Minnesota Timberwolves will be fine with or without Kyrie Irving
The Minnesota Timberwolves will be fine with Kyrie Irving or staying the course with the budding Andrew Wiggins.
The NBA world was rocked last week when it was leaked that Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving wanted to be dealt out of Ohio. Irving does not have a no-trade clause, but he did supply the Cavaliers with a list of landing spots that he preferred. The Minnesota Timberwolves were on that list, but here’s the crazy thing: the Wolves will be fine with our without Irving on their team.
Let’s go down the road of the Timberwolves trading for Irving first. That trade would make the Timberwolves into a legitimate big three with Karl-Anthony Towns, Jimmy Butler and Irving. Minnesota would find themselves, conservatively, with three of the top 20 players in the NBA in one single starting lineup. The Golden State Warriors are probably the only other team in the league that can claim such a thing.
The downside of a Irving trade would be that seemingly Andrew Wiggins would be gone. After messing around on ESPN’s Trade Machine, I don’t think a deal for Irving can be completed without the Wolves giving up either Gorgui Dieng or Wiggins, assuming that Towns and Butler are untouchable, of course. Cleveland will want Wiggins, at least they should. The Wolves will also probably have to trade Nemanja Bjelica also which will deplete the Wolves’ wing depth even more. Still, the addition of Irving would increase the team to a playoff berth even with a more depleted bench.
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The no trade route is also a good path to go. That path would be betting on Wiggins and that his skills will keep progressing as he matures in his early NBA seasons. It took a handful of seasons for Butler to become the stud that he is and it is very plausible it might take the same amount of time for Wiggins to accomplish the same thing.
Wolves fans are debating if they would trade Wiggins for Irving and the sense I get is that the fan base is almost dead split on the idea. That is for good reason. It’s a win-win situation for the Timberwolves either way. Add Irving and instantly have three of the best players in the NBA or bet on Wiggins’ skills and also potentially have three of the best players in the NBA.
The Wolves have a good problem on their hands. Those aren’t the problems they are accustomed to.
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