The Minnesota Timberwolves entered the 2022-23 NBA season with sky-high expectations. After trading for All-NBA center Rudy Gobert in the 2022 offseason, it seemed like the Wolves had a legitimate chance to represent the Western Conference in the NBA Finals this June.
But fast forward to the current day, and it's evident that the Wolves fell short of their preseason expectations. Karl-Anthony Towns being limited to just 29 appearances during the regular season certainly didn't help matters, but Minnesota ended the year with a mediocre 42-40 record and barely squeaked into the Western Conference playoff picture as the eighth and final seed. Nikola Jokic and the top-seeded Denver Nuggets then made quick work of the Timberwolves, knocking them out in five games in the first round of the postseason.
With the Timberwolves now eliminated from postseason play, it will be interesting to see how active general manager Tim Connelly will be in the trade/free agent market this offseason. While their early playoff exit and up-and-down regular season indicate that the current iteration of the Timberwolves clearly has a lot of room for improvement on both sides of the ball, there was one Achilles heel in particular that reared its ugly head in the playoffs. With all of that said, let's break down the biggest need that the Timberwolves must address sometime during the 2023 NBA offseason:
Biggest need Timberwolves must address in 2023 NBA offseason: Bench scoring
Minnesota's core four of Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert, and Mike Conley make up the majority of what is one of the better starting lineups in the NBA. These four names provide a solid blend of offensive and defensive firepower. Edwards and Towns are more than capable of scoring 25-plus points on any given night, Gobert is an elite team defender/ rebounder, and Conley can score points in bunches while holding his own on the other end.
It wasn't the Timberwolves' starting lineup that lost them their first-round playoff series against Denver. Rather, it was their bench unit — specifically, their inability to consistently score the ball.
To say that Minnesota's reserves had a rough time scoring against Denver would be the understatement of the century. The stats highlight just how unfruitful the Timberwolves' reserves were scoring-wise. Across the five-game series, the Timberwolves bench shot just 34.6% from the field and 28.3% from behind the three-point arc. That type of offensive production simply wasn't going to cut it against a Nuggets team that can score the ball as well as anyone in the league.
A potential free-agent target for the Nuggets who could provide some scoring punch off the bench is Caris LeVert. LeVert will be a free agent this summer and is fresh off a year in which he averaged 12 points per game on solid efficiency from behind the three-point arc (39.2%) with the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Nuggets would probably have to orchestrate a sign-and-trade to acquire LeVert, though, because Denver doesn't have the cap space to add LeVert straight up unless he was willing to take a massive pay cut.
The Timberwolves' 2022-23 season ended disappointingly, but with a core of Towns, Edwards, and Gobert, the future is still extremely bright in Minnesota. If they can add a bench scorer or two during the offseason, don't be surprised if this team emerges as a legit contender in the Western Conference next season.
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