As Warriors and Timberwolves meet in NBA playoffs, ‘what-ifs’ loom just below the surface

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MINNEAPOLIS — Most NBA consumers are privy to the Minnesota Timberwolves’ role in delivering Stephen Curry — and the dynasty he’d then pioneer — to the Golden State Warriors. It’s an easy track to follow.

Minnesota’s front office, led by David Kahn, had the fifth and sixth picks in the 2009 NBA Draft. They selected two point guards, Jonny Flynn and Ricky Rubio, instead of Curry, leaving the soon-to-be generational superstar for the Warriors at the seventh selection.

Sixteen years later, Curry’s playoff résumé is the stuff of legends: 103 wins, four championships, an NBA record 647 made 3s, road wins in 28 of his 29 career series, all for the same franchise. This past weekend, he eliminated the Houston Rockets for a fifth time, a fate he’s delivered to nine other Western Conference organizations.

The Timberwolves aren’t one of them. The 2025 Western Conference semifinals will mark the first time Curry has ever met Minnesota in a playoff series. But the lack of history during this point of the NBA calendar doesn’t mean there’s a lack of history between the two organizations. Similar to Curry, in a more indirect way, you could argue that the other two biggest stars in this series — Anthony Edwards and Jimmy Butler — were also routed to their current locations, in part, because of the opposing organization.

The origin story actually begins with Kevin Durant and D’Angelo Russell in the summer of 2019. As Durant planned his exit from the Warriors, their decision-makers needed a way to keep his salary slot alive. Because Durant chose Brooklyn, it opened up the possibility of a sign-and-trade for Russell, who planned to leave the Nets that summer.

The Warriors were never really all that interested in a long-term future with Russell. But he was a means to an end. To acquire his services, they put the four-year, $117 million max offer on the table. Russell’s representatives accepted it right around the same time he boarded a helicopter in Los Angeles for an extravagant free-agent meeting with the Timberwolves, including owner Glen Taylor.

Minnesota had a standing offer for about $10 million less over the life of the deal. Phones buzzed while the bird was in the air: Russell had agreed to go to the Warriors. As one source put it back then: “An awkward goodbye on the tarmac.”

“Ohh, s—,” Russell said in a 2020 interview about his career. “How do you know about that? Nah, I ain’t going to talk about it. I don’t want it to come out like it was a joke when that s— was serious. It was crazy, and I can’t act like it wasn’t.”

In taking down LeBron James, Luka Dončić and the Lakers, Anthony Edwards not only showed his growth as a player. He also demonstrated his maturity as a leader.

Minnesota’s infatuation with Russell would matter again at the next trade deadline. Russell is great friends with Karl Anthony-Towns. Gersson Rosas was the Timberwolves’ general manager at the time. They were intent on keeping Towns content. That meant a continued chase of Russell.

The Warriors’ front office knew those dynamics and jumped at the opportunity in February 2020 to flip Russell to Minnesota for Andrew Wiggins and a 2021 top-four protected first-round pick.

Wiggins jump-started the next stage of his career as a valued 3-and-D wing with the Warriors. He was a major part of their 2022 title, signing a four-year, $109 million extension afterward, continuing the life of that salary slot that can be traced from Durant to Russell to Wiggins to Butler.

This past February, the Warriors reluctantly used Wiggins as the necessary large-salary piece to get the Butler trade done with Miami. The Heat valued Wiggins enough as a decently priced starting small forward and green-lit the trade that delivered Butler to San Francisco in time to resurrect the fading Curry era and plant them in the second round against the Timberwolves this week.

“The trade saved our season,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr has repeated the last couple of months.

But rewind again to the 2020 NBA Draft Lottery, several months after the Russell-for-Wiggins trade. The Warriors, at 15-50, had the worst record in the NBA the previous season. The Timberwolves, at 19-45, had the third worst. Both had a 14 percent chance at the No. 1 pick.

Russell and Curry — via video during the depths of the pandemic — joined the television broadcast to represent their separate organizations. The Warriors were revealed as the second pick. The Timberwolves were revealed as the first.

That delivered Minnesota an extra bit of leverage in the three-month pre-draft process that would follow. There’s some dispute and fuzzy recollection on the negotiation tactics deployed in the lead-up, but both teams certainly tested the waters to see what was out there. The Warriors, league sources said, had conversations about trading out, trading back and even the lone trade-up possibility before ultimately deciding to stick at two.

The Warriors had a future asset of great appeal to the Timberwolves — control of Minnesota’s top-four protected 2021 first-rounder from the Russell trade. It’s the pick that they’d later use (seventh overall) to draft Jonathan Kuminga. At the time, there was at least the idea floated of a two-for-one swap up top with that future pick going back Minnesota’s direction, but nobody claims there was ever any real traction or a firm offer on the table from either side.

There was some posturing from the Timberwolves about drafting James Wiseman — which made sense as a leverage play — but Wiseman’s representatives at Excel Sports made it clear he didn’t want to go there, and the presence of Towns made the fit questionable. Edwards was always the choice that made most sense for them.

So the Warriors never believed the Timberwolves would take Wiseman with the first pick and, because of that, didn’t feel any internal incentive to trade up. Wiseman was the top player on their board. Even if they moved to one, they would’ve selected him over Edwards. Warriors owner Joe Lacob was certainly a Wiseman proponent, but team sources have always maintained it was a consensus selection — from ownership to Bob Myers to Kerr to the veteran players who were consulted and approved of a swing for the center of the future.

That’s a devastating miss in retrospect, especially considering a trade-up for Edwards was theoretically obtainable. LaMelo Ball and Tyrese Haliburton were discussed as alternatives. Had Wiseman gone first to the Timberwolves, one league source recently said the Warriors would’ve reluctantly gone with Edwards second.

But they clearly had their reservations. There were real questions about Edwards’ drive. It was the COVID-19 draft, meaning workouts and in-person information were limited. The Warriors’ leadership structure — Lacob, Myers and Kerr — worked Edwards out twice. The first one, in Edwards’ famed recollection, was low-energy.

“After the workout, Steve comes to me like: ‘You can’t go any faster?’” Edwards said in a 2023 podcast appearance. “I’m like, ‘I thought I was going pretty fast.’ He was like, ‘Nah, do it again.’ So I did it again. I’m going fast. He stops me and like, ‘You can’t go faster than that?’”

Kerr was asked for his perspective on the workout early last season.

“I remember it,” Kerr said. “He was kind of warming up and shooting. The warm-up kept going and going. I thought it was the warm-up. After about 15 minutes, I realized that was the workout. … I just went down and said: ‘Can you go a little harder?’ He kind of looked at me like, ‘Yeah, yeah.’”

Edwards has said that it was an experience that amped up his work ethic to a greater degree, crediting it for elevating his game.

Here’s Steve Kerr with a detailed recollection of the Anthony Edwards draft workout with the Warriors that Edwards has credited with changing his work habits pic.twitter.com/SUsW1Tnzll

— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) November 12, 2023

“I thought I was working hard,” Edwards said at 2023 media day. “I was going through drills, and he kept stopping them, like, ‘That’s all you got? That’s all you got?’ And I’m like, ‘Bro, I’m going hard as you want me to go. What you want me to do? I’m sweating crazy.’ He’s like, ‘Man, you’ve got to see Steph, (Kevin Durant) and Klay (Thompson) work out.’ They was continuously telling me, ‘You didn’t work hard enough. If we had the No. 1 pick, we wouldn’t take you.’ And I was just like, ‘Damn, that’s crazy.’”

The Warriors never had the first pick, so they didn’t technically pass up on Edwards. The Timberwolves instead selected the wing who’d quickly become the face of their franchise turnaround. Now the two organizations will meet for the first time in the playoffs with what-if conversations as part of the backdrop.

Ant speaks on the impact Team USA coach Steve Kerr has had on his career so far 🗣️

👀: #NBAinAbuDhabi
🆚: Timberwolves-Mavs
📅: 10/5 and 10/7, 12pm/et
📺: NBA TV pic.twitter.com/cXU03bCalL

— NBA (@NBA) September 28, 2023

— The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski contributed.

(Photo of Steph Curry and Anthony Edwards: David Berding / Getty Images)

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