Timberwolves should trade Russell, find pass-first point guard

*Editor’s Note: this opinion was submitted on Monday, Feb. 6 before Russell was officially traded.*

For many Minnesota Timberwolves fans, the feelings of disappointment, sadness and frustration are all common. Although those feelings are still present, this year feels different; they cut deeper. As many of us know with major offseason moves, the fan base rejoiced. After one of the best seasons that I could remember, we all felt excited for once. After trading for someone who has won Defensive Player of the Year three times, we felt like the Wolves were primed for success. Clearly our hometown team has continued the Minnesota tradition of underperforming.

When we look at teams who have had championship success in the past, they only have had two elite offensive options. The only exception to that statement is the Chicago Bulls from the 90’s and the Miami Heat of the mid 2010’s. There is one common denominator in that anomaly, and it’s having players in the category of “Greatest of All Time”. Clearly Anthony Edwards (ANT) is a star, but he isn’t anywhere near the level of Jordan or LeBron. Sure, each team will have other key assets such as a defensive stud or rebounding wizard.

Offensively, if you want to win, you want two cooks in the kitchen. Unfortunately, the Wolves do not fall into that category. Karl-Anthony Towns (KAT) and ANT have established that our offense should be running through them with their skill level. Where we have problems is our point guard. D’Angelo Russell is a scoring-first point guard, looking for shots first, rather than ways to create open looks for ANT and KAT. Initially, there is nothing wrong with that, except ANT and KAT have stablished themselves as stars with a specialty in scoring.

As frustrating as KAT has been at times displaying a complete lack of maturity, I think he must stay in a key offensive role if they want to succeed. ANT has proved that he can be our guy. He has a killer instinct and can lead the Wolves down the stretch in close games. Unfortunately, up until this point, KAT has not displayed any killer instinct and will have to take a second option role when he returns. Rudy Gobert has caught a lot of hate, yet it also took Donovan Mitchell a year to adjust to Gobert’s play style and for those two to truly succeed in Utah. Our best option is moving D’Angelo Russell before the trade deadline this Thursday and getting a pass-first point guard. This will allow our offense to solely run throught ANT and KAT with a bail out lob option in Gobert.

I have seen stats about the way our top defensive performers play significantly worse against bad teams, and the bail out rhetoric is “they just don’t know how to play against bad players because they play to defend stars.” At the end of the day, they’re NBA players. They should excel when the competition is worse, and keep in mind that these “bad players” are still professionals, regardless of skill.

Personally, I think this underperfomance falls on the coaching staff and head coach Chris Finch. He allows his players to play down to the competition. Finch coaches with a “player responsibility” philosophy which is good; however, they have a young, inexperienced roster. There needs to be a different tone to help lead these young stars to succeed at this level.