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The biggest question heading into this season about the Timberwolves was just how high their ceiling was, as a team.
If 2022-23 established their floor — clunky offense, a major injury and a series of fits and starts produced a 42-win season, playoffs through the play-in and a quick though relatively competitive first-round loss — the hope was that this season would give us a better idea of how high they can go.
Through the early part of the schedule, it looks like the Wolves are a serious team. Their ceiling, assuming they continue to play well and avoid catastrophic injuries, looks to be finishing in the top four in a loaded Western Conference, winning at least one playoff series and then seeing where they go from there.
There are many keys to that, but one narrative — which colleague Jeff Day and I discussed on Wednesday's Daily Delivery podcast — that has been getting a lot of traction lately is that the Wolves will reach their true potential only if Karl-Anthony Towns plays at the high level he has achieved lately.
It's not so much a Catch-22, but when thinking about the Wolves there is this persistent thought of balancing the present with the future:
The Wolves are paying KAT, Anthony Edwards, Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels about $95 million combined this season. Next year, those four will make about $155 million combined as Towns' supermax kicks in while Edwards and McDaniels start their lucrative second contracts.
It will be close to impossible to avoid being above the projected $172 million luxury tax threshold next season if all four of those players are on the roster, and completely impossible if we add in Naz Reid ($14 million).
So the Wolves will have a decision to make based on how this season plays out: Are they good enough to justify going above the luxury tax line and paying the financial price while also potentially limiting their roster flexibility?
If the Wolves would have fallen flat on their faces this year — hardly anyone's preference, of course — the answer would have been clear and decisions on reconstructing the roster to get younger and cheaper, probably via a Towns trade, would have been easier.
With Towns helping the Wolves play like one of the five best teams in the NBA — the best-case scenario in terms of results — the future becomes much more nuanced.
Here are four more things to know today:
*ESPN suggests the Twins should try to sign Royce Lewis and Edouard Julien to long-term contracts this offseason. Moves like that could end up being the biggest splashes aside from trades.
*It's been 25 years since Randy Moss torched Dallas on Thanksgiving, in case you want to feel old and/or relive a great memory.
*I don't know how good the Gophers men's basketball team is, but Minnesota definitely is clearing the low bar of "better than the last two years."
*The Gophers football team can't save its season even with a win Saturday, but the program can do something it hasn't done since 1960. I'll talk about that and more with Randy Johnson on Thursday's podcast. No show Friday, then back Monday with Patrick Reusse.
