The Basketball Fans

Minnesota Timberwolves

Published April 18, 2026 · Updated April 23, 2026 · By The Basketball Fans Editors

Editorial tile: Minnesota Timberwolves
Photo via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA.

The Minnesota Timberwolves have never won an NBA championship or reached the NBA Finals. They have reached the Western Conference Finals twice: 2004 with Kevin Garnett as regular-season MVP and 2024 with Anthony Edwards as the young franchise face alongside Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert, and Jaden McDaniels. The franchise’s competitive identity across thirty-six seasons has been shaped by two twelve-year windows: the 1995–2007 Kevin Garnett era (one conference finals, the franchise’s only regular-season MVP), and the ongoing 2018–present Towns-and-Edwards era (one conference finals, three playoff appearances). Between those two windows was a thirteen-year playoff drought, the longest in the NBA during that period. Ownership transitioned from Glen Taylor to Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez in November 2025 after a three-year arbitration dispute.

Target Center in Minneapolis
Target Center in downtown Minneapolis, the Timberwolves' home since October 1990. The arena, privately financed, was one of the first purpose-built NBA arenas of the modern era. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

The 1989 expansion

The NBA awarded four expansion franchises in 1989 (Miami, Charlotte, Minnesota, Orlando). The Minnesota ownership group, led by Marv Wolfenson and Harvey Ratner, paid a $32.5 million expansion fee. The franchise was named for the gray wolf native to Minnesota’s northern forests. The first head coach was Bill Musselman. The inaugural 1989–90 Timberwolves went 22–60 and finished sixth in the Midwest Division.

The team’s first six seasons (1989–90 through 1994–95) produced an aggregate record of 126–366, a .256 winning percentage. Kevin McHale, the Hall of Fame Boston forward and Minnesota native, joined the front office as vice president of basketball operations in 1995. He oversaw the 1995 NBA Draft. McHale’s front-office tenure, which lasted until 2009, is the longest continuous executive run in franchise history and the single largest influence on the roster construction of the Garnett era.

The 1995 Garnett draft

The Minnesota Timberwolves selected Kevin Garnett fifth overall in the 1995 NBA Draft, out of Farragut Career Academy in Chicago. Garnett was the first player drafted directly from high school since Bill Willoughby in 1975, and the first American-born top-five pick to do so. He was eighteen years old. More on Garnett here.

Garnett’s rookie season produced 10.4 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 1.8 assists. The 1996–97 Timberwolves went 40–42 and made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. They would make the playoffs eight consecutive seasons (1996–97 through 2003–04). None of the first seven runs produced a second-round victory.

The 2004 conference finals

The 2003–04 Timberwolves, with Garnett, Sam Cassell, Latrell Sprewell, Wally Szczerbiak, and Michael Olowokandi, went 58–24, the franchise’s best regular-season record. Garnett was the 2003–04 NBA Most Valuable Player with an average of 24.2 points, 13.9 rebounds, and 5.0 assists. He remains the only Minnesota player ever to win the award.

The Timberwolves reached the Western Conference Finals and lost to the Los Angeles Lakers 4–2. The series was disrupted by Sam Cassell’s right hip injury, which limited him across Games 4 through 6. The team entered Game 4 tied 2–2 with a healthy roster; it exited Game 5 with Cassell on the bench. It was the franchise’s deepest playoff run in twenty years. No other player on the 2003–04 roster was voted to the All-Star Game.

The post-Garnett decline (2007–2018)

Kevin Garnett was traded to the Boston Celtics in July 2007 for Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair, Theo Ratliff, Gerald Green, two first-round picks, and a draft pick swap. The Timberwolves missed the playoffs for thirteen consecutive seasons (2005 through 2018), the longest stretch in the NBA during that period. McHale remained as basketball-operations executive through 2009, when he stepped aside for David Kahn. The Kahn era is widely regarded as the low point of the franchise’s front-office history; the 2009 NBA Draft, in which Kahn took both Ricky Rubio (5th overall) and Jonny Flynn (6th overall), is the single most-criticized Timberwolves draft decision.

Flip Saunders returned as president of basketball operations in 2013 and drafted Andrew Wiggins first overall in 2014 (traded to Minnesota for the rights to Kevin Love). Saunders died of complications from Hodgkin’s lymphoma in October 2015 at age sixty. The 2015 Draft Lottery produced the first overall pick, which Tom Thibodeau, hired as president of basketball operations in April 2016 (also coaching the team), used on Karl-Anthony Towns.

The Towns and Edwards era (2015–present)

Karl-Anthony Towns was 2015–16 Rookie of the Year. The 2017–18 Timberwolves, with Towns, Wiggins, and Jimmy Butler (acquired from Chicago in July 2017), reached the playoffs for the first time in fourteen years. Butler requested a trade in September 2018 and was moved to Philadelphia that November. The 2018–19 through 2020–21 seasons were lottery-caliber ones.

Anthony Edwards was drafted first overall in the 2020 NBA Draft out of Georgia. He was 2020–21 Rookie of the Year. The July 2022 trade for Rudy Gobert (three first-round picks, Patrick Beverley, Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Walker Kessler, and Leandro Bolmaro to Utah) was, at the time, the most criticized trade in franchise history, giving up five pieces for one specialist center. The 2022–23 Timberwolves went 42–40 and lost in the first round.

The 2023–24 Timberwolves went 56–26 and reached the Western Conference Finals, losing to the Dallas Mavericks 4–1. Edwards averaged 26.4 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 5.1 assists per game. Gobert won a fourth Defensive Player of the Year award in the same season.

Ownership transition

Glen Taylor purchased the Timberwolves in 1994 for $88 million, rescuing the franchise from an attempted 1994 relocation to New Orleans. Taylor, the founder of the Taylor Corporation (stationery and printing), was the longest-tenured owner in franchise history. In April 2021 he entered into a staggered-purchase agreement to sell the Timberwolves to Marc Lore (Wonder CEO, Jet.com and Diapers.com founder) and Alex Rodriguez (former New York Yankees third baseman) for $1.5 billion.

In March 2024, Taylor publicly attempted to rescind the agreement, claiming Lore and Rodriguez had failed to meet a financing deadline for the third tranche of the deal. Lore and Rodriguez filed for NBA arbitration. On February 12, 2025, an NBA-appointed arbitration panel ruled in Lore and Rodriguez’s favor. The sale closed on November 18, 2025, at the original $1.5 billion valuation. The franchise’s 2025 Forbes valuation was approximately $2.75 billion.

Arenas

The Timberwolves played at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (the Minnesota Vikings’ NFL stadium) for the 1989–90 inaugural season, and at Target Center in downtown Minneapolis from October 1990 onward. Target Center was privately financed at $110 million, one of the first purpose-built NBA arenas of the post-1980 era. Capacity approximately 19,356.

Retired numbers

Two jersey numbers have been retired:

Sam Mitchell’s 13 and Kevin McHale’s executive-era banner are presumed candidates for future retirement.

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Watch the Minnesota Timberwolves live at Target Center. Find tickets, schedule, and seating charts at eTickets.com.

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