Jon Kawzynski<\/a>, Edwards joked that “he would tear James’ head off” if he didn’t make a decision soon. When asked what would happen if James didn’t pick the Timberwolves, Edwards told him “that would be OK, because that just meant he could tear James’s head off on the court when their two teams met.”<\/p>\nThe Timberwolves made quite the pitch to James, according to Krawczynski. Edwards and the team’s newest star, LaMelo Ball, spoke to him on the phone, and MLB legend Alex Rodriguez, an owner of the team, led the organization’s pitch to the all-time great.<\/p>\n
James’ agent, Rich Paul, also has a “longstanding working relationship” with Minnesota president of basketball operations Tim Connelly.<\/p>\n
Even though Minnesota didn’t seem like an ideal location for James to spend his 24th NBA season, the Wolves reportedly were in the mix throughout the process alongside Philadelphia, Cleveland, Miami and Golden State.<\/p>\n
On paper, James would have fit well on the roster next to Edwards, Ball, Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert, and he would have made the Timberwolves more of a contender than they already are.<\/p>\n
According to Krawczynski, the Wolves also felt like James’ experience would be “highly valuable” to the young team.<\/p>\n
Minnesota will now have to pivot in a different direction this offseason, but it’s unclear if the team has plans to pursue another free agent or test out the trade market.<\/p>\n
The Wolves perhaps could use some frontcourt depth after trading Naz Reid to the Hornets for Ball and sending Julius Randle to the Brooklyn Nets, but Connelly is confident in what Minnesota’s current roster can do.<\/p>\n
“Certainly it’s going to be a new-look roster,” Connelly said, per Krawczynski. “And all credit to Coach Finch’s willingness to consistently evolve and coach what’s put in front of him. There’s not a more creative coach in the world, so we have full faith that whatever we put out there is going to be successful.<\/p>\n
“It might look different, but we’re excited about it.”<\/p>\n
Even though they missed out on James, the Timberwolves got better this offseason with the addition of Ball. Whether Edwards and Ball can lead Minnesota out of a competitive Western Conference remains to be seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Minnesota Timberwolves missed out on star free agent LeBron James, who agreed to a two-year, $8 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-821614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}