Minnesota Timberwolves Bet on LaMelo Ball and Left a Hole at Power Forward

Nothing was signed, traded or waived in Minnesota over the past week, and the Minnesota Timberwolves still produced the most revealing quote of their offseason. Asked about how the LaMelo Ball trade came together, president of basketball operations Tim Connelly said Anthony Edwards has "as big a voice as anybody" in the organization on roster decisions, then went further: "Every move we make is kind of Ant-centric." Two years after the Karl-Anthony Towns trade landed on Edwards without warning, Minnesota consulted him before importing a second lead ball-handler. That is a real shift, and it explains a summer that has otherwise been mostly about subtraction.

The Minnesota Timberwolves news behind an Ant-centric summer

Start with the results the roster is built to improve on. Minnesota went 49-33 last season, sixth in the West, knocked out a 54-win Denver team 4-2 in the first round and then lost to eventual conference champion San Antonio 4-2 in the semifinals. That is the fifth straight playoff appearance and the second straight year the ceiling was somewhere short of the Finals. Edwards averaged 28.8 points, 5.0 rebounds and 3.7 assists on 48.9 percent shooting and 39.9 percent from three, which would ordinarily be an All-NBA case. He played 61 games. The league's 65-game threshold cost him the award and, with it, eligibility for a four-year supermax extension this summer.

Per Darren Wolfson, reporting in mid-July, the plan is a "monster extension" next offseason instead, assuming Edwards stays healthy enough to qualify. That single-season delay is the quiet logic behind everything Minnesota did in June and July: get Edwards a co-creator, take some load off his shoulders, and let the availability take care of itself.

What the Minnesota Timberwolves gave up for LaMelo Ball

The bill was steep. Charlotte received Naz Reid, an unprotected 2033 first-round pick, first-round swap rights in 2028, 2029 and 2030, and second-rounders in 2029, 2032 and 2033. Minnesota got Ball and wing Josh Green. Ball averaged 20.1 points, 4.8 rebounds and 7.1 assists in 72 games last season and carries three years remaining on the five-year, $203.9 million extension he signed in Charlotte. The deal was reported in late June but could not be processed until July 10, largely because Mouhamadou Gueye, a small piece of the multi-team construction, was not trade-eligible until three months after signing on April 9.

That was the second body blow to the frontcourt. The first came on June 23, when Minnesota shipped Julius Randle and the No. 28 pick to Brooklyn for the No. 33 pick, with Chicago taking on Nic Claxton. Randle averaged 21.1 points, 6.7 rebounds and 5.0 assists in 79 games but shot poorly in the playoffs, and the move was frankly a salary dump: it cleared his $33.3 million salary and a $35.8 million player option, generated a trade exception of the same size, and bought the flexibility to keep Ayo Dosunmu on a reported five-year, $112 million deal. ESPN graded the Randle piece a B for Minnesota.

The rest of the ledger is smaller. Bones Hyland re-signed in early July. Trey Lyles came in on a one-year deal. Jaylen Clark got three years and roughly $10 million. Enrique Freeman took a two-way. Second-rounders Isaiah Evans, No. 33 out of Duke, and Trey Kaufman-Renn, No. 59, signed multiyear contracts. Mike Conley, Kyle Anderson and Joe Ingles all hit free agency on July 1.

The power forward hole nobody has filled

Subtract Randle and Reid in the same three-week stretch and you are left with a starting five of Edwards, Ball, Dosunmu, Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert, with McDaniels sliding up a position by default. Chris Finch has resisted framing it that way. "I see Jaden playing largely the same role he's always played," the coach said, while allowing that the actual starting power forward might come "out of left field."

The numbers explain the anxiety better than the quotes do. McDaniels grabbed 4.2 rebounds per game last season with a defensive rebound rate of 11.6 percent. Terrence Shannon Jr. sits at 9.4, Green at 9.2, Clark at 7.1. Lyles, at 21.0, is the only forward on the roster who rebounds like an NBA four. Gobert pulled down 11.5 boards a night across 76 games and will now do so with less help than he has had in Minnesota. That is a real problem for a team whose defensive identity depends on ending possessions.

The free agent board is thin and the money is thinner. Local coverage in the past week floated Mario Hezonja, back stateside after six seasons at Real Madrid, along with Kelly Olynyk, Jeremy Sochan and Spencer Jones as depth options rather than solutions. The trade route runs through Green's $14.7 million expiring contract, but he cannot be aggregated with other salary until roughly early September, 60 days after the Ball deal closed.

Cap sheet and roster battles

Minnesota is operating with less than $4 million of room beneath its second-apron hard cap, which effectively rules out anything beyond minimum contracts until a salary-matching trade opens the door. Everything the front office does between now and camp will be shaped by that number.

There is a stylistic question buried in the cap math too. Minnesota has spent four years building a defense around Gobert's rim protection and McDaniels chasing the other team's best perimeter scorer. Ball is a gifted passer and a shaky defender, and pairing him with Edwards means two of the three perimeter starters are being asked to carry offensive loads that historically eat into their defensive effort. Finch has made it work with less talent. He has never had to make it work with this little size.

Which raises the stakes on the internal competition. Terrence Shannon Jr. was the most interesting bench piece in the playoffs, but Finch has acknowledged the fit problem: Shannon is at his best with the ball, and Minnesota just added another player who needs it. "We played him out of the corner most of the season," Finch said. With Ball, Edwards and Dosunmu all requiring touches, Shannon has to prove he can score without them. Joan Beringer, the second-year center, is pushing for real minutes behind Gobert after a strong Las Vegas run. Hyland, Clark and Green will fight over the rest.

Summer League gave Minnesota two names to watch

Zyon Pullin, on a two-way deal signed in March, was the story. He made the All-Summer League Second Team and put up 23 points and six assists in a 114-98 win over Indiana on July 15. Evans, the Duke wing, dropped 22 in that same game, albeit on 22 shots, which is roughly the scouting report on him: shot-hunting volume scorer, needs to pick better. Kaufman-Renn added 14 off the bench, Freeman had 14 points and 11 rebounds, and 7-foot-3 Australian center Rocco Zikarsky chipped in 12. Minnesota was 2-2 through four games after getting run off the floor 111-84 by Portland on July 13.

Undrafted G League veteran Donovan Williams also made a case, averaging 13.4 points on 46.8 percent shooting in 22.8 minutes a night. He is not signed, but he started on day one in Vegas and did not give the job back.

What is next on the Minnesota Timberwolves calendar

• Josh Green becomes aggregable in trades around early September, opening the main path to a starting power forward
• Training camp opens in late September, preceded by media day
• Preseason in early October, with the 2026-27 regular season tipping off later that month
• Edwards becomes extension-eligible again next summer, with the 65-game threshold the number to watch all season

Local projections have already put Minnesota third in the West behind San Antonio and Oklahoma City, which feels aggressive for a team that just traded its two most productive frontcourt players and cannot afford to replace them. The counterargument is that Ball is the biggest name any Western team added this offseason and that Edwards, with a genuine second creator beside him for the first time, has a plausible path to the 70-plus games that unlock his supermax. Minnesota Timberwolves news between now and camp will come down to one question: can this front office find a power forward with a minimum contract and an expiring wing? Everything else about the 2026-27 season is already decided.