Frederick: Does this formula work? Timberwolves don’t have look of title contender

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May 16, 2026 - 09:09

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Frederick: Does this formula work? Timberwolves don’t have look of title contender

Ever since Minnesota acquired Rudy Gobert via trade back in the summer of 2022, the team’s identity was clear: The Wolves would be big, strong and athletic.

In the beginning, the construction was headlined by a pair of 7-footers — Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns. Good luck grabbing a rebound over those two, was the thought. Since then, it’s evolved into a team that no longer features Towns, but maintained its length.

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said teams either need to present opponents with a problem or supply a solution.

“You’ve either got to be built in a way that troubles the opponent with something they don’t have, or you’ve got to have a counter to what they do have,” Finch said. “I’m sure GMs across the league, these are things they wrestle with all the time.”

Length and athleticism have been Minnesota’s primary problems raised to opponents.

Minnesota can trot out lineups that feature the likes of Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, Terrence Shannon Jr. and Julius Randle all around Gobert. The Wolves occasionally workshopped “three bigs” lineups including Randle, Gobert and Naz Reid. They didn’t start a traditional point guard for much of the season.

Big. Strong. Athlethic.

Frankly, the Wolves’ format makes sense. Those are three adjectives you’d use to describe Edwards. The identity of the team usually eminates from the identity of the best player. With Edwards and Gobert serving as the heads of the snake, perhaps the Wolves could physically overwhelm opponents.

And they did. At least against a large number of teams.

Over the past three seasons, the Wolves have logged playoff series victories over Denver (2x), Phoenix, the Lakers and Golden State. Some of those teams were aging. Some were skill-based. None featured defensive rim protectors.

All allowed Minnesota to dictate the game’s terms. So the Wolves harrassed each opponent, one by one making the opposition bend to their will, generally looking dominant in the process.

“Size matters,” Gobert said during these playoffs.

The plan worked. That cannot be denied. Minnesota has achieved more playoff success over the past three seasons than it ever could have dreamed possible over the franchise’s first three-plus decades. This is a formula for success.

But is it a championship concoction? Not whenever the Wolves run into a team that can match or at least withstand their onslaught of athleticism.

San Antonio this season and Oklahoma City last seem comfortable with Minnesota’s preferred style of play. The Thunder have twin towers of their own on the interior. The Spurs have a 7-foot-5 “alien” in Victor Wembanyama. Those frontcourts negate many of Minnesota’s advantages.

Which leaves the Wolves with … nothing? That’s how it looked in last year’s West Finals and this year’s second round. It’s not only that Minnesota didn’t win the championship in any of these last three seasons, it’s that it wasn’t close in any of those trips.

Dallas downed the Wolves in five games in the 2024 West Finals, the exact same result Oklahoma City delivered last year. The Spurs bludgeoning is just the latest result to be added to the list.

With perimeter defenders who could stand up drives and a big man who controls the paint, the San Antonio defense caused Minnesota’s offense to stall.

The Spurs had too many ball handlers for the Wolves’ defense to be able to pressure San Antonio into the types of bad possessions that spark energy going the other way for Minnesota.

“I felt like we kinda ran out of bullets as this series went on,” Finch said.

Minnesota’s size and strength weren’t effective, and there were no more cards to play.

For the third straight season, the Wolves knocked on the door of championship contention, but certainly didn’t kick it down. You could say Minnesota simply ran into another bad matchup, but when in the near future does anyone project the Thunder nor Spurs to be standing in the path of a team with title aspirations?

The Wolves’ roster works well against Denver, but not against the current class of the Western Conference. Size and athleticism is great, but works best when paired with additional ball handling and the ability to read and react to the game in real time.

Minnesota may have to sacrifice some of its strength to round out an identity that can’t just beat a few Western Conference playoff teams, but all of them. That’s not to say Tim Connelly’s original hypothesis was incorrect, but circumstances have changed, New data suggests Minnesota’s current form isn’t one that can compete for a championship.

It may be time to test a new theory.