The Minnesota Timberwolves came into this season with big expectations. The team traded away much of its future assets this summer to pair center Rudy Gobert with Karl-Anthony Towns, and the experiment has not panned out the way the Wolves had hoped.
Minnesota owns just an 11-11 record at this juncture, the 10th-best record in the Western Conference. Not great for a group with legitimate NBA Finals aspirations a few months ago.
However, a lot has gone awry for the Wolves this season beyond Gobert's underwhelming play. Take the signing of Bryn Forbes, for example. The Wolves inked the guard to a one-year, veteran minimum deal over the summer in the hopes that he'd add efficient floor spacing to the offense. Forbes shot 40% or better from three-point range in his last three seasons, so this seemed like a no-brainer signing for a Wolves squad that is low on high-level shooters, aside from Towns.
Timberwolves player who must be traded: Bryn Forbes
But now, a quarter of the way through the 2022-23 campaign, it's apparent that Forbes has lost his shooting touch, and thus the Wolves should look to trade him as soon as possible before he can damage his trade value any further.
Forbes has played in just 12 games for the Timberwolves this season, and his abysmal three-point percentage might be the biggest reason for his lack of playing time. Forbes is connecting on a measly 25% of his three-point attempts on the season, which is the third-worst mark of any Wolves player averaging 10-plus minutes per game. On top of that, Forbes is shooting just 33% percent from the field. Typically a very efficient shooter and scorer, Forbes cannot find the bottom of the net this year, and it's keeping him out of the rotation.
What makes Forbes' poor shooting percentages all the more disappointing is that the Wolves desperately need high-level three-point shooters. The Timberwolves, as a team, are shooting just 32.6 percent from deep, the fourth-lowest mark in the NBA.
Only three players on the roster are shooting 35% or better from three: Kyle Anderson, Taurean Prince, and Jaden McDaniels. Even Towns, one of the best big men perimeter shooters in league history, is struggling to connect on his treys, shooting a career-low 32.5%.
While Forbes has fared nothing short of horribly from three since joining the Wolves, there would presumably still be teams interested in acquiring him for his shooting ability. Take the Los Angeles Lakers, for example, a team shooting the three worse than any other in the NBA, and that has limited avenues to improve its roster.
A Patrick Beverley-Bryn Forbes swap makes quite a bit of sense for both teams. The Wolves get someone back who helped their defense by leaps and bounds last season, while the Lakers take a flier on Forbes with the hope that he can regain some of his former shooting prowess playing with an all-time playmaker in LeBron James.
All in all, the Bryn Forbes-Timberwolves experiment hasn't worked out in the slightest, and it would be best for both sides to go their separate ways. That's why Wolves general manager Tim Connelly should work the phones between now and February's trade deadline to find the Michigan native a new home. Forbes is certainly movable; it'll just take some due diligence from Connelly to get a deal done.
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