Note: On Tuesday evening after this column was submitted, news broke that Anthony Edwards will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his right knee and will miss up to two months of playing time.
The column concentrates on the reasons why the Wolves thrilling start to the season ratifies the vision of the front office and coaching staff in making dramatic changes over the summer. It specifically notes the surprisingly strong contribution of newcomer Jonathan Kuminga in so ably fulfilling the thankless role he has been handed, and the commitment to defense made by another newcomer, LaMelo Ball, as signs of a teamwork-oriented roster.
Preliminary reports by other Wolves beat writers such as Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic note that the Wolves and Edwards elected to have the surgery now because that teamwork has put the remaining roster pieces in position to ably compete enough to keep the Wolves in the playoff chase while Ant recuperates. If he is sidelined the full two months, he will miss approximately 30 games between now and the end of the calendar year, counting games yet to be specified pending the results of the Emirates NBA Cup competition in the first two weeks of December. That still leaves more than 45 games remaining in the 82-game 2026-27 NBA regular season.
Given that context, we believe the column remains relevant as originally written, as does the And One newsletter emphasizing the need for greater usage from Jaden McDaniels, which takes on even more urgency in the wake of Ant’s upcoming surgery.
Without getting ahead of ourselves too much, the absence of Ant is likely to move Ayo Dosunmu into the starting lineup and to provide more minutes for Bones Hyland (and perhaps Jaylen Clark) in the second unit. If and when Dosunmu is elevated, more responsibility would likely be placed on TJ Shannon as a playmaker off the bench, a role he had already begun to embrace. And it places more weight on the play of LaMelo Ball and Jonathan Kuminga, who, as the column states, have already bolstered the confidence of the franchise and the cohesion of the roster with their selfless performance in the first four games of the season.
MinnPost will have more updates on Ant’s surgery in The Glean and ongoing reports on how the team is responding in future columns and And One newsletters.
A mere four games into the 2026-27 NBA season, the performance of the Minnesota Timberwolves has already ratified the wisdom of the team’s audacious summer facelift.
Gone are the chagrined scowls and injured winces of Julius Randle and Naz Reid, shipped to Brooklyn and Charlotte, respectively, where they are starring for ballclubs expected to be among the dregs of the Eastern Conference. (Although Naz and the Hornets currently don’t seem at all displeased with their newly conjoined status quo.) Arrived are LaMelo Ball and Jonathan Kuminga, ushering in a vision of quicksilver pace and svelte athleticism, a workout tape of bends, stretches and spurts to abet the ongoing spandex of Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, Ayo Dosunmu, TJ Shannon and the teenaged foal Joan Beringer.
The aerobics of the new crew have been a blast to witness. But it is the cogitation and camaraderie of this refashioned, bounding pack of Wolves that has truly animated the clairvoyance of President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly and Head Coach Chris Finch.
Through the first week of the season, this team has performed as if they understand that no serious contender for an NBA championship is simply the sum of its roster parts, regardless of how much collective talent is amassed. They’ve been backfilling feats of majesty with selfless sacrifices for their greater good, a charismatic blend of hard and soft power. Last year, many if not most of the Wolves played as if they’d prefer to tweak their roles, a stark contrast to this season’s universal embrace.
The newcomers, Kuminga and LaMelo, have been most emblematic of this influential virtue. Kuminga rates top mention because his jobs are relatively thankless: Dig and defend against the opponent’s large forwards, be they bangers or speedsters. Contest for rebounds at both ends of the court. Push the pace as a subsidiary scorer on offense and a reliable deterrent in transition defense. The slicker aspects of his skill set have been repurposed into glue, sugar-free on the stat sheet and unrewarded by the paycheck.
No matter. The guy who was a lightning rod for discord in Golden State has become a paragon of compliant teamwork in Minnesota. Signed as a bargain-priced patch for the holes left by the departures of Randle and Naz, his gritty jousts with larger matchups like Giannis Antetokounmpo in Miami and Paolo Banchero in Orlando has transformed a supposed weakness in the Wolves defense into enough of a positive to currently rank second in the NBA in fewest points allowed per possession. His rebounding has been multipurpose, as his speed enables him to chase down some long caroms and, more often, his heart has him in the mosh pit beneath the hoop, pogoing alongside Gobert in feisty tip-drills and reducing resistance with earnest box-outs.
On offense, Kuminga has been minding his own business for the good of the team with shrewd positioning and proper restraint. He’s become a key, floor-spacing asset perched in the corners as a three-point threat, where he’s 4-for-7 (57.1%) and 46.7% overall on 7-for-15 from distance. His decision-making follows the dictum of “first, do no harm,” which he has honored with ten dimes compared to one solitary turnover in 119 minutes of play, deferring usage to playmaking dynamos like Ant and LaMelo. His accuracy on two-pointers and free-throws has been subpar thus far, but that’s probably a backhanded tribute to how much of his energy has been sapped by the lane-filling dashes and paint-clogging collisions that come with his complementary role.
LaMelo likewise has been more industrious and effective on defense than expected, mimicking the kinetic and finicky gait of his dribble on offense to come and go in the face of his assignment on defense. Sometimes his rhythm is off and a blow-by or a foul results. But his spindly 6-foot, 7-inch frame makes good things happen too, including a lot of deflections and occasions where his man must pick up the dribble and invite the trap. What remains laudably constant is his desire for engagement on defense, an investment that has him miffed at the refs more for fouls called on him than the no-calls of his opponents when he has the rock.
Bottom line, folks were well-aware of LaMelo’s elite playmaking prowess and vast range as a shooter, and with Kuminga’s potentially potent package of offense and his springy athleticism. We were much less aware that they would fold themselves so capably into the firmament of teamwork at both ends of the court. It’s obviously a scant sample size with a lot of attendant noise and factors, but in terms of fewest points allowed per possession when they are on the court, LaMelo and Kuminga are sandwiched second and third between the defensive stalwarts Gobert (first on the team) and McDaniels (4th) in their statistical impact on defensive efficiency.
The newcomers are specifically cited mostly for the surprise factor, but the fact is that you can’t demolish three straight opponents as thoroughly as the Wolves dispatched the Heat, Magic and Raptors to start the season without everyone prioritizing synergy and then getting an extra boost of adrenaline and focus when it becomes evident how dominant they can be. If you count a feature magazine story on backup center Gary Leonard in the inaugural season of the Timberwolves, I’ve covered this franchise every year of its existence and they have never opened with a trio of games where the outcome was decided before the fourth quarter. This was unprecedented territory.
Monday night’s loss to the Cavs in Cleveland was an understandable setback. The Wolves had just beaten the highly physical, previously undefeated Raptors in the emotional setting of their home opener at Target Center just the night before, and were at a rest disadvantage against a Cavs roster that has changed little since last season’s trip to the Eastern Conference Finals. When the Wolves once again blitzed out to a double-digit lead within the first seven minutes and pretty much kept it that way through to halftime, it was human nature to think a fourth rout was on the horizon.
Then fatigue and the high-caliber opponent converged to erase the lead, and more, for much of the second half. Mobley had a career night from long distance with four successful three-pointers and the dynamic backcourt of James Harden and Donovan Mitchell hit their strides. Finch probably went with his bench a little too long, pleased by offensive cohesion and the defensive intensity of Beringer and Shannon, even as the Cavs were overwhelming them.
Another reason to ride the bench was that Gobert was having one of those fiasco games where his hand-eye coordination was short-circuiting, and where Melo’s trademark mojo was a no-go, to the tune of six turnovers. Some heroic clutch shooting from Ant nearly helped them pull off the victory anyway, but a drive where a ref’s legitimate whistle would likely have decided the outcome wasn’t blown (not surprising under the circumstances). In the overtime, McDaniels fouled out and compounded the damage with a technical foul two minutes into the period. Ant had a chance to win it after a purposefully missed free throw by Melo, but it clanged out.
Even in defeat, there was the solace of Beringer’s best overall game of the young season and a burst of clutch offense from Shannon. But the harsh truth is that the Wolves had become too accustomed to their own dominance and, hollowed slightly by fatigue, inevitably relaxed the exalted standard they had set against a talented foe who found a rhythm.
There is the worry that the feel-good offseason — in which the Wolves established a rare comfort and amity with each other in the luster of Gobert’s Paris, then competed furiously in pickup games at Mayo Clinic Square before the preseason — set them well ahead of the rest of the NBA, and that other fearsome contenders will make up that gap.
But, as stated in the lead to this story, the high bar already set by this roster in the first week of this season ratifies the bold moves executed by Connelly and implemented by Finch. Just before the season started, the coach proclaimed that last season’s moodiness had been supplanted by giddiness — an accurate appraisal, given how contagious that giddiness has become for those of us who can appreciate watching the ruthless joy of a selfless team firing on all cylinders.
Giddiness alone does not sustain, however, and the contenders who stick around learn that shoring up their lows is as important as topping off their highs. With the Oklahoma City Thunder rocked by the significant injuries to two of their starters and the San Antonio Spurs coming slow out of the gate in what may be a hangover from last season’s stirring playoff run, the door toward the top of the West is cracked open, just a little. The Wolves have earned access to a template, an identity, and a hope to aid them in the climb ahead. But right now it is anyone’s guess how high that can take them.
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