Timberwolves surrender first-round pick to Golden State

Jun. 23—One year after the Lottery Gods smiled down on Minnesota, there was no such luck to be found for the Timberwolves on Tuesday night.

The Timberwolves did not move into the top three, meaning their first-round pick, No. 7 overall, conveys to Golden State, completing the D'Angelo Russell-Andrew Wiggins deal made in February of 2020.

Detroit will have the top pick in the July draft, while Houston will pick second and Cleveland will select third.

Minnesota, meanwhile, is currently without a selection in the upcoming draft.

Some will point to the Timberwolves' refusal to tank as the reason Minnesota won't keep its pick, which was top-three protected this year. The Timberwolves went 9-7 over their final 16 games with a relatively healthy roster, pushing their odds of landing a top-three pick from more than 40 percent to just 27 percent. The Wolves valued winning games over lottery balls.

Gersson Rosas, the team's president of basketball operations, expressed no regret over that decision late last week, citing the importance of player development, a larger sample size for evaluation and, perhaps most important, maintaining the organization's credibility in the eyes of the players.

"You lose (the players') focus and connection with what we're trying to do," Rosas said. "We're at a stage where it's happened too often. We can't do that. We can't be that. We have to be a team that's aggressively and 100 percent committed on winning in everything we do."

Rosas believes the team's success under new head coach Chris Finch generated momentum that the players carried into the offseason. Whether that's more valuable than a greater chance to draft another potentially transcendent talent remains to be seen.

The massive impact Anthony Edwards — selected No. 1 overall last season after Minnesota won the lottery — has had on the franchise in seven months is well documented. It's entirely possible Cade Cunningham, Jalen Suggs, Evan Mobley or Jalen Green could have had a similar effect.

Still, as Rosas has noted, there is a cost to doing business. Minnesota feels good about where it's at with its trio of Edwards, Russell and Karl-Anthony Towns. He feels the addition of Russell has helped catapult the Timberwolves to a position of renewed promise for an exciting future.

"We're at a point where we're prepared to take a step forward, and it wouldn't have happened without that trade," Rosas said.

Plus, there is a little more financial freedom that comes with not having the pick.

A top-three pick would have commanded $8 million-plus next season, which would have had Minnesota flirting with the luxury tax line all offseason. Now, the Timberwolves have a bit more wiggle room.

"It's enticing to know if we don't get the pick, we have some financial flexibility that we can go into free agency or trades with to maybe add a guy that's more ready to help us now as we try to compete and win," Rosas said last week.

But make no mistake, the Timberwolves would have preferred the lottery balls had fallen their way.