The best and worst trades in Minnesota Timberwolves franchise history

To take advantage of my 34 years covering Minnesota Timberwolves basketball, I figured a good theme for this would be rating the five best and five worst trades the franchise has made in its 35-year history. The scope leaves out anything involving simply money or unknown draft picks (although the later value of unknown draft picks included in the deal was considered). That created a pool of nearly 100 transactions over the decades.

This is a necessarily subjective endeavor. I suppose you could chart win shares or some other metric to measure the value of the players the Wolves relinquished versus what they obtained — and there were times when I checked the stats on various players to see how they stacked up to the eye test. But in the end, a team makes deals at different points in their arc of development — the abiding goals of winning games and garnering the loyalty and patronage of their fan base are always paramount but maybe prioritized differently. These circumstantial and aesthetic factors, put through my own filter, also were counted as I sorted through the nearly 100 machinations of personnel throughout Wolves history. 

So, on with the show.

The raw deals

5. A Payne in the rear

On Feb. 10, 2015, the Wolves acquired forward Adriean Payne from Atlanta in exchange for a protected first round pick that eventually conveyed in the 2018 draft. Payne starred for four years at Michigan State, coached by Tom Izzo, a close personal friend of Flip Saunders, who was serving as both general manager and head coach of the Wolves in the wake of Rick Adelman’s resignation. 

Mired in what would become a 16-66 season, Flip bought Izzo’s bill of goods on Payne and punted a precious draft pick, ignoring the fact that Atlanta had already given up on Payne, who they had played a total of 19 minutes in their first 53 games, despite taking him with the 15th overall pick that summer.

Payne played more minutes in his first 29 games with the Wolves than in his succeeding two seasons with the team before his contract mercifully expired. He couldn’t shoot (40% from the field, 23.6% from distance, 67.4% from the line) and was best known for knocking teammate Gorgui Dieng out of the lineup for weeks with a vicious chop when both were going for a rebound. 

The rest of his career amounted to 43 minutes with the Orlando Magic. Atlanta eventually used the Wolves pick on Kevin Huerter, a reliable three-point shooter who was integral to both the Hawks 2021 playoff run and Sacramento’s renaissance last season.

4. Roy for Foye, oy vey!

During the 2006 NBA draft on June 28, the Wolves had done the right thing by selecting forward Brandon Roy with the sixth overall pick. But before the night was over, general manager Kevin McHale had flipped Roy to the Portland Trailblazers in exchange for guard Randy Foye and cash considerations. 

Why did this happen? If you believe ESPN, it was because Portland had shrewdly broken up a planned trade between Minnesota and Houston. According to McHale that night, they were leery of Roy’s history of knee problems, always wanted Foye, and just extracted a little cash out of it in the process.

Whatever the case, Roy went on to win Rookie of Year and then was named an All Star the succeeding three seasons. He would have been an ideal complement to Kevin Garnett, enough to possibly forestall the eventual trading of KG. McHale was right; Roy’s knees gave out and he lasted just five seasons before finishing, ironically, playing five games for the Wolves before retiring. But Foye only lasted three seasons in Minnesota and never came close to the upside impact Roy would have delivered. 

3. The low point of Trader Jack’s ruinous reign

“Trader Jack” McCloskey was supposed to be the savior of a Wolves franchise already notorious for front office ineptitude. His roster machinations had helped propel the Detroit Pistons to back-to-back championships in 1989 and 1990 and he was eagerly snapped up by Minnesota when his contract expired in the summer of 1992.

It wasn’t enough that the Wolves used their sixth overall pick in the 1990 draft — the second year of their existence – on mediocre center Felton Spencer. They then proceeded to use their seventh overall pick in the 1991 draft on a slightly better center, Luc Longley. One of the obvious ways for McCloskey to improve the franchise would be to pare down that redundancy. Nobody expected the forehead-slapping clown show that ensued.

McCloskey got rid of Spencer on the night of the 1993 draft. But the trade was for Mike Brown, another center, who was 30-years-old and had started only 70 games in his previous seven NBA seasons. 

He was just getting started. In the middle of the next season, on Feb. 23, 1994, he traded Longley and a second-round draft pick in exchange for another older, less accomplished center, Stacey King. Longley was an upgrade over King in Chicago — both won three rings playing with Michael Jordan. King lasted 68 games with the Wolves. 

McCloskey continued spending more time on the senior doubles tennis circuit and officially announced his retirement in February 1995. 

2. The unintentional booby prize

Less than two months after he was hired as President of Basketball Operations for the Timberwolves, Gersson Rosas had his “welcome to the NBA” moment during the 2019 draft in June. The plan was to nab point guard Darius Garland with the sixth overall pick. But that entailed trading up from the Wolves draft slot, 11th overall, by including power forward Dario Saric in a deal with Phoenix. 

Except that the Cleveland Cavaliers defied the Wolves and conventional wisdom by choosing Garland with the fifth overall pick, despite taking point guard Collin Sexton in the first round the year before. Rosas pivoted to swingman Jarrett Culver, raved about his defensive tenacity and work ethic, claiming that is who he wanted all along. 

If Garland had been available it would have been a good trade. But Culver was a bust, a deer-in-the-headlights performer overmatched in the NBA, where he no longer performs. Meanwhile, Saric has continued to be a fairly valuable stretch power forward who plays physically and can hit a three-pointer. He would have been helpful on the roster that first year when Rosas had the Wolves chucking treys by noted clankers Treveon Graham, Shabazz Napier and Noah Vonleh. And Cam Johnson, who the Suns chose with the 11th pick, is an even deadlier outside shooter who played for the USA in the World Cup last summer.

1. Sacrificing a Hall of Famer for a bunch of mediocrity

I was there, so I know the frustration. After seven straight losses in the first round of the playoffs, an inspired trip to the conference finals and then three disheartening seasons out of the postseason, the Wolves were finally ready to trade their superstar and launch a major rebuild. 

Never should have happened.

On the last day of July in 2007, McHale and company traded Kevin Garnett to the Celtics for a pretty good offensive power forward (Al Jefferson) a workable swing man (Ryan Gomes), a talented chucklehead (Gerald Green), a decent backup point guard (Sebastian Telfair), a fading shotblocker (Theo Ratliff) and draft picks that became Wayne Ellington and Jonny Flynn. 

KG did not push for this trade, and, initially, publicly protested it. Then he went on to help the Celtics win a championship his first season there. His retired jersey hangs in the rafters at TD Garden in Boston. The Wolves did not field a basketball team with a winning record for more than a decade after the trade, the worst in franchise history. 

The shrewdest swaps

5. Hero ball and a steady regulator

After six straight first-round playoff losses, by the summer of 2003, owner Glen Taylor and the Wolves were ready to gamble on major trades that could get them to the next level. The transaction that was most successful in this regard was McHale dealing Joe Smith and Anthony Peeler to Milwaukee for Sam Cassell and Ervin Johnson on June 27. (Getting Latrell Sprewell for Terrell Brandon and Marc Jackson a month later was only a little less substantial.)

One of the precious few knocks on KG at the time was that he didn’t seize the game by the throat in crunch time, preferring to play “the right way” instead of “hero ball.” Cassell craved opportunities for heroism, for the chance to take and make big shots and then launch into his signature dance. That was huge for team chemistry, but so was Johnson, the unsung bonus of the trade. At 36, he was the team elder, with a decade in the league and a knack for steady play and a steady demeanor that was a crucial, steadying influence on a roster that ran hot with KG, Cassell and Spree. He started 47 games in that 2003-04 season and the Wolves record in those games was 37-10.

  

4. Diamond in the draft

The Wolves had just taken Anthony Edwards with the first pick in the 2020 NBA draft, but many in the fan base were focused on another activity on that November night. A three-team trade between the Wolves, the OKC Thunder and the New York Knicks had been completed. 

The marquee name was longtime fan favorite Ricky Rubio, coming back to Minnesota after stops in Utah, Phoenix, and, without ever playing a game for them, OKC. The Wolves also received late first-round picks in that 2020 draft from the Knicks (23rd) and the Thunder (28th). In return, they dealt center-forward James Johnson, the 17th pick in the 2020 draft (who became Aleksey Pokusevski) and 2024 second rounder to the Thunder, along with Matthias Lessort and a 2023 second rounder (who became James Nnaji) to the Knicks.

Johnson is on the last gasp of an impressive 15-year career. Poku currently sits at the end of the OKC bench. Lessort has played his entire career overseas. And even if the Thunder uncover a gem in the second round of 2024, this trade hit the jackpot for the Wolves because of how little they sacrificed to get another feel-good glimpse of Rubio, some false hope out of the Knicks pick, Leandro Bolmaro, and, oh yeah, the 28th pick of the 2020 draft from the Thunder: Jaden McDaniels.

3. Spread the Love, hold the Mayo

On draft night of 2008, the Wolves and the Memphis Grizzlies pulled off a blockbuster eight-player deal. The Wolves had taken guard OJ Mayo third overall. The Grizzlies had selected forward Kevin Love two picks later. Those were the principals. The Wolves filled in the edges with Greg Buckner, Marko Jaric and Antoine Walker. The Grizzlies sent Mike Miller, Brian Cardinal and Jason Collins along with Love to Minnesota. 

Miller was supposed to be the plum that enriched the swap enough to make it Mayo for Love. But Miller had a bizarre career in Minnesota, eschewing the gun-slinging that had won him a Sixth Man of the Year award in favor of too many passes and proclivity for seeming injured and limping to the sidelines, only to magically return moments later.

The Wolves decisively won the trade because of Love, who was treated shabbily by new President of Basketball Operations David Kahn after McHale (who engineered the trade) was fired. It took a whopping 30-point, 30-rebound game from Love before Kahn finally conceded he belonged in the starting lineup. He proceeded to put up pinball-game numbers and was a three-time All Star during his six seasons in Minnesota: He still ranks third in total win shares behind KG and Karl-Anthony Towns in franchise history. 

He also deserves a hat tip for being attractive enough to Lebron James and his return to Cleveland that the Cavs traded Andrew Wiggins and other assets to Minnesota even though Love made no secret that he was soon opting out of his contract in Minnesota. That send-away deal is an honorable mention among the Wolves best trades.

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2. The first All Star

One of the all-time great quotes in my time covering the Timberwolves was when then-head coach Bill Blair was getting ready to Xerox notes for his coaching staff as he talked about Donyell Marshall, the rookie selected with the 4th overall pick in the 1994 draft the previous summer. As the scanner methodically moved back and forth across the paper, Blair dismissively gestured toward it and said, “Donyell would have trouble guarding this copy machine.” 

That was a problem because the ink was still fresh on Marshall’s nine year contract. (This was before the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement limited the length of rookie signings.) Although still not officially in charge of personnel matters, McHale found a brilliant exit strategy, giving up on Marshall after 40 games via a mid-season, straight swap for forward Tom Gugliotta on Feb. 18, 1994.

“Googs” seemed like a godsend, an immediate oasis of all-around competence for a fledgling but perpetually floundering franchise. A 6’10” forward who could dribble, shoot, rebound and defend, he was the heart of the team his first two full seasons with the team — the rookie years of KG and Stefon Marbury, respectively. When the Wolves made the leap from never winning more than 29 games to a first-round playoff loss to the Rockets, Googs led the team in minutes, scoring, rebounds and steals while finishing second to Marbury in assists. He was the franchise’s first All Star that season and while conflicts with Marbury eventually got him traded, he was the team’s first genuine team leader in their rise to respectability.  

1. You already know the answer to this

On Feb. 9, 2023, the Wolves traded point guard D’Angelo Russell to the Los Angeles Laker in a three-team deal. In return, the Wolves received point guard Mike Conley and combo guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker (NAW) from the Utah Jazz, a 2024 second-round pick from the Lakers and a 2026 second-round pick from the Jazz.

D’Lo was a bad fit and it only got worse after the huge trade that brought Rudy Gobert to the team. Conley is a seamless fit with Gobert, an impeccable mentor to Ant, the most accurate three-point shooter on a team that also has KAT, and the most capably even-keeled personality in the NBA. NAW has emerged as one of the top dozen wing-stoppers in the NBA and is signed to a bargain contract the next two years. 

As of Friday morning, the Wolves are 21-6, the best record in the Western Conference. This trade is one of the top three reasons why.