028-29 season, the year the qualifying offers on the rookie deals for Rob Dillingham and Terrence Shannon Jr. kick in. A central reason KAT had to be traded is to figure out a way to keep Naz in this contingent, as his contract expires with a $15 million player option for next season that represents maybe 60% of his market value. 

If you are going to be a perpetually successful team, you have to make sure your long-term investments are sound. Along with losing KAT’s salary, a motivation for the trade with the Knicks was getting DiVicenzo, who is making “just” $12 million per season this year and the two beyond it.

So long as the Wolves have Gobert on the roster, defense will remain the identity for this team. But the remarkable recent growth in offensive efficiency exhibited by Ant, Naz and McDaniels indicates that the offensive may be able to share more of the load in the remaining three months of the season, and beyond into the second timeline.

Britt Robson

Britt Robson has covered the Timberwolves since 1990 for City Pages, The Rake, SportsIllustrated.com and The Athletic. He also has written about all forms and styles of music for over 30 years.

The post The defensive-minded Minnesota Timberwolves are lighting it up on offense (finally) in January. appeared first on MinnPost.

The Original Baseball Old Timers Hot Stove Banquet in West St. Paul kicked off several days of Twins-related local events in late January. Now a Twins Winter Caravan stop, it attracted a lively crowd, dressed in everything from sportcoats to jerseys and ballcaps. 

This year’s banquet, this past Wednesday night at Southview Country Club, offered a test for the friendliness and patience of local Twins fans. Last season’s stunning collapse, and an off-season with no significant free agent or trade action, left everyone in a foul mood. At my table, former amateur players griped about today’s MLB, all the usual stuff — too many strikeouts, too much emphasis on home runs and not enough on fundamentals and situational hitting.  

Then Twins manager Rocco Baldelli — on the dais with Twins execs Derek Falvey, Dave St. Peter and other baseball notables — rose to speak. Though our table was in the back of the room, it seemed like Baldelli heard every word. 

Responding to a question from master of ceremonies Sean Aronson, the talented and savvy St. Paul Saints broadcaster, Baldelli vowed to change the “all-or-nothing” hitting approach he believes failed the Twins down the stretch. That’s in part why the club replaced its three hitting instructors — an unpleasant task for Baldelli, who liked them all — while retaining all the pitching coaches. 

“The pitching staff did a decent job, but we didn’t hit,” Baldelli told the audience of about 300. “It kept me up a lot of nights. I was not eating, and I still haven’t gained all the weight back.”

Baldelli expanded on this two days later, after the annual Twins media luncheon at Target Field. The gist: He wants more level swings and hard-hit balls to right-center and right, instead of batters uppercutting and trying to pull everything. The latter approach, favored by former hitting coach David Popkins, required batters to make contact in front of the plate, leaving them susceptible to breaking pitches. Even with two strikes, most still tried to jack the ball.

“Not every player, but almost everyone was guilty of that last year,” Baldelli said. “I would say it’s a mental adjustment. It’s something we’re going to talk about from the very beginning of spring training. 

“To win games, it has to be more of a hit-first mentality than a power-first mentality. The power will come, because we have some very dynamic, big strong guys. The extra-base hits will come. We need to make the best swing decisions we can make, and we need to aim and tone our swings to hit line drives instead of getting really big and lifting the ball. We don’t have to lift the ball. We’re plenty strong enough to hit the ball out of the ballpark.”

This is a remarkable bit of honesty from an organization not exactly known for being straight with its fans. But it should ring true to anyone who watched the Twins last season and knows a little about hitting. 

Almost all batters strike out more than they used to. That’s a given. But the clubs that play deep into October, when runs and homers are harder to come by, generally put the ball in play more often than the ones that don’t. That’s what the Twins — only one season removed from ending that record 18-game playoff losing streak — need to get back to. 

“Consistency is a word I use a lot, and something I want to bring more of to our offensive game,” Baldelli said. “I don’t want to score 10 runs, and then score one run. I’d like to score five runs each game and give ourselves a chance to win. 

“I think our pitching is good enough where if we give them five runs to work with on a regular basis, we’re going to win, be successful, and everyone’s going to be pleased. I think this is the type of adjustment that can take our team where everyone wants to go.”

Throughout the various events last week — the Hot Stove banquet, Thursday’s Diamond Awards dinner at the Minneapolis Armory, the media luncheon and TwinsFest — Falvey repeated the same message about the club’s lack of off-season acquisitions: Things tend to happen later in the winter than they used to. He’s right. In 2023 the Twins signed Carlos Correa and traded for Pablo Lopez and Michael A. Taylor in January. Last season it signed Santana and traded for Manuel Margot in February. 

But this winter, besides the club’s budget constraints, Falvey said fewer teams are sellers. Almost all see themselves as contenders, so there’s more competition for players the Twins want. Spring training starts in about two weeks.

“We’ll continue to find ways to augment and add to the roster,” Falvey said. “I do believe in the core that we have, but we’ll continue to work on that over the next few weeks, and months.”

While the Los Angeles Dodgers spent freely and signed seemingly every big name free agent out there, the budget-conscious Twins let veteran right fielder Max Kepler and Gold Glove first baseman Carlos Santana walk in free agency and haven’t replaced them. Falvey’s priorities: A veteran first baseman, and a right-handed hitting outfielder who can back up Byron Buxton in center field.

Questions remain at first base and second base. Sure, there are in-house candidates. But does anyone really want to see Edouard Julien, who struggled defensively at second base, try to play first? Julien, Brooks Lee and Austin Martin are all in the mix at second, with Jose Miranda the likely first baseman if the Twins don’t acquire anyone. Correa and Royce Lewis are set at shortstop and third, respectively.

“We need someone to step up and claim some of these sports on the field,” Baldelli said. “I’m talking about first base. I’m talking about second base. I’m even talking about potentially an outfielder. 

“Right now, we have some good young players who are reaching that point in their career where they’re gaining that consistent time out there and define who they are. These are the guys I’m talking about. They have the ability. Now, when they get the at-bats, they need to go out there and do it.”

Then, of course, you’ve got the two things casting a long shadow on the season: Last year’s 12-27 collapse that cost a playoff berth, and the impending sale of the club. At the media luncheon, St. Peter announced 90% of season ticket holders renewed for 2025, which sounds like a big number unless you remember 97% renewed after the success of 2023. The Twins haven’t drawn more than two million spectators since 2019, and it will take a big move or three for many fans to forgive and forget.  

“I wasn’t happy with the finish last year, either,” Falvey said. “We all say that, and none of us are running from it. It was a disappointing last stretch of the season. We had good baseball for good chunks of the year, and a lot of the players that were part of good runs in ’23 and the good run in ’24 were part of some of those struggles in ’24.”

So, how do the Twins avoid a replay of the last 40 games of the previous campaign? 

“There are two ways to approach it: You either run from it, or you lean into it and learn from it.  Our staff, Rocco, his coaches, the front office group and the players themselves are all looking at it saying, ‘How can we be better?’ And each person needs to take it personally and find a way to be better. I can tell you that talking with the players this off-season, talking with our staff and others, they’re all using it as fuel to try to get better.” 

That’s a start, at least.

Pat Borzi

Pat Borzi is a contributing writer to MinnPost. Follow him on Twitter @BorzMN.

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The Minnesota Timberwolves are up to their old tricks, or pranks, or deadpan mining for fool’s gold. They intrigue, excite, exasperate, before stirring just enough to mollify. 

The Wolves are prone to putting themselves in high-pressure situations, where they exhibit the composure of a cucumber, play-acting as cool and ready to refresh their way into the mix, but too frequently diced into something drab and in dire need of oil and vinegar.

On Wednesday night the Wolves beat the sorry remnants of the Dallas Mavericks by a single point. Mike Conley played like he was back in President Trump’s first term, Rudy Gobert mostly stayed out of his own way, Jaden McDaniels continued his recent spree of meaningful menace, and Naz Reid drew the short straw that designated he be the one to act the fool in his angst toward the officials. 

The Mavs were missing superstar Luka Doncic and four other members of the top nine in their rotation, which didn’t prevent them from scoring 66 points in the paint against a Wolves defense that now ranks 20^th in defensive efficiency during the month of January. Minnesota is now 6-6 in 2025, 23-21 overall, good enough to participate in the play-in tournament to decide the bottom two seeds in the Western Conference playoffs, should the season end today. 

The 2024-25 Timberwolves season is too reminiscent of the team’s 2022-23 campaign, when an off-season trade by President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly both elevated expectations and concussed the status quo into a fugue state that made it difficult to retain what was good before making it better.

Almost exactly two years ago, I described the 2022-23 Wolves this way: “(T)his team lacks character. They have not demonstrated the type of focus and commitment necessary to discover and sustain the elements of teamwork that create synergy and produce an identity. … everyone knows, or least strongly suspects, that the main components comprise an awkward fit, creating fundamental obstacles to the synergy necessary for a happy, productive, environment.”

But there are also important distinctions between the situation now and what was occurring with the 2022-23 Wolves. 

Two years ago, the issue was pretty cut-and-dried: How do you effectively incorporate the sterling but dilapidated skill set of Gobert, who had spent the previous nine seasons with a franchise that molded its entire style of play around him, into the catalyst for a makeover of a different franchise with a track history of ineptitude? 

The answer was a February trade that brought in Conley and Nickeil Alexander-Walker (NAW) and sent out D’Angelo Russell, the continued maturation of Anthony Edwards, and extended time and tinkering to synergize the frontcourt fit of Gobert with Karl-Anthony Towns. 

Many people, including me, concluded after that mediocre 2022-23 season that the Gobert-KAT pairing would never truly pan out, and urged a trade of one or the other. But Connelly and Head Coach Chris Finch were steadfast in their faith, and via patience, creative schemes and buy-in from the players, put together one of the two best seasons in the Wolves’ 35-year existence in 2023-24.

That’s one crucial distinction between now and two years ago: The team’s glorious journey to the conference finals last season raised an already rising bar on expectations (and on the payroll). No one cares that the Wolves are currently over .500 after 44 games for only the third time since 2005. The fans want to keep dancing to the club music of the 2023-24 defense and swoon to the diva arias of Ant’s soprano-soaring slam-dunks.

But the defining demarcation between 2022-23 Wolves and the 2024-25 edition is the added complexity of the task, due to the contrary forces at play. 

After the Wolves acquired Gobert, total attention could be paid to his integration. But the maturation of the “second line” rotation players in the pipeline and the greater restrictions in the new collective bargaining agreement compel Connelly and Finch to yo-yo back and forth in an attempt to sustain success both this year and beyond.

Let’s get specific. Using salary figures from basketball-reference.com, the Wolves paid Ant $10.7 million for the 2022-23 season – this season he is getting $42.2 million. McDaniels earned $2.1 million in 2022-23; this year it is $23 million. Naz Reid was still on his “Gupta special” undrafted rookie deal in 2022-23, getting $1.9 million. This season it is $14 million. And a primary reason KAT is in New York is because his salary jumped from $33.8 million in 2022-23 to $49.2 million this season and keeps rising all the way to his player option season at $61 million in 2027-28.

Yes, Connelly got important discounts on Conley ($22 million in 2022-23, just $10 million per season this year and next) and Gobert, who signed for $12 million less than he could have made exercising his player option next season, but leveraged the concession into a package of three more years at a total of $109 million.

There are plenty of fans who would have wanted Connelly to wait at least one more season before trying to trade KAT, and we’ll never know what he could have fetched for him, now with a $53 million salary, at the end of this season. But it was always going to be that the Wolves would have to trade KAT or Gobert next year to have any hope of being able to re-sign Naz. And you don’t have to be too enmeshed in social media to realize that Gobert is a player too many NBA fan bases love to hate, and would almost certainly not have brought back even close to equal value.

Enough about the numbers, except to say that this is the price of NBA success, made even more acute by the restrictions on roster management for high-payroll teams under the new collective bargaining agreement. You win big, you pay your players. But the salary of the total roster is capped, and successful teams are squeezed out of retaining all their talent. 

This is the new, unfamiliar reality for a Wolves franchise that rarely, if ever, won big. Under Finch, and especially Connelly, they are trying to win as many games as possible this year, next year, and three or four years out. 

Using that lens, it is fascinating to view how the Wolves have prioritized players within their rotations. For example, ever since the KAT trade was made, Finch has sought to maximize Julius Randle’s value to the current team. Yes, that also makes him more valuable to any team that might want to trade for him before Feb. 6 or try to sign him this summer, when he can either exercise his player option to stay with the Wolves for $31 million or become an unrestricted free agent. 

The point is, Finch has attacked the awkward fit of Randle in rotation with Gobert and Naz in the frontcourt as diligently as he did the awkward fit of KAT, Gobert and Naz two years ago. And to his credit, Randle has bought in. Consequently, Randle has become increasingly valuable by promoting more pace in the offense with his faster decision-making on ball movement, and enhancing his defensive capabilities by guarding opposing bigs in the paint more effectively. 

As I wrote in last week’s column, the relationship between Randle and the Wolves is still likely to have an unhappy ending. The size of his player option and the way his style of play is increasingly at odds with the modern NBA were always going to be sticking points, especially if the Wolves want to hold on to Naz, who has his own player option, at terms he can exceed on the open market. 

But the Wolves have not allowed that noise to get too much in the way of probing the best current fits in their frontcourt. Yes, Randle and Gobert continue to start, despite a still-awkward fit. But Randle and Naz have improved their tandem by leaps and bounds since the beginning of the season, and all three have distinctive ways, individually and as pairs, in which they help the team. Consequently, over the past few weeks, Finch has increasingly flexed who gets to finish games or log high-leverage minutes, according to game situations. 

Another striking, season-long example of Finch’s roster management has been his preference for a tight rotation. Again, the priority seems to be embracing a win-now philosophy. 

It was easy to limit the rotation to eight players when the Wolves were enjoying extraordinarily good health. But now that Donte DiVincenzo (DDV) is out indefinitely with a strained big toe, we see an uptick in minutes for last summer’s top draft choice, Rob Dillingham, but not to the level DDV or Conley were mostly sharing point guard duties this season. 

Dillingham has played every game of the three DDV has missed, but his minutes per-game have only climbed from 9.7 to 14.7 in that span. Meanwhile, time on the court for Conley and NAW have both ticked up; ditto Ant and Randle (the two scoring playmakers) and McDaniels, who has earned the extra burn. 

Meanwhile, former ninth man Josh Minott is mysteriously missing-in-action, and was even disastrously replaced by an infamous return of Joe Ingles against Cleveland. Clearly, Finch doesn’t believe this underperforming roster can afford the unreliability of too much untested youth, which of course is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The coach has said kind things about both Dillingham and Minott, but actions speak louder than words and, as I said last week, the ninth and 10^th players in the Wolves rotation log far fewer minutes than their counterparts on the other 29  NBA teams. 

I am on record favoring Naz over Randle in the starting lineup and finding more minutes for Dillingham and Minott even if and when the Wolves return to their remarkably good roster health. And Finch sure seemed ripe for criticism when the Wolves were outscored by 14 points in the 8:43 Ingles played in what used to be Minott’s stead in a seven-point loss to Cleveland last Saturday; or when he benched a productive Dillingham in favor of Conley and watched the Wolves cough up the lead in the final four-and-a-half minutes of a two-point loss to Memphis on Monday. 

But then Conley responded Wednesday night with his best game of the season and was an absolutely vital component of the Wolves eking out that one-point victory in Dallas.

Meanwhile the standings are a jumble, to the point where realistic scenarios can be made for the Wolves finishing anywhere from fourth (which would give them home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs) to 12^th (out of even the play-in scenario, and without their first-round pick, sent to Utah in the Gobert deal). 

Through it all, the variables are fluid, the situation complex. Since signing that three-year extension (two if you assume he would have opted in next season anyway), Gobert’s play has fallen off at both ends of the court this season. Conley’s throw-back excellence on Wednesday was a boon, but how repeatable can he make it? Would Dillingham and Minott capsize the Wolves fragile place in the standings or would they improve sufficiently with added burn to help the Wolves perhaps this season and most certainly down the line? 

What happens if Randle isn’t traded and opts in? NAW is thus guaranteed to be gone, and perhaps Naz too. Then the KAT trade looks infinitely worse. 

Less than a month after I wrote those disparaging words about the 2022-23 Wolves, Connelly executed the best trade in Timberwolves history, swapping out the polarizing D’Lo (Russell) for the platinum teammate Conley and the underrated gem NAW (plus some second round draft picks). 

The point is, there are times and places for significant overhauls to be made, before the Feb. 6 trading deadline and in the remaining 38 games of the season, depending upon how the Wolves perform in the ensuing weeks and months. And if there is one thing the Connelly-Finch tandem demonstrated in the 2023-24 season, sometimes standing pat sets up the best possible scenario.

Britt Robson

Britt Robson has covered the Timberwolves since 1990 for City Pages, The Rake, SportsIllustrated.com and The Athletic. He also has written about all forms and styles of music for over 30 years.

The post Bull or bear: Are we buying or selling this version of the Minnesota Timberwolves? appeared first on MinnPost.

Up here in the frozen tundra of Minnesota, we have an intimate relationship with the concept of traction. 

When the wheels find purchase in the slush, gravel or ice, and you’re lurching out of the deepening hole you’ve painstakingly dug for yourself, or re-hugging the curve for your suddenly dear life after the adrenaline jolt of an abrupt careen, a sense of reliability, security and glorious normality returns like a séance of endorphins.

One of the many bountiful pleasures brought by the 2023-24 Minnesota Timberwolves was the omnipresence of their traction. Two weeks into the season, they had already knocked off titans like the reigning champion Denver Nuggets and the soon-to-be champion Boston Celtics, while serving what became a season-long notice that their defense would be without parallel in the NBA. Within the first month their record was 11-3. Their first two-game losing streak was in the next calendar year and they never lost three in a row while winning 56 of 82 regular season contests – followed by their first two playoff series triumphs in 20 years. 

On Friday night, the 2024-25 Minnesota Timberwolves will reach the midpoint of their season; one that has become increasingly annoying for its proclivity of skids and spinning wheels. It is a vehicle that Head Coach Chris Finch has trusted too much, opting for the patient, drive-reverse-drive rocking strategy that makes agonizingly fitful progress as the hole extends but never seems to cede. When finally underway for a while, the team enters the curves with careless arrogance, compelling Finch to turn into the inevitable skid, the right short-term strategy that still makes all involved skitterish that it had to be deployed in the first place. 

A couple of weeks ago, just before the Wolves won their third straight game by beating the San Antonio Spurs, Finch acknowledged that where the 2023-24 team had rapidly “settled into a rhythm,” the current campaign was revealing “more of a learning curve” for his squad. The Wolves then proceeded to ratify his caution by losing three in a row for the fourth time in 35 games. 

Finch resorted to his first significant lineup shift of the season, installing Donte DiVincenzo over Mike Conley as the starting point guard, and the Wolves responded with four wins in five games heading into Wednesday night against Golden State Warriors at Target Center Wednesday night. 

Before the game, I asked Finch whether he felt the team could generate enough traction to justify the NBA’s second-highest payroll and the equally elevated expectations in the wake of last year’s excellence. 

“I think so,” he replied. “When I think back about some previous seasons and you’re .500 and then you kind of hit a spurt and everything changes. But in answer to your question I think we do see traction.”

Then the Wolves went out and got blitzed, 34-12, in the first quarter, giving up as many points via five turnovers and the team scored itself. Although they rallied – even tying the score with 1:07 left in the game – they were done in on some muffed layups, the majesty of Steph Curry as a closer, and a Golden State rebound off a missed free throw that essentially iced the game as a one-point Wolves loss. 

Finch bemoaned the start, of course, and the fact that a team that hangs its hat on playing “big” was outrebounded by a smaller, vastly inexperienced frontcourt, especially second-year center Trayce Jackson-Davis and G-league call-up Gui Santos as the starters for the depleted Warriors roster. 

It didn’t matter that Minnesota scored 103 points in the ensuing three quarters. “It took us too long to find that gear,” Finch said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t think we were out there working very hard. We wanted it to come easy.”

Asked why that was, Finch retained an even tone as he indicted the team. 

“I don’t know. We struggled to complete some plays. They got out to a hot start shooting-wise and we tried to get it all back with one quick pass and shot. Again not willing to put the work in offensively. We’ve had a habit of that all season,” said Finch, who then repeated, “We just want it easy.”

The record is now 21-19, with a pair of rugged games on the horizon – in New York against a Knicks team that walloped them in their previous meeting this season, and home against a Cleveland Cavs squad that has the best record in the NBA. 

By now we know there will be no meaningful traction. Certainly not enough to rekindle the hopes and foster the synergy displayed for almost the entirety of last season. 

A game away from the halfway mark, it is time for some harsh truths. Here are a couple.

The relationship between the Timberwolves franchise and power forward Julius Randle will have an unhappy ending

Randle was never the main focus of the deal that brought him to Minnesota just before training camp. There were myriad motivations for the trade made with the New York Knicks by Wolves President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly. 

He wanted to acquire a point guard who could serve as a bridge between veteran point guard Mike Conley and 2024 first round draft pick Rob Dillingham, and Donte DiVincenzo perfectly fit that need at the bargain basement salary of $12 million per year over the next three seasons. 

He needed to get off of the enormous long-term “supermax” contract of then-Wolves star Karl-Anthony Towns or almost certainly lose the younger Naz Reid, the reigning Sixth Man of the Year, due to salary cap constraints. 

He wanted to get back a first-round draft pick after expending so much draft capital in the Rudy Gobert trade three seasons ago, and the Knicks had one to spare via the Detroit Pistons. 

And he needed to acquire Randle to keep up the Wolves identity for rugged frontcourt performance, and, more pertinently, to make the collective salaries on both sides match enough to facilitate the deal. 

In terms of pure skills and experience, Randle is one of the three or four best players on the team. But the only thing remaining on his current contract is a player option for next season at $31 million. He needs to perform well enough with the Wolves to entice a team to sign him for at least that much money over multiple years. That team will not be the Wolves – their priority is Naz, who has a $15 million player option himself for next season that would nearly double on the free agent market. 

But if Randle opts in for next season, the Wolves are obligated to keep him at that $31 million, complicating efforts to re-sign Naz and hopefully Nickeil Alexander-Walker (NAW), another key member of the rotation. 

The situation is tailor-made for friction and inevitable acrimony, but Finch and Randle had a mutual admiration for each other when Finch coached him in New Orleans six years ago, and both sides have worked very hard and acted very professionally to meet each other’s needs. But that is very unlikely in the long run.

Randle does not fit in a lineup that already has an isolation scorer in Anthony Edwards and a space-clogging big man in Rudy Gobert. His virtues involve a lot of ball possession and the Wolves offense can’t afford those touches.

More to the point, the Wolves won’t choose even a maximized Randle, age 30, over the 25-year old Naz, who has the higher future ceiling and a style of play and longstanding camaraderie that fits with Ant, the alpha force in the future of the franchise. 

The hope is that Randle plays well enough to garner a decent return on the trade market, either by the Feb. 6 trade deadline or in the offseason. The Wolves – and, to be fair, Randle – have expended a lot of time and energy trying to integrate him in a manner that bolsters the current team and brightens his future elsewhere. But that is becoming a gulf too far and the status quo is increasingly becoming a damaging prospect for both sides. 

(For the record, after a slow start, DiVincenzo is performing brilliantly, and the Pistons have improved enough this season to make the protections on their draft pick less likely to be implemented, clearing the way for the Wolves to add another young piece. Trading KAT obviously was a bigger blow to the Wolves than originally supposed, but it does still create cap space for a Naz extension and maybe a chance to retain NAW too.) 

Finch needs a more authoritarian voice or a new offensive philosophy

As someone who has covered the Wolves since their second season of existence, I am in a good position to hold the opinion that Finch is the best coach in franchise history. His strength is player-relations, via direct but not inflammatory communications skills and a supposed inclination to build his schematic approach around the strengths of his roster. 

But something has been amiss on offense throughout his three-and-a-half-year tenure. Finch prefers a “flow” offense, an ostensibly player-friendly philosophy that functions best under three basic principles: move the ball, move yourself when you don’t have the ball and make quick decisions. 

But Ant – remember, the alpha force of all plans for the present and future – too frequently eschews all of those basic principles. That has not always been the case – peak Ant in “flow” mode may well have been a stretch beginning in December 2022 and January 2023 when KAT was injured, Conley had not yet arrived, and he balanced play-making and scoring in a glorious ascendance that led to his first All Star game appearance. And it was furthered under Conley’s tutelage.

But as Ant has become a superstar and “face of the league,” he has faced enormous pressures, be it opposing defenses stacked to deter him, the heightened scrutiny of the gluttonous, gossipy media or the judgments of his former heroes both active and retired from the NBA.

Put bluntly, Ant’s maturation hasn’t kept pace with the sharper arc of his learning curve this season. His incredible three-point shooting has camouflaged his more subtle shortcomings, which frequently sabotage the “flow” via impetuous shot selection in the face of rugged resistance, lazy ball movement, and precious little movement himself off the ball. 

Led by Ant (and Randle), the Wolves have a roster of proven scorers and have no business ranking 17^th in offensive efficiency (points scored per possession). But here’s why that’s where they stand: Only five teams use “isolation” plays as a larger percentage of their offensive mix than the Wolves, and yet only five teams score fewer points per isolation play than the Wolves’ putrid mark of .79 points per play. 

The low-hanging fruit of a competent “flow” offense is meanwhile unpicked. The Wolves defense ranks 13^th in the number of turnovers it generates, yet the team is 30^th, dead last, in percentage of “transition” plays in its offensive mix, scoring 12^th most points per play (1.14) when they do get out and run after a steal or block. And as for “cuts” to the basket, they do it with the 24^th highest frequency and yet the 13^th best success rate. 

Finch needs to exert a heavier hand on how his team executes his offensive principles, or acknowledge (if he hasn’t de facto done that already) that his players choose to do otherwise and then lean into strategies that better exploit their natural instincts. 

(In the And One newsletter – two harsh truths: Expanding the rotation and resetting expectations for the postseason.)

Britt Robson

Britt Robson has covered the Timberwolves since 1990 for City Pages, The Rake, SportsIllustrated.com and The Athletic. He also has written about all forms and styles of music for over 30 years.

The post It’s time for some harsh truths about the Minnesota Timberwolves appeared first on MinnPost.

A hearing Wednesday exploring the social and financial harms that come from sports betting certainly got the attention of the gambling industry.

Lobbyists representing the large national sportsbooks as well as the state’s tribal nations listened from the audience while testifier after testifier warned of the problems caused in other states when sports betting was legalized.

They didn’t testify, though. Sen. John Marty, the Roseville DFLer who sponsored the hearing of his Finance Committee, said they were welcome if they talked about predatory practices and addiction. Up until now, he said, the hearings have focused on who profits from sports betting and how much rather than who suffers.

Marty, who has opposed additional gambling in the state, said Wednesday that it is already legal for residents to bet on games with friends or even strangers.

“What is not legal in Minnesota is sportsbook making, where a corporate entity can profit off of your betting and encourage you to bet more and more and more,” Marty said. And he dismissed claims that legal book making will replace the illegal and unregulated betting sites, noting studies that show such betting increases in states after they became one of the 38 that legalized the practice.

A letter from some members of Congress to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland asked him to crack down on off-shore betting sites that were seeing increased activity from the U.S. since the Supreme Court gave states, not Congress, the authority to legalize sports betting.

“As this nascent legal market continues to expand, we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that the illegal market is thriving and operating unfettered,” the members of Congress wrote in June 2022.  “Internet searches nationwide for offshore sportsbooks increased by almost 40 percent in 2021, outpacing searches for legal ones.” 

And Sen. Erin Maye Quade, a DFLer from Apple Valley, said she could support sports betting in physical casinos but not the mobile sports apps that are the primary location for bets made. Nine of 10 sports bets are made on mobile devices.

Maye Quade spoke of the burden of distance when bets can only be made in person at a casino. But the national sports betting companies prefer mobile. The companies, she said, know that if “they can’t gamble from the carpool lane or standing in line at the bank or from the bathroom — they don’t have the opportunity to turn people who might casually bet on the Vikings beating the Rams next week to place bet after bet after bet, play after play after play, dopamine hit after dopamine hit after dopamine hit.”

And she noted data from Connecticut showing how sportsbooks make most of their revenue from a relative handful of bettors. There, 71% of legal bets are made by 7% of residents. In addition, half of the sports book revenue was made from just 1.8% of residents.

A year ago, Marty was working with Sen. Matt Klein, DFL-Mendota Heights, to see if they could agree on a bill. Klein has been the main sponsor of sport betting legislation in the Senate, and Marty has been opposed. At the time, Klein needed to get the entire DFL caucus to support a bill because Republicans were insisting on help for the two horse racing tracks. While some changes were made to address Marty’s concerns about problem gambling and predatory betting, the political math changed with a new deal that, for the first time, brought both the state’s tribal nations and the horse tracks together on a single bill.

Still, Klein said he wants to include Marty’s ideas in a bill he said would be introduced shortly (this year’s legislative session begins Tuesday).

Related: Is 2025 the year for sports betting in Minnesota? No really, is it? 

“If passed, this bill will make Minnesota the safest state for legal sports wagering in the country,” Klein said. “This will be a significant improvement over the status quo, where illicit sports wagering on unregulated offshore platforms is widespread in our state.”

The protections, Klein said, would include a gambling helpline, a push to identify high-risk gamblers for help, restrictions on advertising around schools and colleges and advertising targeting minors or problem gamblers, wagering limits, bans on push notifications on mobile devices and dedication of 10% of revenue to problem gambling programs.

It will also place a three-hour delay between when money is put into a gamblers account and when bets can be made and a ban on so-called prop bets on college sports. Prop bets are side bets that might include which team scores first or how many three-point shots a basketball player makes. 

The Finance Committee heard testimony from two national sports betting opponents who described practices of what are called “VIP hosts” who are assigned to frequent gamblers to encourage them to bet more, often with frequent text messages. Using personal relationships, prizes, trips and so-called free bets, the host keeps bettors betting even after big losses, said Matt Litt, a New Jersey attorney who has sued big national companies on behalf of addicted gamblers who suffered big losses.

“There’s no escaping it,” Litt said. “Text messages are happening first thing in the morning, late at night, on holidays. There can be no result with these individuals but that they will hit rock bottom, and the VIP host knows it.

“People ask, ‘Isn’t it the gambler’s fault?’” Litt asked. “Of course it is. But that responsibility is not exclusive. The casinos with their VIP hosts take an active role in the addiction, turning minor mistakes into catastrophic financial events.”

Litt suggested that any bill legalizing sports betting make a stated declaration that the sponsors of the gambling bear legal responsibility for the damage done by and to people who they helped addict and should have known were addicted. He compared it to existing dram shop laws that hold bars responsible for damage caused by people who were sold too much alcohol.

The committee also heard from researchers who found increased financial hardship and spikes in intimate partner violence after states legalized mobile sports betting.

Proponents of sport betting in Minnesota and the companies that will make the most money from it are entering the 2025 session with some momentum. A deal reached at the end of the last session was the first to bring both the tribal nations and the two horse racing tracks into agreement.

While there were supporters of the tribes’ position — mostly from DFLers — and supporters of the tracks’ position — mostly from Republicans — neither made up a majority needed to pass a bill. Combining those two groups of lawmakers could put the bill over the top. (That is, if the Legislature can organize itself in time to pass significant policy legislation like this.)

The bill would give the tribes exclusive control over mobile betting but would likely see them contract with the large national sport books. Much of the revenue from state taxation would go to the tracks, smaller tribes and the beneficiaries of charitable gambling.

Shifting the focus on problem gambling and evidence of predatory practices by the sports books would not help the bill’s chances. So while backers didn’t testify, they did issue statements to the media and the committee.

Andy Platto, the executive director of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association, said the nine tribes he represents think a state sport betting system will help shrink illegal and unregulated gambling sites.

“Tribal gaming at Minnesota destinations is the most highly regulated gaming in the state, with an impeccable record of regulatory success and responsible management,” Platto wrote. “Legal mobile sports betting operated by MN tribes would bring the activity under a strong regulatory construct to protect consumers and to provide needed resources to address problem gambling. Recent versions of a Minnesota sports wagering bill have included the strongest provisions to protect bettors of any law in the nation. MIGA tribes support those measures and are committed to the goal of addressing problem gambling responsibly, with thoughtful policy and new dedicated resources.” 

A lobbying entity called the Sports Betting Alliance represents four of the largest sports betting companies: BetMGM, DraftKings, FanDuel and Fanatics. Its spokesperson, Blois Olson, issued a statement arguing that the betting going on in the state now is illegal by books that don’t have the same consumer protections as legal sites.

In fact, some unregulated platforms have been shown to actively target minors,” Olson said. He also criticized the way the hearing was conducted.

“It’s also worth noting that Senator Marty, a longtime opponent of sports betting, did not include the perspective of Minnesota sovereign tribal nations who are key stakeholders in gaming in the state,” the statement said. “In fact, he did not permit anyone to testify who did not share his perspective — not responsible gaming experts, industry representatives, or experts in the dangers of the thriving illegal sports betting market in Minnesota.”

Peter Callaghan

Peter Callaghan covers state government for MinnPost. Follow him on Twitter @CallaghanPeter or email him at pcallaghan@minnpost.com.

The post A pre-session hearing on sports betting’s harms hoped to slow bill’s momentum. Will it? appeared first on MinnPost.

Among the many unpleasantries that have splotched the 2024-25 season for the Minnesota Timberwolves like a bad rash, the desecration of Mike Conley’s wisdom may bring the most melancholy. 

There has been no better trade in the history of the Wolves franchise than the February 2023 deal that brought Conley and fellow guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker to Minnesota along with a couple of second-round draft picks in exchange for D’Angelo Russell. It transformed the comity and spirit of a stubbornly immature locker room and sowed the seeds that yielded a phenomenal level of trust and defensive teamwork that propelled the Wolves into the Western Conference Finals the following season. 

D’Lo (Russell) affected profundity while fostering passive-aggressive friction, which in tandem with his blatantly uneven on-court performance has made him a vagabond, traded five times in the past seven-and-a-half years. Conley is the converse; a player whose charisma emanates from seamless self-possession, whose authority cloaks itself in amiability.

Coming in the door, Conley’s priorities were obvious. First, help Rudy Gobert make the transition from a Utah team that catered their systems to his unique skill set at both ends of the court for nine years, to a Wolves team boldly experimenting with a double-bigs lineup while rearing a potential superstar still wet behind the ears. Second, hasten the development of that star, Anthony Edwards, by providing him with an appreciation for the organic concept of true greatness.

Gobert and Ant are very different types of players, and human beings. Consciously or not, D’Lo pushed them further apart. Again, Conley was the converse. Coming over from Memphis to Utah, Conley had spent three seasons with the finicky Gobert, knew when he was appropriately exacting and demanding – primarily on defense – and where the thin margins of error existed between his virtues and vices on offense. 

With Ant, Conley found a dedicated worker and keen judge of character, a willing sponge for information if he could intuitively trust the teacher. 

The 24 games (plus seven more in the postseason) of Conley’s service in Minnesota during the 2022-23 season reassured Gobert and piqued Ant enough for Rudy to expand his territory (and faith in his teammates to cover for him) on defense and for Ant to take a consequential leap forward in team leadership. In February 2024, a year and two weeks after being traded to the Wolves, Conley signed a two-year, $20-million contract, which, even considering that he is in the twilight of his career, was a generous bargain, the terms less than half per-season what he earned under his previous, then soon-to-expire, three-year, $66-million pact. 

But it has always been fairly plain that Conley is the kind of player and person who is not primarily motivated by money. There is an aura about the way he carries himself and interacts with people that takes him beyond the realm of a mere teacher/mentor, and more akin to a sage. 

Eighteen years as a successful NBA point guard is by itself a credential of nuanced knowledge. But along with being unfailingly gracious and kind in his interactions with others, there is a sense of rectitude and noblesse oblige about Conley that makes you realize he knows he is a wise man and deserves to be respected as such. He is the embodiment of silk, a presence that reduces tension, promotes well-being, and elevates the quality of the occasion to a regal level. 

All of that is why Conley’s 2024-25 season has been jarring thus far. Losing back-up point guards Monte Morris, Jordan McLaughlin and especially Kyle Anderson (a “point forward” who is perhaps the best playmaker of the trio), strip-mined all the depth behind him, a starter who turned 37 just before the season started and was/is expected to run the Wolves half-court offense as they contend for a championship.

President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly pulled a point guard out of his hat in the June draft, trading the Wolves first-round pick in 2031 to San Antonio for the right to select Rob Dillingham with the eighth overall pick this year. But Dillingham’s performance in Summer League indicated he wasn’t ready to shoulder regular minutes for a team with such high expectations, and a few days before training camp, Connelly made the (now infamous) trade of Karl-Anthony Towns to New York for forward Julius Randle and combo guard Donte DiVincenzo (DDV). 

KAT’s supermax contract, signed before the more stringent NBA collective bargaining agreement took effect, was one motivation for the trade. But it wouldn’t have been made without the availability of DDV, who is earning a bargain rate of $12 million per season, coupled with the reliability of three seasons of team control at that price, making him an attractive, if not ideal, bridge between Conley and Dillingham on the Timberwolves timeline at the point guard position. 

It hasn’t been that simple, however. Randle, the other player coming from the Knicks, is a three-time All Star with an expiring contract (save for a $31-million player option to stay with the Wolves next season) and naturally expected to take KAT’s place in the starting lineup. The rub here is that Randle functions best with the ball in his hands, drawing double teams and kicking it out to shooters from the post, or spinning and scoring versus less spirited coverage. 

One of the reasons Conley was acquired in the first place was to orchestrate the traffic and spacing in a half-court offense crimped by Gobert’s need to play around the rim and Ant’s need for freewheeling space in order to maximize his athleticism. Randle’s inclusion added yet another paint-centric presence while diminishing Conley’s ability to sort out the spacing puzzle because the ball would be in the point guard’s hands less often. 

The problem became even more complex when Conley’s performance at the start of the season after limited duty in training camp and preseason (so as not to prematurely tax his aging body) was markedly diminished from his previous high standard. On the plus side, his defense remained relatively active and effective (although he did foul more frequently). But most everything at the other end of the court – his shooting percentage, the timing, awareness and accuracy of his passes, even his dribbling at times – wasn’t as sharp or self-assured as the sage Mike Conley of yore.

Was this disheartening start to the season the result of Randle complicating the mix or Father Time inevitably taking its toll on Conley? A couple of games into the regular season, Conley added another factor, acknowledging that a chronic wrist injury had flared up more than usual during the off-season, hindering his preparation. It was an extraordinary admission from a proud warrior, especially since he couched it in the context of a minor obstacle that was no longer troublesome. 

By the end of November, the Wolves were below .500 with a won-lost record of 9-10, in part because Conley was shooting 33.3% from the field and had an assist-to-turnover rate of less than 3-to-1, both well below his career norms. On the first of December, when I asked him at practice why the Conley-Gobert pick-and-roll play was being utilized less often, his answer was revealing. 

“I think a lot of (it) is just us learning each other. Obviously Julius, first two weeks, we were like, ‘Man, be more aggressive, this is your team too’ trying to get him up to speed. When that happens I tend to fade to the corner and get myself out of actions and forget that I should be doing more in the pick and roll and have more opportunities with Rudy. We just have to get back to what we do and understand how effective we can be when we are all in comfortable spots on the floor.” 

A season of indomitable mediocrity continued through December and the first two contests of January, when the Wolves endured their fourth three-game losing streak in the first 34 games after never dropping three straight last season. By now, one problem was unavoidably apparent: The starting lineup, featuring last year’s starters and Randle in place of KAT, wasn’t resolving its dysfunction. 

After being steadfast in his position that the composition of the starters were not the main issue, and certainly not in need of remedial change, Coach Chris Finch suddenly flipped his opinion: Without warning, DiVincenzo was announced as the starting point guard in place of Conley last Monday night against the Clippers. 

After the game, after a playfully testy back-and-forth between Finch and the media about him changing his mind, the coach said, “It was all about trying to get Mike into a group of guys that could accentuate his talents better. He plays the bulk of his minutes with that (starters) unit. The usage has shifted in that unit so it was really a way to help him try and get going.”

Pressed on the specifics, Finch added, “I talked to him about it this morning, kind of asked his permission, just given his pedigree and his amazing career. And he was all for it.”

That makes perfect sense. In the locker room moments later, Conley himself had a chance to respond when my podcast partner Dane Moore pointed out that in previous seasons he had been either the primary or (if Ant was on the ball) secondary initiator of the offense, compared to often being the third initiator this season with Randle in the mix. 

“Yeah, I think that is probably the biggest difference between the years. If I’m out there just running corner to corner and not really being myself. You can start anybody at that point. So I think that was the idea behind it. See what it looks like coming in with a different unit where you (meaning him) can be more ball-dominant and not necessarily shooting more but being more injected into the game and playing my role.” 

Two games into the new rotations, the results are mixed, although the Wolves have won both contests. Against the Clippers on Monday, a lineup of last year’s starters and Naz instead of Randle at KAT’s old forward spot, the Wolves went on a 21-7 run in the second quarter to wipe out most of a 19-point deficit. And with Conley playing nearly nine minutes in the fourth quarter with various personnel, the Wolves won a close one via some big shots from Ant, featuring a lineup that put DDV out there instead of Naz. In all, the Wolves were plus 11 in Conley’s 26:24 on the court. 

On Wednesday in New Orleans, the Wolves were a team-worst minus 12 in the 24:44 Conley played, but plus 19 in the 23:16 he sat, as Randle had a quietly effective game bodying up the Pelicans mammoth Zion Williamson and getting off to a fast start with his old Knicks teammate DDV operating at the point. 

At this point in time, at least two things are true. One is that the Timberwolves have no hope of seriously contending, even beyond the first round of the playoffs, if Conley can’t improve his game to the proximity of last season, which was itself typical of his 17 years in the game before this season.

The second thing is that Conley has to continue being put in a role and in situations that evince respect for his stature. His standing as the wise man, the sage, is a crucial ingredient if he is to ascend to his former prominence on the court, and a crucial ingredient in the emotional ballast of this team. 

If he is “washed,” as the saying goes, abruptly aged out of relevancy, the undertow will be significant and could suck the Wolves underwater for the remainder of this season, if not longer. If he is merely aging in slower increments and can bear less of the burden, he needs to perform well enough to keep his wisdom, poise and silk magic from dissolving into indirect engagement, which is just a step away from symbolism.

The Timberwolves need more than that from Mike Conley. And he deserves every chance to try and provide it.

Britt Robson

Britt Robson has covered the Timberwolves since 1990 for City Pages, The Rake, SportsIllustrated.com and The Athletic. He also has written about all forms and styles of music for over 30 years.

The post Mike Conley isn’t the problem for the Minnesota Timberwolves, but a role change may be the solution appeared first on MinnPost.

On New Year’s Eve, the Minnesota Timberwolves saw the future, and the future was glorious.  

Unfortunately, it belongs to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

At 27-5, the Thunder’s won-lost record is at least five games better than any other team in the rugged 15-team Western Conference. Coming into Tuesday night’s game against the Wolves, their defense was allowing fewer points per possession compared to the league average than any team in the 29 years the NBA has been keeping play-by-play data.

They are the second-youngest team in the NBA. Despite their superlative yet precocious performance, they have not mortgaged their future. On the contrary, they currently own the rights to 13 picks in the first-round of the drafts between 2025-2030, and 17 picks in the second round for seasoning around the edges should something minor go amiss. That’s why, in a recent poll conducted by The Athletic, the Thunder were deemed the best front office — personnel managers — of all the teams in the four major sports (football, baseball, basketball and hockey) as voted on by their peers.

Playing OKC for the first time in four scheduled meetings this season was thus a litmus test for the Wolves, whose front office finished fifth among the 30 NBA teams and 20^th among the 124 teams overall in The Athletic poll. Minnesota came into the game having won 9 of its last 13 contests, all against opponents with a record of .500 or better, while compiling the NBA’s second-best defensive rating (behind the Thunder, of course) over that span.

But there was one aspect of the matchup that portended doom for the Wolves: turnovers. Coming into the game, the Thunder were forcing opponents to commit 18.8 turnovers per 100 possessions, the highest rate in 26 years. And for the third straight season, the Wolves ranked among the bottom ten teams in terms of their ability to retain possession of the basketball. 

For the first 27-and-a-half minutes of the game, Minnesota was thriving. At the half they were up by six, 52-46, and had ceded just 7 points off their 8 turnovers to the Thunder, well below OKC’s average of more than 23 points scored per game via opponent turnovers. In the first two-and-a-half minutes of the third quarter, the Wolves doubled their lead to a dozen, 65-53, thanks to three straight three-pointers from point guard Mike Conley. 

Then came the deluge.  

After Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (SGA) hit a baseline jumper to cut the lead to 10, Wolves center Rudy Gobert smashed a wide-open slam-dunk attempt off the back iron of the rim. While Gobert was late in getting back on defense, three Timberwolves ran to stop OKC’s Cason Wallace on the drive, ignoring Lu Dort behind the three-point line in the corner, where he has made 41% of his attempts during his 6-year career. Dort’s splash made it a 7-point lead. 

Julius Randle was pickpocketed off the dribble, leading to a breakout layup by SGA. The Wolves neglected the shortened shot clock after running time stopped for substitutions. OKC seized on that turnover when Conley was beaten off the dribble by Wallace and Kenrich Williams hit another corner three off Wallace’s feed when Naz Reid came over to help.

OKC had reduced the Wolves lead from 12 to 2 in 113 seconds. Coach Chris Finch called time, but when play resumed, the steamroll stayed in third gear. In the 8:30 between Conley’s array of treys and the close of the third quarter, OKC outscored the Wolves 36-10. More than half of those points, 19, came off 9 Timberwolves turnovers. 

The Wolves rallied valiantly in the final period, cutting the Thunder lead to 3 with 2:03 left in the game, but three more turnovers sealed their fate and the final score was 113-105, OKC’s 12^th straight victory. 

“We did the one thing that we couldn’t do: turned the ball over at a high level. We talked about that coming in here,” said an obviously disgruntled Finch, during a postgame press conference that lasted 74 seconds. Indeed, the final tally was 31 Thunder points scored off 24 Timberwolves turnovers, while the Wolves garnered just 8 points off 12 OKC miscues — a 23-point disparity in a game decided by 8 points. 

Making the Wolves repeatedly synergistic

If you’re measuring the 2024-25 Timberwolves against the Thunder, you’re automatically dialing up doldrums. Save your dolor for the 12-day span from Feb. 13-24, when the two teams complete their season series with three matchups. Between now and then is a trade deadline (Feb. 6), six weeks of tinkering, and a week-long All-Star break before you return with a back-to-back, home-and-away duet with OKC right after the layoff. 

Before the Wolves can consider themselves peers with the Thunder, or the defending champion Boston Celtics, their opponent Thursday night, they need to land on roster combinations and rotations that can be repeatedly synergistic. By now it’s no secret that the trading away of Karl-Anthony Towns (KAT) for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo (DDV) was more disruptive than anticipated, and finding a way to maximize Randle’s unique skill set while retaining the extraordinary skills that holdover core players at or near the top of the pecking order — Anthony Edwards, Gobert and Conley — has been a trial riddled with errors. 

Finch has done a great job activating Randle’s more complementary traits by rotating him in with personnel off the bench that space the floor and play at a faster pace. The rub here is that those bench players — DDV, Nickeil Alexander-Walker (NAW) and Naz Reid — are the trio getting the most out of their natural ability thus far this season. Thus far, they’ve been good with everybody. 

Sure, Randle has thrived while filling the “point forward” role in the second unit, in a manner somewhat similar to what Kyle “SloMo” Anderson did last season. But the fact is that Conley and Gobert thrived alongside the bench trio too; and when you toss Josh Minott in as the ninth man, he galvanizes that trio as a kindred spirit in ways the original starters can’t. 

Before the Wolves ran their winning streak to three with a victory over the Spurs last week, I asked Finch if a tweak in roles among the starters — putting Randle in on-ball defense against the opposing big so Gobert was allowed to roam more comfortably — was working because it plugged Randle into something KAT did for two seasons. 

Finch agreed that the familiarity helped Gobert and other holdovers and said, “We really love doing it. But you know every night, again, things are a little different, because of pick and rolls and other matchups on the floor and that kind of stuff. Last year we were able to settle into a rhythm and do it. This year it has kind of been a little bit more of a learning curve for us.”

The situation is similar to two seasons ago, when Finch and roster struggled to acclimate to a scheme and dynamic that would allow Gobert and KAT to flourish both individually and separately, according to rotations. The key difference this season is that it is far from certain whether the team both desires and can afford to incorporate Randle as a long-term piece in the organization. Even if he isn’t, it makes sense to boost his value for a potential trade in the next six weeks. But not if you’re messing with the crown jewels.

That would be Ant, the resident superstar and pervasive top priority. His fabulous three-point shooting has properly generated a lot of positive attention. Ditto his inspiring, verbal kick-in-the-pants to his teammates in late November, which crystallized better team-wide effort and focus.

But the uncomfortable fact is that Ant has not been the joyous force of nature and the crunchtime catalyst so vital to the team’s success the past two seasons — and he knows it. You can tell by his increasingly salty attitude toward the officiating, and his extended bouts of lassitude that used to primarily pockmark his play with respect to off-ball defense, but has invaded his offensive decision-making and initiation in recent weeks. 

For example, Ant played the vast majority of that third quarter on Tuesday night before heading to the bench with less than three minutes to play. During that 9:03, the box score has him down for one turnover and one personal foul. No shots, no dimes, no boards, no steals. By contrast, SGA, his superstar counterpart for OKC, had 19 points, a steal and a turnover. 

In prior seasons, Ant would have followed that disappearing act with some fireworks in the fourth quarter. But on Tuesday, although he did chip in two free throws, three rebounds and an assist, Ant missed four of five shots, including an airball corner three and a floater that hit the back iron in the final five minutes of the team’s attempted comeback.

Ant has reason to be frustrated by the lack of calls he receives from the officials. Among the top 20 scorers in the NBA, only Kyrie Irving (who is 19^th in points per game, compared to Ant being 15th) gets to the free-throw line less often. But it isn’t all a conspiracy theory. 

Ant’s three-point prowess has begun to shortchange other aspects of his game. His two-point attempts are less frequent than in all but his second season in the league and his accuracy on shots inside the arc is a career low. At least partly due to his relative inactivity in going to the hoop, he is getting to the line less frequently per 36 minutes than in any of his four prior seasons. Does making 41.5% of his treys on 13.3 attempts per game compensate for that? It’s more debatable than you might think.

One could argue that Ant’s shooting opens up the floor for others. But Ant’s own playmaking isn’t exploiting that virtue. His assists per 36 minutes are the lowest since his rookie season and his assist-to-turnover ratio is a career low. And despite that notoriously great shooting from long-range, his dropoff in free throw attempts and lower accuracy from two-point range actually makes his current true shooting percentage (57.4%) a smidgen below what it was last season (57.5%). 

A starting lineup that doesn’t work

Like almost everybody else on the team, Ant’s contributions become more rewarding, for himself and the team, when he’s playing with Naz, NAW and DDV. And whether it is the underappreciated versatility of KAT’s fit with the team or some combination of aging, unfamiliarity, or simply a stubbornly slow start, all of the four starters that were beside KAT have taken a step back this season. 

Last year, Gobert captained a phenomenal defense that was the best in the NBA nearly from start to finish, powered by a synergistic meld of Gobert’s willingness to trust his teammates and defend in space more often, and their ability to engender that trust with disciplined energy. This year has seen games in which Gobert has been overwhelmed by his matchup — KAT during the Knicks game and Houston’s Alperen Sengun the two times the Wolves have faced the Rockets. Whenever possible, putting Randle on the opposing big makes more sense — but then having Randle on the floor with Jaden McDaniels and Gobert obviously hamstrings the roles and comfort levels of Ant and Conley. 

Bottom line, the starting lineup doesn’t work, especially in terms of offense. And after 32 games, the sample size is becoming more conclusive. But how do you scramble it? Do you safeguard and enhance your top-notch talent and/or most expensive investments, or do you lean on their patience and flexibility for the sake of more long-term thinking? 

All things considered, it is somewhat reassuring that despite ongoing roster adjustments — and conversely, stubbornly inadequate status quos — and subpar seasons from core personnel, the Wolves remain firmly in the playoff hunt in the rugged West with a 17-15 record. After they swooned just before Thanksgiving, and flirted with a losing record even after recovering in mid-December, it felt like drastic action was warranted. And even today, the notion of tweaking the starters or getting serious about what the plans are for Randle’s future (and the chain reactions that inevitably ensue from that) are legitimate topics to put on the table.

But as the cliché goes, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Despite his ugly game (five turnovers) against OKC, NAW is an ongoing inspiration to witness. The defense and rebounding of DDV have more than compensated for inaccurate shooting and spotty playmaking — both of which have begun to improve. Josh Minott is a whirlwind and Julius Randle is a close-combat warrior at both ends of the court. Last but never least, Ant sets a ridiculously high bar and is thus very good even when he disappoints. 

It’s been a blurry season in terms of both performance and identity. And even if it clarifies, the picture likely won’t be as pretty as what is being watched in OKC.  But from the front office down through the end of the bench, this is a franchise with talent and ambition, its future continually intriguing until further notice.

Britt Robson

Britt Robson has covered the Timberwolves since 1990 for City Pages, The Rake, SportsIllustrated.com and The Athletic. He also has written about all forms and styles of music for over 30 years.

The post After being outclassed by the Thunder, Ant and the Wolves still searching for the magic of last season appeared first on MinnPost.

Never a dull moment around here, is there? The year in Minnesota sports began with three unexpected championships and one notable firing, and ended with the local NFL team rolling with a new quarterback and the baseball team up for sale.

So let’s get right to it: Here are the Seven Top Minnesota Sports Stories of 2024, from No. 7 to No. 1. Your list may vary.

7. Minnesota State men’s and women’s basketball teams win NCAA Division II championships.

It’s hard enough to win one of these, let alone two by the same university in the same season. But that’s what happened on consecutive days in March.

First the Maverick women, a No. 5 seed, dispatched Texas Women’s University 89-73 in St. Joseph, Mo., to win its first NCAA title since 2009. Sophomore Natalie Bremer of Lake City won the Elite Eight Outstanding Player Award, scoring 27 points in the final and 70 in the final three games for the Mavs (32-5).

Then in Evansville, Ind., the Maverick men pulled out an 88-85 victory over Nova Southeastern, with Kyreese Willingham hitting the game-winning three-pointer from the corner off a feed from his brother Malik, the Elite Eight MVP. The Mavs (35-2) had never won a men’s basketball championship. 

Months later MSU nearly bagged a third NCAA title, as the women’s soccer team (18-2-7) advanced to the final before losing 2-1 to Cal Poly Pomona. That’s some year for the folks in Mankato.

6. Kirk Cousins leaves the Minnesota Vikings in free agency.

Cousins always struck me as a guy who played well enough to give Vikings fans hope, but not well enough to deliver a Super Bowl. With Cousins approaching age 36 and coming off a ruptured Achilles tendon, the Vikings declined to offer him a multi-year extension this off-season. So Cousins grabbed a four-year, $180 million offer from Atlanta, with $100 million guaranteed.

So far, it’s working out great — for the Vikings. 

Sam Darnold, an underachiever with the Jets and Carolina and a backup in San Francisco, excelled after arriving in Minnesota as a one-year stopgap, leading the Vikings to five consecutive victories to start the season and a 12-2 mark by mid-December. Against Atlanta and Cousins on Dec. 8, Darnold threw for a career-high 347 yards and five touchdowns in a 42-21 victory. And Cousins, after nine interceptions and only one TD pass in a five-game stretch, soon lost his starting job to rookie Michael Penix Jr.

5. The Minnesota Lynx make the WNBA finals.

Lynx Coach Cheryl Reeve challenged captain Napheesa Collier before the season to put herself in the conversation for league MVP and Defensive Player of the Year.

Collier did just that, establishing herself as one of the WNBA’s best players in a season that saw her win DPOY, finish second in the MVP balloting and carry the Lynx to within a jump shot of its first league title since 2017. All-Star Kayla McBride and free agent newcomers Courtney Williams and Alanna Smith helped Collier lift the Lynx from middle-of-the-pack to championship contenders.

Bandwagon jumpers discovered the surging Lynx late; crowds of more than 19,000 turned out for Games 3 and 4 of the WNBA Finals at the Target Center, with the Game 3 total of 19,521 breaking the club record. That the New York Liberty prevailed in overtime in Game 5, 67-62, still stings with the players, some of whom returned to Minneapolis this fall to prepare for 2025.    

4. The Minnesota Timberwolves trade Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks.

This was an even bigger shock than the Timberwolves making the Western Conference finals last spring for the first time in 20 years. President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly sent the popular Towns, the last player remaining from the late Flip Saunders’ tenure with the club, to New York in a multi-player, three-team deal in early October to gain salary cap flexibility.

The New Jersey-raised Towns got to go home in a sense and move back to center, his best position. Tortured Wolves fans shouldn’t be surprised that Towns is thriving in New York under former Wolves Coach Tom Thibodeau, averaging 24.8 points per game while leading the NBA in rebounding (13.9) through Dec. 18. 

The Wolves, meanwhile, struggled early as former Knicks Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo adjusted to their new teammates and new surroundings, and co-owners Glen Taylor, Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez went to arbitration to settle purchase issues. 

3. Suni Lee and Regan Smith win Olympic gold medals.

Lee, the defending artistic gymnastics all-around champion from St. Paul, overcame a debilitating kidney ailment to win a team gold medal and bronzes in the all-around and uneven bars at the Summer Olympics in Paris. That gave Lee six career Olympic medals, tied for third-most by an American gymnast. 

Earlier, Lee delivered a stunning performance at the Olympic Trials at Target Center in June, taking second in the all-around to Simone Biles and winning the uneven bars — a triumphant homecoming for Minnesota’s most accomplished Hmong-American athlete.

Smith, of Lakeville, won five medals in Paris — silvers in the 100- and 200-meter backstrokes and 200 butterfly, and golds on two world record-setting relays. Smith now owns eight Olympic medals, the most by any Minnesotan. 

In all, Minnesota athletes brought home 12 medals from Paris, matching the 2021 haul in Tokyo for the most by our state at a single Games. It’s 14 if you count part-year Minnesota residents Anthony Edwards (men’s basketball) and Napheesa Collier (women’s basketball). 

2.  PWHL Minnesota GM Natalie Darwitz is fired after winning the league championship.

League officials dismissed Darwitz, the Hockey Hall of Famer and Minnesota women’s hockey icon, nine days after the team she assembled won the Walter Cup title. Locally, it spoiled an otherwise terrific inaugural season for the Professional Women’s Hockey League, the latest and best-funded attempt to establish women’s pro hockey in North America.

Darwitz’s accomplishments included securing ice time and locker room space at TRIA Rink, the Wild’s practice site, and arranging for home games at Xcel Energy Center. PWHL Minnesota (now the Minnesota Frost) was the only club in the league to play regularly in an NHL building. The club drew 13,316 on Opening Night, and its average attendance of 7,138 trailed only Ottawa (7,496).

Minnesota barely qualified for the playoffs after losing its last five games, then rebounded to oust Toronto and Boston in consecutive series to win the championship, with former University of Minnesota star Taylor Heise winning the playoff MVP award.  

But Darwitz and Coach Ken Klee didn’t get along, according to media reports, and the league resolved the conflict by firing Darwitz after a lengthy review. Klee had been Darwitz’s second choice as coach, brought on after Charlie Burggraf resigned unexpectedly a week before the first game. 

1. The owners of the Minnesota Twins consider selling the team.

This one took everyone by surprise. Forty years after Carl Pohlad bought the club from Calvin Griffith, grandson and executive chair Joe Pohlad announced in October the family would “explore selling the Twins.” Pohlad’s statement didn’t go into why, and he hasn’t spoken publicly about it since.

It followed a torturous season where fans vilified Pohlad and the club for reducing payroll by $25 million, in response to a sizable drop in local TV revenue from the Diamond Sports Group’s bankruptcy restructuring. 

The Twins weren’t the only MLB club that cut back spending. But Pohlad took heat for making what he called “a very difficult business decision,” one he defended in late September after the Twins collapsed the final six weeks to miss the playoffs. Pohlad aptly called that 12-27 finish a “trainwreck” as the Twins again failed to draw two million fans, a baseline number the club hasn’t exceeded since 2019.   

The “explore selling” part of the statement gives the family wiggle room to change its mind, though the windfall from a sale (well north of $1 billion, based on recent valuations) may be too lucrative for the Pohlad grandchildren uninterested in owning a team to pass up. 

Via media reports, potential buyers have emerged: Marty Davis, the Cambria CEO and former co-owner of Sun Country Airlines; and Mat and Justin Ishbia, billionaire brothers who own the Phoenix Suns and Mercury and made their money in high finance. Expect the process to last well into next summer.

Pat Borzi

Pat Borzi is a contributing writer to MinnPost. Follow him on Twitter @BorzMN.

The post Wins, losses and departures: The top stories of 2024 in Minnesota sports appeared first on MinnPost.

It’s as predictable as snowfall in Duluth. Every November and December, college basketball fans gather in person, in chat rooms or on social media to gripe about their favorite team’s non-conference schedule.

In most locales, the complaints feature some variation of, Why are we paying full price to watch our team play so many nobodies? In Minnesota, that’s generally directed at the University of Minnesota men’s and women’s teams. But with St. Thomas joining the Gophers in Division I, additional questions arise unique to this market.

That includes:

Why can’t the Gopher men get “blue blood” teams to come play at Williams Arena, like the women did last year with UConn?

Why do the St. Thomas men and women still play Division III teams?

And, most provocatively: Are the Gophers and Tommies ever going to play each other?

For the latter, expect it to happen on the women’s side long before the men get around to it. (More on that later.) 

MinnPost spoke to coaches at all four programs to learn why their schedules are the way they are, and how much NCAA-driven mathematical formulas and analytics factor into their scheduling. Short answer: A lot more than people realize. 

“Everything is numbers-based now,” said Minnesota men’s coach Ben Johnson. “I get it. Fans aren’t supposed to know all this stuff. But we never make decisions on a whim. So much goes into it.”

Each program approaches things slightly differently, so we’ll deal with them separately.

(Disclosure: The author is a student journalism adviser at St. Thomas.)

University of Minnesota men

For the Gophers, it’s all about the NET — the NCAA Evaluation Tool rankings, which the NCAA adopted in 2018-19 to replace Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) for choosing and seeding the NCAA Tournament.  It’s a complicated formula that considers results, strength of schedule, margin of victories and several other factors in ranking all 364 teams in Division I.

For coaches like Johnson in Power Five conferences, the goal is crafting a schedule that produces a high enough NET ranking to secure an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament. It takes the right mix of quality opponents (i.e. likely NCAA Tournament teams) and winnable games (vs. mid-majors or teams with a NET ranking or 300 of higher). Add nine to 11 more wins in conference play, Johnson says, and your team should be in good shape. 

Head coaches generally delegate a staffer to contact potential opponents; assistant athletic director Ryan Livingston handles it for the Gophers. But Johnson says it takes a ton of research to identify the right teams, especially with the transfer portal leaving so many rosters in flux well into the summer. Schedules used to be locked in by springtime; now they often take until August or September.  

“I don’t think the outside world always sees what goes into scheduling,” Johnson said. 

All teams want lots of home games to maximize revenue and limit missed class time. Optimally, Power Five teams seek home-and-home deals — we play one year at your place, the next year at ours, or vice versa. Failing that, Power Fives offer to pay opponents to come to play them at home, arrangements known as “buy games.” Per industry sources, payouts range from $30,000 to $100,000 depending on timing and resources. The U paid $478,000 for buy games in 2022-23, according to its most recent NCAA Financial Report.

For mid-majors like Bethune-Cookman, which played at Williams Arena earlier this month, buy games help pay the bills. But not every team can be bought, or agree to travel to Minnesota in December.

“I’m humble enough to know we ain’t getting Duke to come here home and home,” Johnson said. “In the history of our program, we’ve never had teams like that. So you’ve got to think about, if you’re going to go home and home with a Power Five, who’s comparable to us that we could get realistically and also give us a chance to win, but at the same time we think is going to be a good (NET) numbers game?” 

Take this season’s schedule. With three starters gone and 11 new players to break in, Johnson said he sought teams that resembled specific Big Ten opponents.

Yale isn’t Duke, but last year it made the NCAA Tournament and upset Auburn in the first round; Johnson said it runs an offensive system similar to Northwestern and Wisconsin. (The Gophs needed a late rally to beat the Bulldogs by three.) North Texas played intense, physical defense, like Michigan State, in upsetting the Gophs 54-51. 

Wake Forest, highly rated in the Atlantic Coast Conference, brought athleticism. Wichita State, with five high-major transfers, plays up-tempo with a smaller lineup. (Minnesota lost to both in a tournament in Orlando.) And Fairleigh Dickinson comes in later this week with a 22-point scorer in Minneapolis product Terrence Brown, posing a defensive challenge for Johnson’s guards.

Non-conference games at Williams Arena tend to draw fewer fans than Big Ten games, and local clamoring for the Gophers to play St. Thomas to boost attendance continues. Johnson says he isn’t interested because there’s little benefit for his team, something he experienced firsthand earlier in his career.

As an assistant at Northern Iowa in December 2009, Johnson watched the mid-major Panthers beat Iowa convincingly at home. Though that was one of UNI’s best seasons — it won the Missouri Valley Conference and shocked top-ranked Kansas in the NCAA Tournament — Iowa still took heat in the state for losing. Eventually, Iowa stopped scheduling UNI and Drake, its other in-state mid-major.

“It’s my job to do right for this program,” Johnson said. “I can’t worry about any of the outside stuff. Does it make sense for Minnesota basketball, for my kids, to play a game like that, that all it is is a risk for us? Because I know what the narrative is going to be. 

“If we lose, it’s going to be talked about forever, and everybody’s going to bring up that, forever. If we win — and again, this is not me being negative, but I know what it’s going to be — let’s nitpick the win. What did they win by? They won by 10? Oh my God, they only beat them by 10. They won by 15? Ah, they won by 15 or 20, but with 10 minutes to go it was a one-point game. You know what I mean? I don’t need my guys reading about that, dealing with that.

“So I get it. I totally understand it. From my lens, does it benefit our program in any way? I think it’s really hard to justify why that would benefit us, when I feel there’s so much to lose.”

University of Minnesota women

Second-year Gophers coach Dawn Plitzuweit crafts her team’s schedule much like Johnson, with NET and an at-large NCAA bid in mind. She researched how other Big Ten teams did it and tried to follow that pattern. It’s a strategy Plitzuweit learned from Brian Kelly, the former Notre Dame football coach now at Louisiana State, when both coached at Division II Grand Valley State in Michigan.

“You have to study teams that have done what you’re trying to do, and take a deep dive into how they’ve scheduled and try to emulate that to the best of your ability,” Plitzuweit said. “The analytics and metrics of it definitely play factors in how you want to schedule in your non-conference, absolutely.”

Last year Plitzuweit inherited much of her non-conference schedule from predecessor Lindsay Whalen, including that game with UConn, a homecoming for Hopkins product Paige Bueckers. This year, Plitzuweit asked associate head coach Jason Jeschke, who handles the schedule, to make some changes. 

The Gophs added out-of-state tournaments in Tempe, Arizona, and New Orleans to get used to traveling and playing on consecutive days. At home, they tried to mix challenging opponents with likely wins. Though losing top scorer Mara Braun to a broken bone in her right foot, Minnesota started 10-0 before losing its Big Ten opener at Nebraska.

“We were intentional about playing (teams with) different styles,” Plitzuweit said. “That’s what you see in the Big Ten. In that aspect, it’s been really good. Now we can go back and show film to our team of a non-conference opponent and what they did, and then a conference opponent. That is beneficial for sure.”

Unlike Johnson, Plitzuweit said she’s open to scheduling a game with St. Thomas at some point. Plitzuweit said she knows Tommies Coach Ruth Sinn from her Summit League days at South Dakota, and last season tried to arrange a closed preseason scrimmage with St. Thomas. 

“Is it something we would do in the future if they’re interested in doing it? Yeah. I think that could be a good possibility, I really do,” Plitzuweit said. “Year One, it just didn’t work. I don’t think we had conversations about it this year. But in the future, I do think that it makes sense.”

St. Thomas men

Tommies Associate Head Coach Mike Maker dreams big. He sees a day where St. Thomas plays the nation’s premier Catholic schools  — Notre Dame, Gonzaga, Boston College and Villanova — as well as regional Catholic opponents like DePaul, and even some Big Ten schools.

It’s not happening yet because, well, the Tommies are too competitive. Close games with nationally-ranked Creighton and Marquette the last two seasons made Maker’s scheduling job that much harder.

After Arizona State beat St. Thomas 81-66 earlier this season, a game where the Tommies trailed by three with eight minutes left, Sun Devils Coach Bobby Hurley said, “There are easier teams that you most likely could find to play than this one.” Power Fives seek mid-majors they can beat by 20 points or more to help their NET rankings. That’s no guarantee with the Tommies, who briefly cracked the NET Top 100 earlier this season, so Maker hears a lot of nos. 

“You can only play someone that’s a willing dance partner,” said Maker, a former assistant at West Virginia, Creighton, Samford and Dartmouth and a head coach at Marist. “As we’ve gotten better, it’s become more and more challenging to find willing dance partners within our parameters, to get a competitive schedule and the right schedule for us.”

The Big Sky-Summit Challenge series guarantees St. Thomas two games every season, home and away. But Western Illinois’ departure from the Summit League meant Maker had to find two more non-conference games.

St. Thomas is in no position to “buy” opponents, either. None of its teams belongs to a conference with a lucrative television contract, and Tommie athletics is still being subsidized by the university as part of its five-year transition from Division III. The scarcity of non-conference Division I teams within bus distance of St. Paul doesn’t help, either. 

So Maker filled out the home schedule with three Division III schools — Crown, North Central, and St. Norbert from Green Bay. Those one-sided victories make up one-third of the season win total for the 9-4 Tommies. Summit League schools in the Dakotas have the same issue, with even fewer options.

“The average amount of non-Division I home games for our league is over three games a year,” Maker said. “Maybe someday we won’t play them. But until the landscape changes, they’re a necessity right now to make sure we’re not on the road all the time.”

With the 5,000-capacity Lee and Penny Anderson Arena on campus set to open next fall, Maker is trying to land a marquee opponent for the first game. “Those are really challenging to get,” he said. “But we can all dream, and my job is to find the right dance partner that’s willing to do that.”

St. Thomas women 

In one sense, scheduling has been a little easier for the Tommie women, who got Iowa State and Wisconsin to come to 1,800-capacity Schoenecker Arena on campus in previous seasons. But it took Coach Ruth Sinn signing off on a 2-for-1 arrangement, committing to two games at Ames and Madison, respectfully, in exchange for the one home game. That’s the only incentive the Tommies can offer.

“Those are the compromises we have to make to get some of these teams,” Sinn said.

Assistant coach Kyle Lurvey handles scheduling for St. Thomas. Though regional opponents Milwaukee and Drake agreed to come to St. Paul this season, the 7-4 Tommies still needed home games with Crown and Macalester to balance out November road trips to Northern Illinois, Iowa State, Oakland (Michigan) and Wichita State.

“To get home games, we’ve got to have a willing participant,” Sinn said. “If we can offer anything, we can offer a home-and-home. Otherwise, getting someone to come here is not something we can do, or other teams will take us up on.”

Sinn believes playing the Gophers, even at Williams Arena, would dramatically boost women’s basketball statewide. She points to Iowa, where, unlike the men, all four Division I schools still play each other. Iowa kids who commit to Drake and UNI know they’ll play at Iowa and Iowa State in their careers, a big selling point for in-state recruiting.  

“In doing so, they’re building a kind of camaraderie and excitement around women’s basketball at the state of Iowa,” Sinn said. “You go to some of those games, it’s sold out, and it’s exciting. That’s the difficulty with us. Being a metro school, we don’t have that rivalry, number one, and we don’t have that sense of, how are we growing women’s basketball in the state of Minnesota right now?”

Pat Borzi

Pat Borzi is a contributing writer to MinnPost. Follow him on Twitter @BorzMN.

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