The Timberwolves Crushed the Warriors in the Wiggins-Russell Trade

Trading for Andrew Wiggins could be a catastrophe for Golden State, while D’Angelo Russell might save Minnesota’s franchise

THE 2020 NBA TRADE DEADLINE IS IN THE BOOKS, and it was a much wilder deadline than expected. The Wolves, Rockets, Hawks, and Nuggets combined on a 12-player trade, the biggest in 20 seasons, while two-time All-Star Andre Drummond was sold for peanuts and the Clippers and Heat made big veteran wing additions.

But with apologies to all those deals, only one trade had everyone buzzing as the deadline passed. The Golden State Warriors moved on quickly from D’Angelo Russell after trading for him just last summer, unloading him for longtime Minnesota Timberwolves scapegoat Andrew Wiggins and the Wolves’ first- and second-round picks next year.

There is a LOT to unpack, and I’m probably the one to do it, considering how I’ve shredded Wiggins over the years and that I cried literal tears of joy as news of this deal broke as a longtime Wolves fan.

The Timberwolves might have saved their franchise with this trade, while the Warriors made a catastrophic misstep that could put their dynasty on the brink.

Let’s break it all down.

Andrew Wiggins is bad, bad, bad.

Let’s start with the most important part of this trade, for both teams — the fact that Andrew Wiggins is, by pretty much any available modern measure, an objectively terrible professional basketball player.

Oh sure, I see the points per game numbers: 16.9, 20.7, 23.6, 17.7, 18.1, and 22.4ppg per season, just under 20 a game for his career. Points!! Unfortunately, this isn’t the 70s anymore and every fan is smart enough to know that just looking at PPG tells us nothing.

Wiggins is a volume chucker. He shoots 44% for his career. He’s made under a third of his threes (33.2%) with only one season at even 34%. He’s never finished a season making 50% of his twos. His career true shooting percentage is 52%. His career-high of 54.1% is barely even average.

Wiggins has a career -0.4 Offensive Box Plus/Minus. He is a negative offensive player for his entire career! His +0.4 OBPM this year, finally slightly positive player on offense, is a career best. Wiggins has never finished a season with a positive Value Over Replacement Player. He has a negative -1.4 VORP for his career. Despite that general uselessness, Wiggins uses over a quarter of his team’s possessions on the court.

But Wiggins is a great athlete!

Terrific. What’s he doing with all that athleticism?

Wiggins averages under a steal per game for his career and well under a block per game. He’s under 10% rebounding for his career and has never even averaged five rebounds a game over a full season. His free-throw rate is mediocre and has only gotten worse over his career. What good is athleticism if it’s not being used for anything good?

And we haven’t even mentioned his defense — maybe because there’s not much to mention. For his career, Wiggins has a 104 offensive rating and a 114 defensive rating, both abysmal. His career best Defensive Box Plus-Minus (DBPM) is -1.3, a putrid -1.9 over his career. You can substitute RPM, RAPM, PIPM, or any other metric and you’ll see exactly what you see on the court — that Andrew Wiggins is one of the worst defenders in the NBA.

I’ve written a lot about Andrew Wiggins in the past. Some of the highlights…

• In 2017 I named Wiggins to my 10th Team All-NBA as he was one of 13 NBA players ever to average 23.5ppg by age 21. Simpler times.
• By 2018 I dropped Wiggins to 30th Team, the worst wing starter in the league. That season he led a team with Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns in field goal attempts and averaged 18 and 8… if you combine rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. Only four players in the entire NBA were owed more money than Wiggins then, three of them former MVPs.
• Last summer Wiggins made 30th Team All-NBA a second straight season. He had career-worsts 49% true shooting and -3.1 BPM, and I named him the league’s 2019 LVP — its least valuable player.
• I also listed Wiggins as the fourth worst contract in the NBA, and that was probably too low. You could argue you’re better off paying John Wall to watch basketball than paying Andrew Wiggins to play it.

Of course, there are spurts. Every now and then Wiggins actually looks like a good, practically engaged NBA player. He does play the Cavs twice a season after all.

Wiggins does have stretches of decent NBA basketball from time to time. Heck, just this season he opened with a strong enough 10 games that I talked myself into calling him my 10-game Most Improved Player and even made him my final 10-game All-Star pick over Brandon Ingram. And I don’t regret that! Wiggins was actually a positive player for 10 games. Good times.

One of the many problems with Wiggins is that the flashes never last. He can’t play the Cavs, Thunder, or Raptors every night, after all. There are still far too many nights when the effort simply isn’t there, not on defense, not on the boards, not when the ball is not in his hands. Too many games when Wiggins blends into the background, too many others where you just wish he would.

And sure, Wiggins is still relatively young, but what’s the point of being young if you’re not showing any improvement? Take a look at his numbers by year.

Do you see any improvement ? I don’t. Remarkable consistency, actually. Andrew Wiggins is the Tim Duncan of overpriced mediocrity.

Andrew Wiggins is not a good basketball player, and there is virtually no statistical reason to believe he will ever become one.

So why did the Warriors trade for Wiggins?

If Andrew Wiggins is so bad at basketball, why did the Golden State Warriors trade for him?

I honestly have no idea.

But I’ve seen a number of reasons from smart basketball people that I simply disagree with. Here are a handful of reasons I’ve seen and why they’re wrong:

1. The Warriors are a great organization. They’ll make Wiggins good.

Oh, like when they made Harrison Barnes good? Like when they made Nick Young good? Actually, Swaggy P is an interesting Wiggins comp. This team has always been fascinated with mid-range chuckers for some reason, and if you don’t remember how the Swaggy thing worked out, it’s because he scored 52 playoff points in 20 games before being dumped after one season.

Organizations don’t make players better. Players make players better.

Steph Curry and Draymond Green are awesome because they worked their tails off and got better every year. Players don’t magically improve just because the jersey color changes.

2. But Wiggins finally escapes that losing Minnesota culture!

Sorry, but Andrew Wiggins is the losing culture.

Just watch his joyless basketball. No energy. Bad body language. Watch Wiggins and tell me you’d want to play with that guy. He doesn’t try hard, doesn’t get back on defense, doesn’t hustle for loose balls. He always has this distant, disinterested look in his eyes like he’s off somewhere else, anywhere really but a basketball court.

About that Warriors winning culture — have you seen them play this year? Golden State may only have until the end of the season to make a decision on Wiggins, since every minute forward their championship window closes a little tighter. This 2020 roster barely even has NBA players on it. How many active Ws can you name right now? Probably not many more than Draymond Green, and he’s mailed the season in from the get-go.

3. But Wiggins just needs a better coach and a strong-willed veteran like Draymond to put him in his place every night.

You mean like Tom Thibodeau and Jimmy Butler?

Good luck with that. Coaches and teammates can yell all they want. Draymond can’t make Andrew Wiggins want to get better at basketball.

4. Maybe Wiggins will be better in a smaller role!

Steve Kerr himself just suggested this yesterday. Makes sense in theory.

Except the worst season of his career by far was his one season on a winning team. Wiggins was a man without a country with both Butler and Towns around. His usage dropped but so did his free throws and true shooting %, and there was no boost in rebounding or defense.

Wiggins wasn’t better with less of the ball in his hands. He was just less visible. He played a whole lot of invisible minutes, floating through games, uncertain of what to do without the ball and never becoming anything even slightly resembling the quality role player many like myself hoped he’d become under Butler’s tutelage.

5. Maybe Wiggins will be the new Andre Iguodala!

How dare you. Andre Iguodala is a Hall of Fame player, 3-time champion, 2-time gold medalist, 2-time All Defense, 1-time All Star, and Finals MVP. He’s one of the game’s all-time great wing defenders, an outstanding passer and teammate, and one of the most cerebral players in the game.

Andrew Wiggins has never been as good as Andre Iguodala on even his best day. Don’t insult me.

6. Fine, maybe Wiggins can be the new Harrison Barnes.

Closer. But still no. Look, I’ve dumped on Harrison Barnes plenty. I even called him the worst professional U.S. Olympics basketball player of all time. But he still made the team and won gold! Andrew Wiggins can’t even acquit himself to Team Canada.

Harrison Barnes is not a lot of things, but he did fill a valuable role for the pre-Durant Warriors. Barnes is much stronger than Wiggins and a far better defender. His defensive versatility was a key to those early Golden State lineups. He’s also a career 37% three-point shooter, at least 35% every season. Wiggins has done that once ever.

Barnes is not the star player we once expected, but he’s a clearly positive NBA player. How could he not be, when he started on the greatest regular season NBA team of all time and also won an NBA championship?

Barnes held that team back in some ways — hence Durant — but still made positive contributions. Wiggins is definitively worse than Barnes. Even if he suddenly gets stronger, learns how to defend, and magically starts shooting competently, you’re really excited about a poor man’s Harrison Barnes when we spent two Warriors years trashing that dude?

7. This trade was not about Andrew Wiggins. The Warriors thought D’Angelo Russell stunk and wanted him to go away.

Sorry, not buying it.

D’Angelo Russell was an All-Star one year ago. He’s averaging 24/4/6 shooting career bests on twos, threes, and from the line. Heck, I had him among my top 20 All-Star considerations this season.

The defense and effort have been atrocious at times. The Warriors season was over before it even began, and DLo has spent every night playing with dudes like Jordan Poole and Marquese Chriss, who wouldn’t even be good G League players. How much effort are you expecting?

D’Angelo Russell has not been a superstar this season, but not many would be on that turd of a roster. He certainly hasn’t stunk.

8. But the Russell contract is also a max deal, so both contracts are equally bad.

The contracts are relatively equal in amount, but that doesn’t make them equally bad.

Contracts are about marginal value. Maybe DLo isn’t worth a max deal right now, but he’s at least an average starting point guard with potential to be better. In today’s NBA, that makes him worth at least $15 or $20 million a season.

Wiggins is not just not a great player. He isn’t good at all. He isn’t starter quality and often isn’t even good enough to be a positive bench player. By many metrics, Wiggins might not be worth much more than a minimum contract. Even if you call him a poor man’s T.J. Warren and pay him $8 or $10 million a year for his bench shot creation upside, that’s still an extra $10 million a year in marginal value lost versus Russell — or more.

9. Whatever, the Warriors can just trade Wiggins again later.

Oh really? I’m sure the Wolves will enjoy watching them try.

By all accounts, Minnesota has been looking for a Wiggins trade for ages. Heck, a couple weeks ago, I spent an entire day scouring the league’s rosters for Wiggins trades that might actually make sense for both sides. The best targets I could come up with were Harrison Barnes, Cam Reddish, and Kevin Knox, and even those deals came with significant negative salary in return.

Later I considered potential DLo deals for the Warriors and came up with targets like Robert Covington, Justise Winslow, and Aaron Gordon. Two of those guys were centerpieces of positive trades this week. I even thought they might be able to trade DLo for Jrue Holiday, a guy I consider a top-25 player.

The trade value of these two players isn’t even in the same universe. Any NBA analyst worth their salt has argued for years that Wiggins is a negative asset, one Minnesota would have to package a pick or multiple picks just to rid themselves of.

Now I’m seeing people suggest the Ws can package Wiggins with a few picks and go for a star like Bradley Beal or even Giannis Antetokounmpo. Ridiculous. We know teams like the Suns and Knicks were interested in D’Angelo Russell. Who is interested in Andrew Wiggins? Who??

If the Warriors think they can just trade Wiggins again, they might be in for a rude awakening.

10. Neither of these guys fit the Warriors roster, but at least Wiggins fits better.

Yes, it never made sense how D’Angelo Russell was supposed to fit next to Steph and Klay. Yes, this team badly needs a forward next to those two and Draymond. So yes, in theory, Andrew Wiggins fits the roster better.

Still, this is the same argument we’d never let teams like the Kings and Knicks get away with. It’s Golden State’s fault they chose to sign a guy that was never going to fit the roster! They don’t get credit now for trading him away for a negative asset.

A bad player is still a bad player, no matter what position he plays. You know who might have helped the Warriors next year? Andre Iguodala, the guy Golden State had to give up a 2024 first-round pick just to make room for Russell. Or how about Glenn Robinson Jr., a wing that was actually playing well before being traded at the deadline amidst Golden State’s efforts to get under the tax? Wiggins has almost identical per-36 numbers to Alec Burks, a career journeyman the Warriors just got rid of in that same trade.

Andrew Wiggins is bad. D’Angelo Russell is not. I’d rather have a decent player at a surplus position than a bad one at a position of need every time. Just because Wiggins is three inches taller than DLo, that doesn’t make him a more positive Warriors player.

What about the draft picks the Warriors got?

No, this was not a straight swap. The Warriors traded Russell for Wiggins and two Minnesota draft picks. Both are set to convey next summer in what looks like a good draft with three elite talents at the top, but the first-round pick is top-3 protected next summer, so that ain’t happening.

Some have argued Golden State is so certain Russell stinks they’re smartly betting against him in the future, giving him a whole season to tank the Wolves and give the Warriors a great pick.

What will the Wolves look like next year? We don’t know — they just traded over half their roster. We know the West will be tough, and we know this current roster will struggle on defense. What West teams are definitely worse than Minnesota next season? Maybe teams like the Suns, Kings, and Grizzlies, young teams at the bottom fighting for a glimpse of the playoffs. Maybe the Spurs or Thunder bottom out. Teams like the Knicks, Cavs, Hornets, and Pistons are probably worse. A median 2021 Wolves outcome probably means something like giving the Warriors the 8th to 10th pick in each round.

If Minnesota is a little worse, say the 5th worst record, that actually hurts Golden State. The Wolves would have over a 31% chance of keeping their pick, while the Ws would have only a 10% shot at #4 and likely end up around 6 or 7. I’d break down the pick possibilities something like this:

• 5–10% chance of the #4 pick in 2021
• 15% chance of #6 or #7
• 30% chance in the #8 to #10 range
• 25% chance outside the top 10
• 20% chance the Wolves are so bad they keep the pick and it rolls over to 2022 when KAT and DLo are entering their primes, likely rendering it outside the top 10, with long-shot upside of top 3

There’s little peak upside. It’s probably a nice mid-to-late lottery pick. It will net a positive asset but its only use to the Warriors is as a trade asset this summer since no mid-to-late lottery pick has a snowball’s chance of helping this rapidly aging core.

The second round pick will end up in the top half of the second next year in all likelihood, and that gives it some value. It’s another trade chip. The Ws have those picks plus their likely top-7 pick. They can attach those to Wiggins’s contract or the huge trade exception they generated last summer as they continue to remake this roster around their three stars.

But even that is misconstrued value. You know what the Warriors could have instead of these Minnesota picks? Their own 2024 and 2025 picks back, plus Andre Iguodala too! Hey, I bet Iggy would look pretty good in that Warriors lineup. Unfortunately, Iguodala will be wearing red next year.

Remember, this whole chain started when the Warriors traded Durant for Russell last summer, including a first-round pick for Brooklyn’s trouble. To fit Russell’s salary, they dumped Iguodala on Memphis, including a first-round pick in that deal too. That pick to Brooklyn was lottery protected this year, so Golden State will keep it (thank goodness), and it’ll be a 2025 second instead.

Still, Golden State gave up its own future first- and second-round picks just to get here. Now they got a future first and second back. Net sum: zero.

Which future picks would you rather have? In 2024, the Warriors will owe $70 million to 34-year-olds Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, and Curry will be 36. I bet the Ws would be pretty bad without high-level Steph, wonder if we have any reason to know that’s true... like this entire season.

That pick could hurt really bad. There’s a real chance we’ll be talking about “the Warriors pick” as one of the league’s top trade assets for the next half a decade. And hat’s fine, if it means trading future assets in to cash in now when the title window is open. But the Warriors could’ve just kept their own picks and traded them this summer, and they’d still have Andre Iguodala too.

Heck, the fact that Iggy got signed-and-traded to Miami the day before might have been the last straw that pushed a panicked Warriors team to move on for a wing option, knowing Iggy was off the board for next season.

In the end, I just can’t find any reason this trade makes any sense for the Warriors. It’s all just excuses, and we’re long overdue to stop making excuses for Andrew Wiggins.

What if Golden State isn’t actually smarter than everyone else?

Honestly, I think this was just Golden State arrogantly thinking they’re smarter than everyone else in the room. Oh no one else wants Andrew Wiggins? We’ll we’re the Warriors! We’re light years ahead! We’ll make Wiggins good and flip him for something positive!!

When did we decide Golden State was the golden standard of NBA moves?

Was it all their recent draft picks? Tell me again, how did guys like Jacob Evans, Damian Jones, and Jordan Poole turn out?

Oh, was it their recent signings? Remind me again how Swaggy and Boogie fit. Tell me about the seven big men the Warriors insisted on signing every year and the utter lack of shooting and wing depth in the playoffs every summer.

Right, it’s because they lucked into Kevin Durant in an unprecedented cap spike year when KD did something no star in NBA history had ever done before. Definitely no luck involved in that timing.

Yes, the Warriors drafted and developed Steph, Klay, and Draymond and kept that trio together. They get credit for that. But other than lucking into Durant, almost every move they’ve made since then has been questionable or downright bad, including the moves that landed them Russell.

Maybe it’s time we stop giving Golden State the benefit of the doubt in every move. Take off the gold and blue glasses and stop making excuses.

This move was a disaster for Golden State. It’s just the latest example of Warriors arrogance thinking they’re the smartest guy in the room. But what if they’re not?

Perhaps Andrew Wiggins will finally do what even LeBron James could not — end the Warriors dynasty.

So this trade was pretty good for the Wolves then?

In a word… YES.

Honestly, you can think of this as two separate trades. In one trade, Minnesota finally pays the piper, expending two valuable draft picks to finally rid itself of Andrew Wiggins. A tough price to pay but fair. It was time to move on.

In the other deal, the Wolves got a young All-Star point guard for free.

I’m seeing a lot of talk about DLo and KAT as the new Stephon Marbury and Kevin Garnett. That’s silly. Marbury played two years with the Wolves before asking out at age 21 and was barely a positive player, certainly not an All-Star. Heck, KG was only 22, so KAT’s better now than KG was then, too.

Minnesota fans are understandably quite excited to add a point guard of Russell’s caliber. Maybe you’d be excited too, if your franchise had literally only had seven players in team history make an All-Star team, just one of them for only one season at guard (Sam Cassell).

Whether you think D’Angelo Russell is actually good or not, the guy can certainly pour in points. Only 16 players in Wolves history have a 40-point game, and just six have done it more than once. Russell already has five 40s in his career, which would rank 4th all-time in Wolves history. He had a career-high 52 points early this season. Minnesota has only two 52-point games in franchise history (Karl-Anthony Towns 56 and, lol, Mo Williams 52). Actually, the Wolves are well aware of DLo’s 52-point game — after all, it came in the Target Center in November against these Wolves.

Russell can really fill it up when that jumper is falling. He hit at least six threes in each of those 40-point games, and he’s had six or more threes 25 times in his career. Minnesota’s all-time leader in games with 6+ threes is Zach LaVine — with six. Six!! Only 14 Wolves have even done it twice, and the entire franchise has only 56 such games.

Welcome to the modern era, Minnesota.

Of course, Wolves fans know as well as anyone that scoring alone doesn’t make you a good player. But Russell’s advanced metrics look pretty solid too.

Russell had 3.3 VORP last year, probably not totally deserving of an All-Star berth but typically a top-40 or so season. He did so at age 22. Only 16 other point guards in NBA history have a 3+ VORP season by age 22: Magic, Isiah, Mark Jackson, Kevin Johnson, Penny, Kidd, Steve Francis, Baron Davis, Gilbert Arenas, CP3, Rondo, Westbrook, Rose, Kyrie, Ben Simmons, and Luka Doncic. Pretty impressive list of young future stars.

Minnesota has only 20 seasons in franchise history above 3.3 VORP. Over half of those came from Kevin Garnett, with three from KAT, three from Kevin Love, and one each from Butler, Cassell, and Tyrone Corbin. In other words, Russell’s 2018–19 season would already be a top-20 all-time Timberwolves season. Even if he never even gets any better, he might already be the best guard this franchise has ever had.

He’s already one of the best second bananas the team has ever seen. There’s not much competition. There was one Jimmy Butler year, one Sam Cassell year, and that’s really about it. After that, it’s someone like Terrell Brandon or Wally Szczerbiak as top second bananas in Wolves history. That’s mostly just pathetic, but it’s also why Wolves fans are so excited.

So just how good is D’Angelo Russell?

Enough about Minnesota’s terrible history. What about its future? Exactly how good is D’Angelo Russell?

Russell has two skills every NBA analyst agrees are among the league’s best. He’s an outstanding passer with a killer dribble pull-up jumper. And if you’ve been watching any basketball lately, you know the dribble pull-up has become the league’s hottest weapon.

What players does D’Angelo Russell remind you of? What other point guards have a killer pull-up?

Let’s compare him to a few of his contemporaries at a similar age:

Go ahead and take a look at the numbers. They’re astonishingly similar, right? All point guards with killer pull-up jumpers.

Kemba Walker is the oldest and the worst. He’s a reminder that point guards often mature late — he was 25 when he really broke out. Gilbert Arenas and Damian Lillard are pretty similar. Kyrie Irving was considered a career loser at that age, before LeBron came. James Harden stands out, largely due to a mammoth free throw rate even then that made him an elite scorer.

D’Angelo Russell actually rates as the second best defender of the group and a reminder that point guard defense doesn’t matter as much as you think, not for the stars. He has by far the worst free throw rate — a definite problem, since freebies are the easiest way to score. But he’s also by far the best passer of this group. That stands out almost as much as Harden’s free throws.

Let’s talk about James Harden for a second.

Gersson Rosas was a huge part of the team that identified Harden’s latent talent and pushed Daryl Morey to trade for him in 2012. Harden was not an All-Star yet, but he was an efficient scorer with intriguing passing, an elite ability to get to the line, and a smooth jumper.

Russell doesn’t have that foul-drawing ability, but you can see shades of similarity with the passing and jumper. What would Minnesota look like if Russell’s usage goes up, not down, as he extends the range on his deadly pull-up and starts taking 10+ threes a game like Harden? He’s already at 9.7 this year. Remember, Harden has never been an elite three-point shooter. His skill is being a good shooter at elite volume, letting the math win out.

James Harden is an all-time great player and perennial MVP. D’Angelo Russell is not James Harden, nor will he ever be. But what would DLo look like in a Harden type role, expanding the court with a deep range that pulls the defense out?

How valuable would Harden be if you kept the jump shot volume and efficiency along with the passing but took away the free throws? Certainly not MVP caliber anymore, but pretty good, right? Now what if instead of the free throws, you gave that player the most efficient scoring big man in NBA history? You might have something there, right?

Russell has already been expanding his shot range this season. Just take a look at the shot charts below, with last season on the left and this year on the right.

Harden has been the engine of a top-3 offense just about every season since joining Houston. How good could an offense be with similar spacing and shooting, but with Karl-Anthony Towns spacing the defense instead of Clint Capela eating space in the paint? Minnesota’s other moves all had one thing in common: shooting. Malik Beasley, Juancho Hernangomez, and others will stretch this offense further.

Russell hasn’t been great getting to the rim, but he’s improved this season, from 17.8% free throw rate to 22.7%. It’s still not enough. Defenses won’t be too afraid of DLo turning the corner on them, but if Towns is the one setting the screen, they’ll have to respect his gravity and/or risk a small guard defender switching onto the league’s most elite seven-foot scorer.

Russell isn’t good at defense either, but it’s fair to suspect he’s not nearly as bad as he’s looked this season with a bunch of G-Leaguers around him. Towns’s defense is a far bigger problem than Russell’s. Look back at that list of DLo contemporaries. Their lack of defense hasn’t exactly killed their teams. Heck, Minnesota assistant David Vanterpool is pretty familiar with how to hide a great point guard with poor defense since he did it with Damian Lillard.

Let’s be very clear. D’Angelo Russell is not James Harden or Damian Lillard. But Harden and Lillard weren’t HARDEN and LILLARD at that age either. Guards often don’t hit their prime until age 25. Russell is still just figuring this game out, and unlike Andrew Wiggins, he’s actually improved each year.

D’Angelo Russell may or may not be a superstar. But he might be able to play like one in the right system.

Everyone loves to talk about what Wiggins would look like in a better team situation, but what about D’Angelo Russell? This is already his fourth team, after all. He spent his rookie season celebrating Kobe’s swan song, then fought Jordan Clarkson and Swaggy P for touches his sophomore year and joined a tanking Nets team in 2017 before finally breaking out. This Warriors roster might have been his worst situation yet.

Who is the best teammate D’Angelo Russell has ever played with? Was it 38-year-old Kobe Bryant? Checked-out Draymond Green? Lakers Lou Williams? Spencer Dinwiddie or Joe Harris last year? Yikes.

Imagine D’Angelo Russell with a really good teammate.

Imagine him with Karl-Anthony Towns.

Russell’s passing has grown mightily over five seasons. His two-point percent is steadily increasing each year. His three-point attempt rate continues to rise, over 50% for the first time this season, and that will go even higher in Minnesota. Russell’s true shooting is rising too, up from 51% his first three seasons to 53% last year and 56% this one.

What will those numbers look like on an offense with real spacing and talent, one designed to feature Russell instead of just jamming a round peg into a square hole?

Gersson Rosas wanted D’Angelo Russell bad. And the last time Rosas wanted a guy this bad, it worked out pretty well. Just sayin’.

The final word

D’Angelo Russell and Karl-Anthony Towns are under contract together at least three more seasons. They make about $54 million this year, around half the cap. Rosas also worked his magic there, ridding Minnesota of two of the league’s seven worst contracts, with one year of James Johnson the only bad salary remaining on the books.

Heck, maybe D’Angelo Russell never shunned Minnesota this summer after all. Maybe he and KAT and Rosas actually hatched a plan in that helicopter to let DLo languish a few months in Golden State before using him to rid the Wolves of Andrew Wiggins and land Minnesota a second star. Conspiracy theory anyone?

Conspiracy or not, the Minnesota Timberwolves are massive winners in this trade, and the Golden State Warriors are the league’s biggest Trade Deadline losers. This trade will shape the future of each team in a huge way, and it could be the beginning of the end for the Warriors dynasty.

But hey, at least Golden State will have Andrew Wiggins on the books these next four years. Maybe they can use some of his $122 million to soak up their tears… ■

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