The Minnesota Timberwolves have spent the past three seasons knocking on the door, and that makes the Jrue Holiday conversation an easy one to have. If you’re looking for the kind of player who can tilt a playoff series, Holiday sits near the top of the list. Former Wolves assistant and now Portland Trail Blazers head coach Micah Nori says Holiday himself believes Minnesota would have crossed the finish line with him in the mix.
“Jrue did tell me if he was on one of our Minnesota teams the last three years - any of those teams - we would have won a championship,” Nori said.
That’s the kind of quote that sticks, especially when the Timberwolves have been so close without quite getting there. They’ve advanced out of the first round in each of the past three seasons and reached the conference finals twice, but the missing ingredient has been pretty clear: another dependable ball-handler and creator alongside Anthony Edwards. Holiday would have checked that box and then some.
He’s not the sort of player whose value jumps off a basic stat sheet, but that’s exactly the point. Holiday does a little bit of everything - defense, playmaking, creation, shooting, connective guard play - and he does it at a level that makes everybody around him better. That’s why he’s been such a prized piece on championship teams, including the 2021 Milwaukee Bucks and the 2024 Boston Celtics.
For Minnesota, the fit is easy to imagine. Holiday’s defense would have blended naturally with the Wolves, and his ability to steady an offense could have eased the pressure on Edwards in the moments that matter most.
The team wasn’t far off, either. That’s what makes the idea so compelling.
The strongest case for the hypothetical comes from 2024. Minnesota’s Western Conference finals loss to the Dallas Mavericks came in five games, but three of those defeats were by single digits.
That’s the kind of series where one extra high-level guard can change the entire feel of things. If Holiday had been wearing a Wolves uniform instead of helping Boston win it all, the outcome could have gone the other way.
The timing makes the whole thing even more interesting. Holiday was traded in 2023 and again in 2025, which means Minnesota could have had a shot at him twice.
Of course, there’s no way to know what the trade package would have looked like, or how the rest of the roster would have shifted. But as a pure thought exercise, dropping Holiday onto one of those recent Wolves teams makes the picture look a lot different.
The 2024 group stands out as the clearest missed opportunity. The losses in the 2025 season against the San Antonio Spurs and the year before against the Oklahoma City Thunder weren’t nearly as tight, but Holiday would still have changed the team on both ends. That kind of player doesn’t just fill a hole; he changes the shape of the whole operation.
Still, this is a fun what-if more than a reason for regret. The Timberwolves’ championship window is still open, and with LaMelo Ball in the mix, there’s at least the possibility that Minnesota gets over the hump soon. But it’s hard not to wonder what those recent playoff runs might have looked like with Jrue Holiday in the middle of them.
In Other News...
Jaden McDaniels Buzz Suddenly Feels Bigger For The Timberwolves
Jaden McDaniels spent last season showing more of the offensive game Minnesota has long hoped would arrive, and it came at a time when the Timberwolves were still sorting out what his ceiling might look like. He put together a career-best year at the scoring end, with better efficiency across the board, and that has only added to the sense inside the organization that his next step could be a meaningful one.
The bigger question now is how that growth fits into a reshaped rotation. McDaniels had briefly looked like a possible second scoring option after Julius Randle was traded, but the addition of LaMelo Ball changes the picture again and gives Minnesota a different kind of lead guard to work with. James White and Tim Connelly have both sounded encouraged about where McDaniels is headed, and the Timberwolves seem to believe the real test is no longer whether he can handle more, but how much more they can ask of him. [Read more 🡒]
Timberwolves Are Testing A Frontcourt Look Fans Havent Forgotten
The Timberwolves are giving a familiar-looking frontcourt experiment a summer showcase, planning to run Joan Beringer and Rocco Zikarsky together as a double-big look in summer league. Both are second-year players from the 2025 draft class, with Beringer going 17th overall and Zikarsky coming off the board at 45th, and the team wants a closer read on how their size can work in tandem rather than just in theory.
There is a reason this pairing has caught attention beyond July games. Zikarsky brings enough offensive range to at least open the door to a frontcourt fit that echoes the kind of spacing-and-size balance Minnesota has chased before, while Beringers comfort shifting to the four gives the Wolves another way to test the idea. Even so, this is still more of an evaluation than a preview of the regular season, where the club is unlikely to lean on the look heavily. [Read more 🡒]
One Quote Just Raised A Painful Question About The Wolves' Gamble
Micah Noris move from the Timberwolves to the Portland Trail Blazers already made him an interesting link between two franchises, but a recent comment from Jrue Holiday gave that connection a sharper edge. Holidays view of what Minnesota has been building only adds to the sense that the Wolves are operating with real expectations now, especially after making a major swing to install LaMelo Ball as their starting point guard.
The gamble is obvious from a roster-construction standpoint: Ball brings offense and a different kind of playmaking, but the fit next to Anthony Edwards has to work on both ends for Minnesotas ceiling to stay where it wants it. For a team that has leaned on its defensive identity, the concern is whether adding Ball helps push the Wolves forward or asks them to give up too much of what made them dangerous in the first place. [Read more 🡒]