People love the NBA for the dunks, three-pointers and especially the players’ fashion sense, but I think the best aspect of the game is the storylines.

Last year, one storyline revolved around how Stephen Curry dispelled all conversation of needing Kevin Durant to win an NBA championship as Curry won his fourth championship in eight years–this time without Durant by his side.

A vast variety of unresolved storylines from the previous season have resurfaced just 14 games into the 2022-23 season. For example, this iteration of the Minnesota Timberwolves may be the best of all time, and we will not see it coming.

However, the Minnesota Timberwolves are setting themselves up to have either a happy ending or a massive shortfall of potential once again.

Last year, the Timberwolves shocked the NBA during the offseason as they acquired Utah Jazz star Rudy Gobert. Now, they are gearing up for a potentially deep playoff push due to leveraging the foreseen future of the franchise on keeping the team structured as is.

The Timberwolves traded away assets in the form of defensive depth such as Patrick Beverley, Jarred Vanderbilt and four draft picks alongside their 2022 first-round pick Walker Kessler for the three-time Defensive Player of the Year.

Historically, the Timberwolves are known for making net neutral or even terrible trades. The contributions Beverly gave the team were minimal. Vanderbilt was a passable role-player at best. Their roles on the team were heavily defensive, and with the lack of offensive output Vanderbilt had, resulted in a net negative.

Trading for Gobert sent shock waves through the league. Since he is a blast from the past playing with more traditional front-court players, the opportunity to overwhelm other NBA teams has presented itself.

With the league emphasizing speed and agility, there is a deficiency in size right now across the NBA. The Timberwolves can abuse that weakness in their opponents, becoming a more complete team with this acquisition.

The upside of gaining a defensive stopper such as Gobert is that it attempts to fix defensive liabilities. As an offensive juggernaut of a team with an offensive-minded point guard in D’Angelo Russell, an offensive superstar in Towns and a budding offensive superstar in Anthony Edwards, the Timberwolves need defense.

The numbers show how impactful a one-man defensive anchor like Gobert can instantly make a team a top defensive unit in the NBA.

Defensive rating is a confusing metric that involves players blocks, deflections, steals and possessions with a skew of other variables. Defensive rating is simply how many points a particular player allows every 100 possessions. An average NBA player has a defensive rating of 112.4.

To distinguish how good an NBA player’s defense is when added to the team, the defensive rating of the team should significantly drop, the on- and off-court numbers should be negative in regards to defense.

Gobert’s former team had a defensive rating of 105.1 with the 7-foot-1-inch center last season compared to a defensive rating of 112.3 without him.

The importance of Gobert’s -7.2 rating is shown when compared to other DPOY candidates like Bam Adebayo (-4.0), Giannis Antetokoumpo (-3.6) and the individual that actually won the award, Marcus Smart (-0.4).

Clearly highlighted by the numbers, the Timberwolves have acquired the best defensive player in the league, even if he was not awarded last year’s top defensive honor.

Even after Gobert’s acquisition, is that enough to push for the NBA finals and actualize the potential the team was deemed to have since drafting Towns in 2015? Towns thinks so.

“It’s go time,” Towns said in a press conference. “The trade happens. There’s no more time. There are no more excuses. We’ve got to get it done now. It’s championship now or bust. Got to go out there and get the job done.”

In my 10 years of being an NBA fan, this is the first season I have ever expected the Timberwolves to be better than mediocre, maybe even great. Then again, Minnesota sport teams could always do Minnesota things, but something about this year just feels different.

Nkechukwu Akpati can be reached at akpa2917@stthomas.edu.