It’s time to play the Minnesota sports game entitled, “What have they got that we haven’t?”
The New York Knicks ended a Minnesota-like drought by winning their first NBA championship in 53 years on Saturday. Here are the lessons the Timberwolves can learn from them:
You don’t need a Hall of Fame coach to win it all. Mike Brown is widely respected, but before this season no one would have thought that he would be the one to win a title in Manhattan. Brown is a good coach. He became a championship coach because of the way he worked with, and trusted, his best players.
The Timberwolves don’t need to move on from Chris Finch to win a title.
Jalen Brunson is a pretty good player most of the time, and one of the world’s best players in crunch time.
Anthony Edwards is bigger, stronger, more explosive, more spectacular and equally skilled. Edwards has improved in late-game situations, but he can get even better. If he does, he could do for the Wolves what Brunson did for the Knicks.
The Wolves are looking for a co-star to pair with Edwards.
For years, a popular notion around the NBA was that you had to have three stars to win. Or at least two.
The Knicks put together a dynamic starting five, but how many of their players are superstars?
Brunson is, now that he has joined the pantheon of New York City’s greatest champions, but he wasn’t quite a superstar before this playoff run.
Karl-Anthony Towns is a valuable player. Not a superstar.
OG Anunoby? Mikal Bridges? Josh Hart? Valuable two-way players, but not superstars. Not even stars, outside the New York area.
What the Knicks taught us by winning with this roster is that basketball remains an intricate team game that rewards cohesiveness, intelligence, mental and physical toughness, coaching and situational awareness. Yes, you need talent. But talent alone won’t take you far.
The Spurs are a superior team to the Knicks and will prove that in the coming years.
The Spurs had to play against a physical Timberwolves defense for six games, then against the relentlessly physical Thunder for seven. They looked exhausted at times during the NBA Finals.
The Knicks went 16-3 in the playoffs because they got to play against Eastern Conference opponents.
The Timberwolves are likely headed to the Eastern Conference when the league expands. Their road to the NBA Finals will become much easier then.
The Knicks finished with the third seed in the East, one game ahead of Cleveland. They needed to finish no higher, and with the way they played in the playoffs, they could have been seeded eighth and still won it all.
Also, their only loss in the NBA Finals was at home.
It’s important to be playing well and to be healthy entering the playoffs. Seeding doesn’t matter much.
There’s that word again: cohesiveness.
The Wolves alter their roster more often than a NASCAR pit crew changes tires.
The Knicks won with three starters — Brunson, Bridges and Hart — who won a national title together at Villanova.
The key player they added before the 2024-25 season was Towns, who is eager to adapt to new situations, as he proved when he graciously welcomed Edwards and Rudy Gobert to the Wolves.
Edwards, Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid are the Wolves’ longstanding core players. Breaking them up to trade for a star might be a big mistake.