There’s no clean consensus on Minnesota’s decision to bring in LaMelo Ball, but the NBA’s own front-office crowd seems to be leaning in one direction. The league’s annual GM survey, released Thursday, pegged the Timberwolves as the West’s third-best team, a sign that plenty of decision-makers expect the Ball move to pay off right away.
That third-place spot sits behind only the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder, the two teams most GMs placed at the top of the conference. Minnesota, though, was the clear choice for the next tier. Fifty-three percent of the GMs slotted the Timberwolves third, while another 13 percent had them fourth.
Denver was close, but Minnesota still edged the Nuggets in the survey. Three-quarters of the GMs put Denver somewhere in the top four, yet exactly half of them had the Nuggets in fourth, which is why the Timberwolves landed one rung higher.
The reason the Ball trade is getting this kind of respect is pretty simple: the fit looks dangerous. Minnesota spent a lot of last season without a true point guard on the floor, and now it has added one of the league’s more electric offensive players. Ball’s impact on Charlotte’s offense backed that up, with the Hornets scoring 11.6 points per 100 possessions better when he was on the court.
That kind of lift is exactly why so many executives view this as a ceiling-raising move. Ball gives Anthony Edwards another star to play beside, and he should create easy transition scoring chances for players like Jaden McDaniels and Ayo Dosunmu while also feeding Rudy Gobert on lobs.
He also forces defenses to stay honest from deep. Ball is a shooter opponents have to account for every trip, and he brings extra value on the boards, averaging 6.6 rebounds per 36 minutes in his career. That matters more now that Naz Reid and Julius Randle are no longer on the roster.
Of course, the survey isn’t the same thing as a final standings prediction. But it does show how high the league is on Minnesota after the Ball trade. The Timberwolves have rarely finished among the West’s elite seeds, topping out at third in 2023-24 and first in 2003-04, yet the GM survey suggests plenty of people see a real jump coming.
And honestly, it’s hard to imagine a move that would have pushed Minnesota ahead of the Spurs or Thunder in the public imagination. Even a trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo might not have done it. Being voted the third-best team in the West says plenty about how the Ball deal is being received.
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