Will Minnesota Timberwolves know enough by the NBA Trade Deadline?

The Minnesota Timberwolves are currently 11-11, a team that has flashed some good, some bad, and some ugly so far in the first quarter of the 2022-23 NBA season. In some ways, the team simply needs more time, and with it, the chance to start measuring what can the Timberwolves roster can and cannot do.

You think that now that the team is entering December 2022, the ins and outs of the new roster configuration would be known by both the players and the coaches. But the delay to get everyone onto the same basketball court at the same time, only occurring for the first time in their last preseason game against the Brooklyn Nets, has pushed everything into the regular season, and the on-the-job training methods. For that reason, a team at .500 at 11-11 is actually a pretty good showing.

Ah, but not to some fans, who have already begun to get cold feet. Some want the Timberwolves to retreat already, and toss an injured Karl-Anthony Towns onto the trade block. Some sites have sensed the nervousness of some fans, and begun to cite ‘finger pointing going on in the Wolves front office,‘ as the Timberwolves have not already begun to dominate the entire NBA.

The truth is that the Minnesota Timberwolves are blazing a new trail that could force all other 29 teams in the entire league of professional basketball to rethink their own strategy. That, unfortunately, takes time. At a time where almost everything our heart’s desire is just a point and click away, the timeframe for these Minnesota Timberwolves players is still mired in patience, coaching, and communication, none of which is a particularly strong suit for outspoken Timberwolves fans who want success now.

NBA Trade Deadline

The NBA Trade Deadline for the 2022-23 NBA season occurs on February 9, 2023, and 2:00 pm CT. At that point in time, it will be ‘pencils down, everyone,’ for the Minnesota Timberwolves front office, and all 30 NBA teams, who are attempting to jockey for position to improve their roster one final time to optimize everything and everyone for an NBA Playoff push.

Some teams will be quite active this season at the deadline. But what of the Minnesota Timberwolves? Will the team that got such a late start on meshing all of the players together have a good handle on what this team needs in time to optimize this roster by the NBA Trade Deadline? I have my doubts, and here’s why:

Even as the Timberwolves are starting to take notes on the effectiveness of various lineup combinations and when to tap the strength of the Timberwolves roster off the bench, there are still far too many young players who are still unknown at this point.

If the Timberwolves need 30 games at 30+ minutes to know what they have in their five starters, how many games will it take at under 20 minutes to gauge how effective the team’s perimeter shooting is? How many games at under 10 minutes to gauge whether some players can be relied upon to step up if need be either late in the season or even in the NBA Playoffs?

This was never going to be a plug-and-play roster. The Timberwolves failed to assemble all of the pieces onto a basketball court until the season began, so why the rush to risk making the wrong decision on impartial information? Better to be patient, let the dust settle, and make the obvious choices in the off-season. Of course, a tweak or two to the roster could be warranted. And there is always the chance of adding veteran help after some underperforming teams commit to buying out contracts. But that is another story for another time.