The KAT trade is now completed, with each team’s announcement of the deal. With that, Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo will enter Timberwolves training camp, and Coach Chris Finch will begin to incorporate each into his lineups and greater plans for the upcoming season.
Reactions to the trade for the Wolves’ end of it have been mixed, skewing toward slightly positive — at least from objective voices outside Wolves Nation. Britt Robson was supportive of it, based on the totality of the salary-cap circumstances. In a recent podcast, Bill Simmons seemed to sort of like it for the Wolves, while his guest Rob Mahoney seemed to sort of not like it for the Wolves. John Hollinger likes it for the Wolves. A great deal of Timberwolves Twitter, that I won’t attempt to link here but just trust me that it’s out there, dislikes the trade for the Wolves.
There are reasons for both sides, for sure, even beyond the basic fan loyalties that attached to Karl-Anthony Towns in Minnesota.
Logical opposition to the trade for Minnesota has two parts, each pretty simple: (1) They just had their best season in 20 years, if not their best season ever, and Towns was a big part of the playoff run. Why now, of all times, would you not run it back? And (2) Julius Randle, the best player returning in the trade, has question marks of both contract situation and basketball fit, to cause legitimate doubt that he will be a long term piece of this team. If Towns is as good as his supporters believe him to be, a trade return of DDV, a short-term lease of Randle, a probably-but-not-for-sure future first round pick from Detroit, and added cap-management flexibility, is insufficient.
Those reasonable points aside, there are plenty of others to support the deal on the Wolves behalf, as Britt, Bill, and John have done in the linked pieces above. My own support of the deal, for the Wolves, is largely based on my doubts that Karl would continue playing the humble brand of ball that we saw in last year’s playoffs. (Disciplined dedication to defense, paired with embracing being “just a shooter” for long stretches, on offense. Karl was outstanding versus Phoenix and Denver.) I think with more time, more knee-surgery recovery, and a drop in game importance from playoffs to the 82-game slog that sometimes lends itself to (***extreme Chris Finch voice***) disgusting stat-hunting, Karl would revert back to his usual form. That usual form includes a bevy of annoying on-court qualities: posting up even when Rudy’s on the floor; plowing through defenders for offensive fouls; falling over as the other team runs 5 on 4 the other direction; holding the ball with his arm extended, while the other 9 players stand and watch; head fake threes instead of shooting them in rhythm; jumping over the opponent’s back for impossible rebound attempts; whining at officials after obvious fouls; etc etc etc. Karl’s such a talented shot maker that he nets out as a positive force, but in the Ant & Rudy Timberwolves Ecosystem, it often didn’t seem that way. (Eds note: With an established and high-octane system in New York, and yes with Thibs sometimes yelling at him, I fully expect him to help the Knicks more than he helped us. I agree with many others who feel this trade was a good one for New York. They might win a ring.)
Also in support of the trade: last year’s Wolves were great because their defense was great. Karl — while perfectly fine on defense — did not drive that greatness himself. Rudy did, with a lot of help from returning Wolves Jaden, Ant, NAW, and Mike Conley. If they remain the league’s best defense, they should be able to match or even exceed last year’s 17th-ranked offensive performance. And that’s true with or without a fully bought-in Julius Randle. Being just as good or better, with an additional viable rotation player of depth, and with a lot more cap flexibility, is preferable to the status quo.
These two new Timberwolves are probably going to be relied upon to help that offense. In thinking about their fit, two former Wolves come to mind for me as prototype comparisons, in terms of how Finch might deploy them and how their impact might be felt in a positive way.
For Julius Randle, I think about the large samples we witnessed of Kyle Anderson playing the power forward position. For Donte DiVincenzo, I think about when Malik Beasley gunned up tons of three-point shots on a Wolves team that exceeded most people’s expectations. I’ll take them in that order.
Randle as a new Slow Mo
Anderson had two very different seasons in Minnesota. Last year, in a very crowded frontcourt, he often played small forward and off the ball. On offense, much of his effectiveness was diminished from the prior season. In that 2022-23 campaign, largely owing to the long-term calf injury to Towns, Slow Mo played a ton of power forward and he played it well. He started 46 games that year, usually slotted between Jaden at the 3 and Rudy at the 5. That particular season was split between the D’Angelo Russell and Mike Conley point guard administrations. In both cases, with Anthony Edwards still extremely young, they benefited from some playmaking out of a forward. That playmaking came from Anderson. A whole lot of successful possessions ended with Anderson going one on one from the elbow, probing in his own slow way, and either looking for his shot or someone else’s as his defender was eventually caught off balance. Of regular rotation players in ’22-23, Slow Mo had the team’s best net rating.
Simply put, “Kyle at the 4” has been one of the most successful concepts that Chris Finch has deployed since taking over as Wolves coach.
Well, KAT is gone now for good. So is Slow Mo, for that matter. Incoming is Julius Randle, who happens to be his own version of a Playmaking 4. Randle and Anderson are hardly the same player. (Eds note: there will never be “Another Slow Mo.“) But in terms of size, position, and penchant for “slowly” operating as playmaking power forwards, there are parallels. And really, Randle is the better of the two. The guy’s been an All-Star 3 of the past 4 years, including the last 2. He’s made 2 All-NBA Teams in that span. Last year for the Knicks he averaged 24 points and 5 assists per game, out of the 4 position. Randle’s offensive rating of 119.7 was better than his own team when he was on the bench (114.5) and considerably better than any Wolves player. (Towns had the highest O-rating, at 116.3.)
Two reasonable rebuttals to a Randle-Slow Mo comparison would be: (1) Randle won’t be as good at Rudy lobs as Anderson was; and (2) Anderson’s better on defense. To the second point, I would say yes, that’s true, but Randle is physical, reasonably athletic, and couched between Rudy at the 5 and all the athletes the Wolves have at the wing spots, he should be able to hold his own at the 4. To the first point about Rudy lob chemistry, I would just say that Randle’s all-around offensive superiority to Anderson at least merits some patience, and an opportunity for he and Chris Finch to explore ways that he can operate as a facilitator with the talent that surrounds him in Minnesota. Obviously, they will need to design some things in the half court, but don’t we think they’ll do exactly that? It just seems as if an All-NBA caliber playmaking 4 man should be welcomed with some excitement, even if in only the short term, as a means of boosting this team’s all-around efficiency in a way it probably needed to, in order to contend for a championship. And as others have noted, Randle can be a boon for transition offense; something Finch is openly identifying as a priority area for improvement.
One other thing here: Some might say that Randle playmaking will take away from Ant playmaking. To some extent that might be true, and something Finch has to balance. But asked on Media Day what he worked on this summer, Ant did not hesitate and he did not say passing or playmaking. “Catch and shoot trey ball.” He’s a scorer by nature, and getting fed some open shots will not be a bad thing.
I think it’s fair to look at a Towns-Randle positional swap as an opportunity to see a souped up version of “Kyle at the 4,” that was so successful for Finch in the past.
DDV as a new Beasley
Finch’s finest coaching job in Minnesota might still be the one in 2021-22, his first full season in charge. That team did not yet have Rudy Gobert’s services. It had D’Lo at point guard instead of Conley. It relied on role players such as Jarred Vanderbilt, Patrick Beverley, Taurean Prince, and Malik Beasley. It somehow won 46 games and scared a high-seeded Grizzlies team in Round 1.
Beasley started that season cold and out of shape, presumably because he served jail time for assault rifle shenanigans outside his home. As that season wore on and he got in better shape, however, he started to connect on threes at high volume and accuracy, and Finch’s offense exploded. After the All-Star Break that season, Beasley took 7.8 threes per game, and hit on 45.2 percent of them. With him on the floor in that stretch, the Wolves offense was 123.9, the sort of figure that would easily lead the entire league if stretched over 82 games. There were some other factors at play — that team ran well in transition off of chaotic defensive strategies, and the league as a whole was a little bit COVID-infected and lots of good players missed tons of games — but there was no doubt that a prolific “shoots it every time he can, no matter what” three gunner was a big boost to what Finch’s system needed.
So many of the key Timberwolves of recent years have tended to hesitate to shoot with that immediacy.
One player who will not have hesitation and whose shot instincts will resemble Beasley’s is Donte DiVencenzo. DDV shoots a ton of threes. He makes a high percentage of them, too. Last year on the Knicks, he shot 10.8 treys per 36 minutes, and hit on 40 percent of them. Anyone who watched the Knicks-Pacers series could see how absent any fear was from DDV as he tried to gut out wins as his teammates kept dropping with injuries. He’s got a better rounded out overall game than Beasley. He defends much better, and has more playmaking chops. At Wolves Media Day, Mike Conley compared DDV to Jrue Holiday as a guy that you can win with. But on sheer three gunning, an area of need as KAT departs, we can look back to the benefits Malik Beasley provided in Finch’s system and reasonably wonder if DiVincenzo might offer a similar bump for this season’s team.
Before I wrap up this section, I have to cite a Jace Frederick tweet making the same comp. I saw this after the post was underway, so this is simply a #GreatMinds situation:
Iterations
At Media Day Tim Connelly was talking about Ant’s centrality to everything the team tries to plan around. In describing it, he said how they’ll have many “iterations” over the course of his career.
He already has, really, and that’s just the way it works. He’s played with D’Lo, Beasley, Slow Mo, Vando, Prince, McLaughlin, Nowell, others. Newcomers include not only Randle and DDV, but also Joe Ingles and the rookies. Much of this will continue with revolving doors. Thus far, Jaden and Naz seem firmly in the “core,” but maybe not forever.
What they have is a team that figures to be as good as last year’s, with some different looking parts. If Finch can channel what’s worked in the past, with some better overall players, maybe a Finals run is within reach.