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No matter where LeBron decides to go, it would be seen as him chasing rings, since almost every team in the league already has stars. "Where does Charles and the legends want LeBron to go? Do they want him to go to the G League? Because if he went to Cleveland, is that team stacked? Is Miami with Bam Adebayo and Giannis Antetokounmpo is that team stacked? Jokic and Jamal Murray is that team stacked? Ant Edwards, Rudy Gobert I don’t know; he left Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves is that not? I don’t understand the premise of the complaint," Windhorst said in response.
The Minnesota Timberwolves threw everything they possibly could at LeBron James to try to persuade him to chase a championship with them. Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball got on the phone with him. Alex Rodriguez led ownership’s pitch given their common ground as superstar athletes who have become business moguls. Tim Connelly’s longstanding working relationship with Rich Paul helped the two have extended conversations on the fit for James in Minnesota. Throughout the process, team sources said, the Timberwolves felt like James and his camp were giving them full consideration for his 24th season. Those sources spoke on condition of anonymity to be able to speak candidly about private negotiations. They always knew it was a long shot, but the prospect of putting James in a starting lineup alongside Edwards, Ball, Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert was something they had to pursue all the way to the end.
The Wolves have been in regular contact with Rich Paul, James’s agent and close friend, to try to sell them on the idea of teaming up with Ball, Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert to make a run at the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder in the West. “The recruitment is just this team,” Connelly said. “Obviously, he’s an unbelievable player. Whatever decision he makes is going to be the right one. There’s a lot going on. When you’re as great as he is, you should have optionality. When you look at our team, it’s hard not to be excited about what we have.”
The Minnesota Timberwolves have ramped up their push for LeBron James, with full belief that they are very much in the hunt to land one of the greatest players in NBA history, league sources told The Athletic. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe ongoing deliberations, said the Timberwolves have been in contact with James’ representatives with a bold pitch: team up with Anthony Edwards, LaMelo Ball, Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert to go after the kind of championship that could end any discussion about who is the greatest player of all time.
Tim MacMahon: "It was almost unanimously that the Charlotte Hornets were the biggest winner. There is a lot of respect for Tim Connelly. People call him a riverboat gambler. I had some people say I didn't like the Rudy Gobert deal, and that worked out great for the Timberwolves. So, with those caveats, the almost consensus opinion of the people I talked to around the league was LaMelo Ball had next to no value a year ago. Jeff Peterson, the Charlotte Hornets general manager, cleaned him up and as soon as he had value, pounced on the opportunity to move him."
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“He makes Ant better, Jaden (McDaniels) better, Rudy and Joan (Beringer) better,” one team source said. “How many other players in the league would make your three best players better without getting in their way?”
The once supersized Wolves are now looking very thin in the frontline. They will have a difficult time finding an upgrade with no draft picks left to trade. They might need to part with one of Terrence Shannon Jr. or Joan Beringer to get a team interested. Otherwise, they’re looking at starting a lineup featuring LaMelo Ball, Ayo Dosunmu, Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, and Rudy Gobert. The Wolves would have limited options for upgrading the frontcourt. They will no longer create a $33 million trade exception and lose access to all trade exceptions created last season, including the $10.8 million one. They also lose the $5.5 million bi-annual exception and get the reduced $6 million taxpayer mid-level exception instead of the $15.5 million one. They are highly unlikely to get a starter with that amount.
Jazz owner Ryan Smith: "I don't want to set expectations, but like we need to start winning. I think that's that's that's kind of where we're at. When we took over, I took over what was the number one team in the regular season and we got, I mean, it was interesting. My first day was like post-COVID. We were kind of into COVID and I had like two weeks to get a deal done with Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell. It was really complicated because normally you have a long time to do this, but that team came out, we were number one in the regular season the first year and just got bounced early."
Brian Windhorst on the Timberwolves potentially trading Rudy Gobert for LaMelo Ball: "If the cost is Gobert, I can't see how they go forward. They won the series against the Nuggets because of Gobert. There is a height and size race in the Western Conference right now. So I'm not sure what the pathway is. I guess it's possible that they could expand the Julius Randle trade to a multiple team trade to open this door, but I do think Minnesota feels like they have to look at this, and I think Charlotte feels like they have to look at this. There's some other teams involved. Maybe we see a trade, maybe we don't. I don't think it's a guarantee."
Minnesota has maintained that perimeter defensive ace Jaden McDaniels is off limits in trade conversations. Sources say that the Wolves also prefer to "do right" by injured guard Donte DiVincenzo and keep the Villanova product out of their offseason business after he sustained a devastating torn Achilles during Minnesota's first-round playoff victory over Denver. The Wolves, sources say, would also prefer not to part with 2024-25 Sixth Man of the Year Naz Reid, but it is difficult to see how they could construct a credible trade offer for Ball without including Reid or fellow big man Rudy Gobert.
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Rudy Gobert: "I'm still very far from retirement, I'm still very far from thinking about retirement. I'm still, I visualize a bit of the years that are coming and how I see the future, but but I'm really focused also on the present moment and when it will be the end of my, of my career, whether it's in the French team or in the NBA, I feel super well. I'm coming out of a semi-final of conference."
Rudy Gobert: "Unfortunately, today the opinion of the majority of fans is based on that in fact. It's based on what when they go on Instagram, they see videos and they see what the big media say, and I, it's true that these big media in addition tend to show more negative things than positive things about me. So necessarily, I am not surprised."
In reference to Minnesota's interest in White, which The Athletic's Sam Amick first reported Friday morning, trading him for Rudy Gobert would represent a clear salary match. Sources say that Boston, furthermore, has inquired about Gobert before ... most recently at February's trade deadline.
Chris Finch: "I felt that going into Game 6, we tried to make some adjustments that were clearly not right. I kicked myself for doing it, just because I felt we didn't probably need to be as extreme. I flipped the matchups around. We put Rudy Gobert on Castle, and we started with Julius Randle on Victor Wembanyama, trying to mitigate Wembanyama's hot starts. We did a good job, but then Castle got loose on us. It wasn't a scheme that we were overly comfortable with. We've done it from time to time, and it maybe just wouldn't have been the time to do it."
