Yall honest to god still need a PG.

The gap in this team is not the role players. We have had above average depth/rotation pieces for at least 4 years now.

The issue is that Ant himself is an elite catch-fire scorer but not an offensive engine onto himself in the mold of SGA, Jokic, Brunson, etc… We just saw this with the Spurs too as good as they were as a team (especially on defense) they didn’t have a means of generating reliable offense for all 4 quarters.

Ant needs to develop elite conditioning, become capable of being a primary ball handler/distributor especially in the 4th quarter, and learn to manipulate defenses rather than just attack/win with athleticism.

Of recent champions, MAYBE the Wolves could win in the mold of the Celtics (elite team 3pt shooting with two primary scorers) or the Raptors (all time elite 2 way superstar on top of elite team defense and reliable scorers).

“Couldn’t compete”!??

And they weren’t “completely dismantled” by the Spurs and Dallas, this is revisionist history. The mavs series was similar to the Spurs and Knicks finals - very close games (except for the last one).
They put up a fight against the Spurs and took them to 6 games despite big injuries.

They got dismantled vs OKC.
I agree tho, the roster isn’t enough. But if they can get another spacer/shooter and develop an identity like in 23-24, they could go far. Sometimes an identity > raw talent

Do the Wolves have the MLE or anything to make another move?

You should look up the word “compete” before using it. We went to B2B conference finals and then last year beat the Nugs and lost to the Spurs with an injured Ant and no DDV. That’s called competing. If you mean we didn’t win a championship during that time, then yeah, you’re right, and I’d remind you that championships are extremely hard to win lol.

Maybe banking on the fact that Ant was injured vs the Spurs and having a whole year to redesign the offense would help?

Although I really think they still need a Conley replacement esp with DDV out and Ant can still improve a bit as a connector with high leverage passes or off ball movement like Curry

Because we paid Naz and Jaden both $100 mill plus but never actually seen them get the opportunities to show for it also right now this is probably the most spacing ant has had since before the Gobert trade

Totally agree. The roster has essentially gotten worse year over year for the last 3 seasons

Cause Ant is just entering his prime this coming season

Is the WCF not competing? Also Ant was hobbled during the spurs series. This is a ridiculous take. In your mind is there only 1 or 2 competitive teams each season?

What one year without being able to feast against the lakers defense does to a mf

dubbed by our own Walt Clyde Frazier

Honestly asking - I get to watch very few games because I’m in Europe, but the last few of him I watched was threeish years ago when he was still on the Knicks and seemed to be an absolute force against my Celtics which we didn’t have an answer to. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him score less than 20. So my view of him is obviously not very accurate, but what makes him suck so much a team would trade down in the draft just to get rid of him?

The problem is when he’s motivated he can turn it on. But I think he went into bitch mode when he thought he was getting traded. Dude is cancer.

Just one of those things that comes back to bite you. He was really good in the playoffs in 2025 and started the year out strong. $33M seemed perfectly reasonable for a while there. Things just really went to shit the last few months.

Warriors series gave people false hope. I think Ayo and the Nuggets series will be the same

He’s a great bully ball player. But he thinks he’s Carmelo out there. If he played more like Josh Hart and less like Kobe, he would be a vital piece.

helps whoever has their picks avoid the bottom 3

He has a large defensive assignment each night. A PG with some defensive chops would ease the load a little and I’d bet we see more juice on the offensive end

He’s done a better job staying on the court. That’s been half the offensive battle for him.

The worry is that when ant and Julius have both been on the floor, he plays incredibly passive and kinda seems to save his energy for defense

Don’t think I’ve ever seen Jaden referred to as JD

i honestly buy into this addition by subtraction. Reid should be chucking 3s as the starting stretch 4 and McDaniels has expanded his offensive bag and shoots a high % from 3 so in theory the logic is sound dispersing Randle’s shots to others

but the spurs and thunder still exist, so it’s gonna be hard to win now anyway

I forgot he had an option. I guess that’s true we kinda didn’t have a choice. He also played really well in the first two rounds of playoffs last year and nobody played well in the OKC series not just him. So it kinda makes sense why you’d extend him and not NAW. They also still had Rob I think they were expecting to take a second year leap which didn’t happen at all.

Exactly. I hate this “the wolves chose Randle over NAW” line that I’ve seen 20 times today. IIRC, the Randle contract extension lowered his total for last season, which is what allowed them (along with the Rudy deal) to sign NAZ and stay flexible.

But facts are boring.

It’s funny because he went to Minnesota and had to build a team to beat the team he built in Denver. And he succeeded, issue is now there’s 2 more teams he has to beat.

Gobert did not directly cause them to lose KAT, the CBA did. They were prepared to run that core team of Ant/KAT/Rudy/Jaden for many years and got completely screwed by it.

Rob pick was bad, I will concede that.

Randle had a player option, keeping NAW wasn’t possible.

With all due respect, he was lost in the playoffs. He doesn’t have the shot creation to do damage at that level. He was a very nice 3 and D player with some basic ball handling in minnesota, and he was still that guy in atlanta, just playing more minutes and taking more shots.

Definitely I do think people forget NAW was just a 9 ppg guy on 38% from three who sucked in the playoffs for us offensively. He wasn’t the Hawks player he is when he was in MN

Why have NAW when you have Ayo i guess

This is the trap the Cavs fell into with Mobley to be honest. Fell in love with the potential that the eyes were ignored

Giannis is like -1 Randles

Naz Reid.

It makes sense, he makes too much to just be a 6th man

Nope, the off-season is over the morning of the draft

They also suck at drafting tbh they took 5 PGs last draft

This is their highest pick since 2010, crazy to think about it

They don’t have their pick next year unfortunately

Ayo was a PG in college. He has passed well with is. He’s like a combo guard and he doesn’t turnover the ball.
Don’t need a true PG, just a secondary ball handler