Minnesota Timberwolves Win Number One Pick In Draft Lottery

On what has been a dark couple decades for the Timberwolves, having not made the playoffs since the days of Keving Garnett in Minnesota, you cannot ascribe those struggle to lack of draft luck with the team set to pick number one in the NBA draft for the second time in five years. “There’s a lot of steps left in this journey for us, but today was a significant one,” Timberwolves president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas said. “We’re excited about the potential level of player that we can add to our organization, but at the same time, we are going to be very aggressive and look at every avenue to improve this team. We have two young stars in Karl-Anthony Towns and D’Angelo Russell that we’re building this together [with]. We’ve got a great young core that’s young and being one of the youngest, if not the youngest, team in the NBA. We have a lot of upside.”

Unfortunately, for the Timberwolves, this year sports a particularly weak draft class with no real superstars for the taking. Nevertheless, the number one pick is a valuable asset even in a weak draft, and the team my shop this pick in order to get another star next to team centerpiece Towns, a scenario which Rosas acknowledged, “But this allows us to take a major step in talent acquisition, whether it’s in the draft or the trade market, whatever the case may be. It really positions us well moving forward.”

Besides the Timberwolves, the only other story of note out of the lottery was the Knicks–of course. Who were the only team to be jumped twice having the sixth-best odds at the number one pick and ending up with the eighth. The Knicks treadmill of mediocrity seems like it is going to continue and after a disastrous offseason, last year that saw two stars that they coveted Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving head to Brooklyn Knicks fans will likely delude themselves again and look towards 2021 free agency–hoping to land Giannis.