Timberwolves replacing former youth movement with veteran presence
Last year, the Timberwolves returned to the playoffs with a young, exciting roster. Now they're going old.
A proposed three-team trade has the Minnesota Timberwolves trading away 26-year-old point guard D'Angelo Russell to get 35-year-old point guard Mike Conley Jr. in return.
This comes on the heels of team president Tim Connelly's first big move, trading for 30-year-old center Rudy Gobert.
Connelly traded away five future picks, but also Walker Kessler (21 years old), Jarred Vanderbilt (23), Malik Beasley (26) and Leandro Bolmaro (22).
They went from the fifth-youngest team in the NBA last year to the 12th-youngest team, and Conley would make them much older.
Russell is in the final year of his contract, and the Timberwolves were unable, or unwilling, to reach an extension with the young guard.
He is good friends with franchise cornerstone Karl-Anthony Towns, part of why Minnesota traded Andrew Wiggins and a first-round pick (that became Jonathan Kuminga) to get him in 2020.
Getting Conley does give Minnesota a more traditional point guard to pair with young phenom Anthony Edwards.
And Conley is signed for next season, a $24.3M deal that's partially-guaranteed for $14.2M. It also reunites Conley with his old Utah teammate Gobert.
But in Conley and Gobert's three seasons together in Utah, they won one playoff series. Last year, they won two playoff games, exactly the same as the Timberwolves.
Next year, they'll be committing over $65M to a 31-year-old center and a 36-year-old point guard, both of whom have shown signs of decline this year. At least they have good chemistry!
We'll see if Conley helps the team's 23rd-ranked offense. Or if Towns is upset that his friend got traded. As of now, it feels like the Timberwolves are doubling down on the mistake of the Gobert deal by getting even older.
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