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Minnesota Timberwolves Rudy Gobert is 3rd piece to NBA Championship

Minnesota Timberwolves Rudy Gobert is 3rd piece to NBA Championship

Do you see the beauty in the Minnesota Timberwolves adding a third elite player to their roster? What am I talking about? Well, the Timberwolve have relied upon the roster-building strategy of one Sachin Gupta, the right-hand man of the infamous and former GM of the Philadelphia 76ers, Sam Hinkie. The plan for the 76ers then (when the team tanked) is the same as the plan for the Minnesota Timberwolves today: Get three elite NBA stars on the roster. And do it all costs.

Well, if you feel that the Utah Jazz raked the Timberwolves over hot coals in this one, I may be able to help calm your nerves a little. Let’s assume that the Minnesota Timberwolves believe that their core of Karl Anthony Town and Anthony Edwards make up two elite NBA pieces to a potential NBA Championship roster.

What would you do to add that third and final championship roster piece?

The NBA has built a lot of speed bumps to prevent that from happening. The NBA salary cap is one very formidable wall and prevents the Timberwolves from just signing stars outright. So, the Minnesota Timberwolves are at the mercy of the NBA Trade route.

And there is where the second NBA speed bump kicks in.

The multi-valued NBA Draft picks

NBA teams that succeed in the regular season get punished via the NBA Draft. Or you could view it as the teams that struggle in the regular season getting rewarded in the next draft. In either case, the NBA’s first-round picks are not nearly as valuable for successful teams. But NBA fans, particularly casual fans, do not make that distinction.

How many second-round draft picks is a player like Rudy Gobert worth?Β  Five? Ten? If the Minnesota Timberwolves front office has a good handle on what Gobert can mean to the Timberwolves, then the next five seasons of the Timberwolves’ projected draft picks will be no better than the 27th through 30th overall spots.Β  A second-round pick in the NBA begins at 31. See where this is going?

I loved what the Minnesota Timberwolves did in the 2022 NBA Draft. But even as I saw what the Timberwolves added, I did not see a single player who could move the needle for the team for the 2022-23 NBA season.

I do now.

Rudy Gobert is not the type of player the Minnesota Timberwolves will have an opportunity to add in the future. Either another NBA will have swooped in upon realizing that he could be acquired via an NBA trade, or the Utah Jazz would realize just how uniquely valuable Gobert is, and either upped the asking price or pulled him from the…

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