From the moment the Minnesota Timberwolves made the Rudy Gobert trade last summer, they effectively gave away their chance at adding top talent through the 2023 NBA Draft. With no first-round picks and no selections in their possession until the 53rd pick, the Timberwolves will be waiting a long time before adding a player during Thursday night’s draft event.
But The Athletic‘s Jon Krawczynski suggests the Timberwolves are “making calls around the league to see if there is a chance to move back into the first round.” This would be a significant launch up the 2023 NBA Draft board for the T-Wolves, who have few tradeable assets to work with.
Key members of the core like Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns, Jaden McDaniels, and Rudy Gobert are all off the table in trade discussions. Chances are, starting point guard Mike Conley is too. The T-Wolves have zero tradeable first-round picks in their possession. So what’s left?
There are 29-year-old vets like Kyle Anderson ($9.2M salary) and Taurean Prince ($7.4M), but both are valued role players off the bench. There’s also 2022 draft picks Wendell Moore Jr. (26th pick) and Josh Minott (45th pick), but the two combined for just 249 minutes last season, and may not hold a ton of value league-wide.
Complicating matters even further, the Wolves don’t have extra second-round picks to work with in any year except 2026. At this point, it seems very difficult for Timberwolves team president Tim Connelly to move up 23 picks into the first round with such limited assets to work with, but it never hurts to try.
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