Timberwolves' 2024 Surge: Overcoming Pitfalls, Edwards' Rise

Dive into the 2024 Timberwolves' journey, navigating pitfalls, witnessing Edwards' ascent, and unraveling the rotation puzzle. What defines their path to success?

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There is something somewhat jarring about this Minnesota Timberwolves team. For years, we watched superior teams toy with them, watched them blow big leads or roll over after a slow start. While the 2024 Timberwolves have had their dud performances, their 18-5 start feels more credible because they have avoided these pitfalls. Consider the past week:

On Saturday, the Timberwolves beat the 6-17 Grizzlies 127-103 but held a slim five-point lead at the half. After never leading by more than nine and shooting just 41 percent from the field in the first half, Karl-Anthony Towns, Mike Conley and Troy Brown Jr. combined for 10-for-14 shooting and 28 points in the third quarter. The Grizzlies shot 36 percent in the quarter and there were zero second-half lead changes en route to the win.

Luka Doncic began Thursday’s game against Minnesota with 16 points, four assists and two rebounds in the first quarter. The Mavericks got up to an early 19-4 lead at home and you watched it wondering if this would be like Monday’s loss to New Orleans or November’s loss to Sacramento. Over the final 40 minutes, the Timberwolves outscored the Mavericks 115-82 for a key win over another playoff contender, albeit without Kyrie Irving.

In the past, better teams would let the Timberwolves hang with them for three quarters before turning on the jets, playing down to inferior competition or accepting their fate too early.

Even with Monday’s loss to the Pelicans on the road and without Anthony Edwards, the Timberwolves are still playing at a 64-win pace. Realistically, some regression is probably coming since 64 is an incredible number of wins, especially with the schedule toughening over the next month. Even that fabled 2004 Wolves team won 58, great as they were. However, the trends we have seen from Minnesota over the first quarter of the season tell us this team should still compete for that top seed in the West. Denver has reclaimed the second seed in the conference while Oklahoma City falls to third place and is 6-4 over their last 10. The Thunder are a good and fun team, but they lack the experience of the Nuggets and even the Timberwolves.

Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers come to town on Saturday night in what should be a great game and test for this Timberwolves team. I have talked about the need to win these non-conference games even though they do not have effects on things like tiebreakers, they do add up. Getting up for games against Eastern Conference teams, especially at home, would be another historical trend to reverse.

Who Succeeds Mike Conley?

The Timberwolves’ veteran point guard is in the midst of another strong season. At age 36, Conley is averaging 11.5 points and 6.0 assists per game on 45.2 percent shooting from the field and 43 percent on 3-pointers. Age aside, Conley is also a pending unrestricted free agent, begging the question: who plays point guard or lead ball handler in the future?

While the Timberwolves could re-sign Conley this summer, what if the team eschews customs and has Edwards bring the ball up and get the team into their offense? Edwards has a usage rate that is twice as high as Conley’s, but the two account for a similar percentage of their team’s assists when they are on the floor (28 percent for Conley vs 25 percent for Edwards) and a similar percentage of turnovers (12 percent for Edwards, 10 percent for Conley).

We know Edwards is more than capable of getting and creating his own shots, but he has grown as a facilitator and the team has used him in this role at times.

Right now, the more Edwards has the ball, the better. Good things happen when Edwards has the ball. This team has weapons all over the floor and combined with his scoring threat, Edwards can be a lethal distributor like we see above. If the team is concerned about too much burden on Edwards, maybe they re-sign Conley short term or look at a quality, responsible point guard like Tyus Jones or Monte Morris to pair with him.

Can Troy Brown Jr. Find Minutes?

Losing Jaden McDaniels for eight games certainly created some matchup issues for the Timberwolves. However, McDaniels’ absence created an opportunity for someone on the bench. That someone was Troy Brown Jr., who averaged 9.8 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists on 54.9 percent field goal shooting and 47.2 percent shooting from deep in 24 minutes per game while McDaniels was out.

Before then, Brown appeared in nine games, averaging 8.3 minutes per game with poor shooting while dropping 2.3 points and grabbing 2.3 rebounds per game.

Brown has been a solid role/rotation player throughout his career and is just 24 years old. Given the opportunity, he has shown that he can be effective. The challenge is that McDaniels is deserving of starters’ minutes and with Towns, Rudy Gobert and Naz Reid also needing playing time, minutes for Brown may be tough. Yet, it appears there is something here with Brown and could be worthwhile to find him ongoing minutes. Like Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Brown does not need the ball much to be effective. If Chris Finch can effectively deploy Brown, Alexander-Walker and Kyle Anderson, the Timberwolves could boast a nice bench wing rotation.

Another reason to expand Edwards’ lead guard responsibilities when Conley needs a rest could be to work some of these wings into the rotation. Brown and Alexander-Walker can catch-and-shoot well, while Anderson can handle the ball a bit. The Timberwolves may not have needed another perimeter mouth to feed and would probably still like Shake Milton to get going, but this team is showing they can roll out a strong 8-9-man rotation.