A Jrue Holiday remark from Micah Nori has opened the door to an uncomfortable question for the Minnesota Timberwolves: did they choose the flashier answer at point guard when the cleaner fit might have been sitting right there?
Nori, who spent years as one of the most important pieces of the Timberwolves organization before taking over as head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, recalled a conversation with Holiday, via Joe Freeman of The Oregonian. “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.
“So there was that. But he was great.”
That line lands with extra weight now that Minnesota is moving into the LaMelo Ball era. The Timberwolves have spent years trying to find the right point guard to maximize Anthony Edwards, and Ball certainly checks a lot of boxes on offense. The concern is what comes with him on the other end.
Minnesota made a major offseason swing, sending Naz Reid and a significant haul of draft capital to the Charlotte Hornets to land Ball. He is set to become the Wolves’ starting point guard, giving Edwards the kind of playmaking help the franchise has been chasing for a long time.
Offensively, the fit makes sense on paper. Ball is a dynamic shot creator, a strong playmaker and a high-volume three-point shooter. That’s a lot of what Minnesota could have wanted next to Edwards.
But the Wolves have built their identity around defense for years, and Ball brings real questions in that area. He has never been considered a good defender, and that matters for a team that has already been operating from a defensive foundation.
That’s why Holiday’s name keeps hovering over this conversation. If Minnesota had landed him instead, the picture would look very different.
Holiday would have brought offensive connectivity, elite defense and championship experience. Put him next to Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns, or Edwards and Julius Randle, and it’s easy to see why the fit would have been so appealing.
The Timberwolves have been one of the NBA’s better teams for years, with Edwards leading them to two straight Western Conference finals appearances before they were bounced in the second round this past season. Now they’ve taken a big swing to keep pushing forward.
Whether Ball elevates that push or complicates it is the question hanging over everything. If his defense ends up dragging Minnesota down, the move could do more than just miss the mark - it could put the whole Edwards era in danger.
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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 🡒]