Minnesota Timberwolves

An expansion club that almost left before it settled

The Timberwolves were established as an NBA expansion franchise in 1989 and played their first season, 1989-90, in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. They moved out the following year into Target Center, which opened on 13 October 1990 and which the city of Minneapolis still owns. By 1994 the club was close to being sold and relocated to New Orleans; the rescue came from a group assembled by the investor Edward Villaume, with Glen Taylor as lead investor. Taylor held the controlling stake for the next three decades.

His exit was neither quick nor tidy. Taylor agreed in April 2021 to sell to Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez under a staged buy-out, the payment schedule turned into a dispute, and the two sides met to mediate on 1 May 2024 without reaching agreement. The NBA Board of Governors approved the transfer to Rodriguez, Lore and their limited partners in June 2025, at a valuation of $1.5bn. The new governors inherited a club with only two retired honours hanging in the roof: the number 2 for Malik Sealy and the word FLIP for the coach Flip Saunders.

Three deep runs, no final

For two decades the franchise had exactly one season worth replaying. The 2003-04 team won the division and reached the Western Conference finals with Kevin Garnett at the centre of it, and that remained the club's only conference finals appearance until 2024, when Minnesota swept Phoenix 4-0 in the first round — the first series sweep in Minnesota men's professional sports history — before going on to the conference finals again.

The following season carried the same shape. Karl-Anthony Towns was traded to New York in a three-team deal that returned Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and a future first-round pick; the 2024-25 side finished 49-33 and sixth in the West, beat the Lakers 4-1 and Golden State 4-1 — the first time the club had won a playoff round in consecutive seasons — then lost the conference finals to Oklahoma City 1-4.

2025-26 repeated the record and stopped earlier. Chris Finch's team again went 49-33 and again finished sixth, saw off Denver 4-2 between 18 and 30 April 2026, and lost the conference semi-finals to San Antonio 2-4 between 4 and 15 May. Edwards averaged 28.8 points across 61 games and was an All-Star selection; Randle contributed 21.1 points and five assists a game, Jaden McDaniels 14.8, Naz Reid 13.6, DiVincenzo 12.2, and Rudy Gobert 11.5 rebounds with 1.6 blocks. Ayo Dosunmu and Julian Phillips had arrived from Chicago that February. Both Edwards and DiVincenzo were carrying injuries by the time the Spurs series ended.

The summer the backcourt was torn up

Having won five playoff series in three years without reaching a final, the front office under Tim Connelly chose scale over continuity. On 10 July 2026 Minnesota took LaMelo Ball and Josh Green out of Charlotte and the draft rights to Isaiah Evans out of Brooklyn in a four-team trade, sending Reid to the Hornets, Randle and the rights to Joshua Jefferson to the Nets, and a run of draft picks to Charlotte. On 29 August the club turned Green into John Konchar and Cody Williams from Utah. Jonathan Kuminga signed a two-year deal to fill the power-forward slot after an unsuccessful pursuit of LeBron James, Trey Lyles came in from Real Madrid, and Dosunmu was retained on a five-year, $112m contract. Bones Hyland and Jaylen Clark re-signed. Jefferson, taken 28th in the June draft, was traded before playing a game; the second-rounder, Trey Kaufman-Renn at 59, stayed.

The logic is that Edwards has spent three years doing too much of the organising himself. He shot 49.6% on catch-and-shoot three-pointers last season, the best figure among the 308 players who attempted at least 75 of them, yet only 27% of his threes came off the catch — the fourth-lowest rate in the league. Ball is there to change that ratio. The cost is physical: losing Randle and Reid in the same week removed most of the front-court bulk behind Gobert, and both Ball and Kuminga are regarded as defensive liabilities who will need McDaniels and Gobert to cover for them.

Where they stand in October 2026

Edwards said in camp that he needed roughly two months after the season to let his right knee settle, having also hyperextended his left knee in the first round against Denver and come away with a bone bruise. He put on weight during the lay-off and has since trained back into shape. Finch confirmed the full first five of Ball, Edwards, Kuminga, McDaniels and Gobert would start the preseason opener on Monday 5 October with real minutes, the point being chemistry rather than conditioning. Williams has impressed Edwards defensively; Finch has said the rookie Evans needs to cut out the errors that come from trying to do too much before he earns rotation minutes. Tom Thibodeau, who coached the club from 2016 to 2019, visited camp on Saturday 3 October while weighing his own options.

Outside projections put Minnesota at 55-27 with title odds of +2500 and an offseason grade of B as of late September 2026. The regular season starts away at Miami on Wednesday 21 October, 6.30pm, on ESPN. The home opener is Sunday 25 October at 6pm against Toronto. There are 27 national television appearances, a franchise-record eight-game homestand from 8 to 23 November, and the club's first home game on Christmas Day, against Oklahoma City on 25 December at 7pm on ABC. Emirates NBA Cup group play puts them in West Group B with the Clippers, Memphis, New Orleans and the Thunder, with the Clippers visiting on 30 October.

The building, and the cost of a seat

Target Center seats 18,798 for basketball and cost $104m to build. It has been reworked three times — 2004, 2014 and a $140m overhaul approved in 2015 that reopened in October 2017, funded by $74m from the city, $60m from Taylor and $5.9m from AEG. The arena is city-owned and run by Legends Global, which also means the Timberwolves share it with the WNBA's Lynx and with the concert calendar.

Renewal notices went out on 22 January 2026 with increases of up to 38% for supporters wanting to keep the same seats, which the club described as a pricing reset and justified by a new in-arena lighting system, the commitment made to bring Kevin Garnett back into the organisation, and a roster over the salary cap; it also pointed out that its average season-ticket price had ranked 29th of 30 teams beforehand. The cheapest season seat, in the upper level, now comes to $21 a game. Announced attendance had already fallen by around 1,500 a game, and some season-ticket holders said publicly they would not renew. Garnett's part in that spend is real: appointed team ambassador across the Wolves and Lynx, he returned to Target Center on 12 April 2026 for the final home game of the season against New Orleans — his first appearance in the building since 2018 — on a fan appreciation night built round a 1990s theme, with former teammates present and Montell Jordan performing at half-time. His number 21 is due to be retired next season.

Match night

The format is the NBA's: four twelve-minute quarters, gates open an hour before tip-off, and the whole thing closer to two and a half hours than two once stoppages and television breaks are counted. Entertainment runs in the gaps rather than around them — the mascot Crunch working the aisles and the lower bowl, timeout games, a half-time act. The Lynx mascot Prowl appears alongside him at joint events. Food comes from rotating local vendors rather than a fixed concession list, Soul Bowl and Parlour among them, and there are two team stores, one in the skyway outside the gates and one on the first level inside.

The arena's position helps. It sits at the edge of the Warehouse District and the North Loop, with bars and restaurants within a couple of blocks, and on game days the enclosed Minneapolis skyway system keeps extended hours so that supporters can reach the doors without going outside — not a trivial feature in a Minnesota January. The crowd itself changed after the 2024 run; the complaint now is price rather than apathy.