On Thursday, Minnesota Timberwolves point guard Jeff Teague went back to the future—back to Atlanta where it all started.
After spending each of the past two seasons in Minneapolis, the T-Wolves agreed to trade Teague back to the Hawks, where he spent the first seven years of his career.
The news was first reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
With Teague having taken his talents back to Atlanta, the Timberwolves now have an obvious need at the point guard position. Perhaps not coincidentally, on the heels of Wojnarowski’s report, The Athletic’s Shams Charania and Jon Krawczynski jointly published a report of their own that mentions, in pertinent part, that the club is “intensifying” its pursuit of D’Angelo Russell.
New team president Gersson Rosas and the rest of his front office have been actively pursuing deals on a number of fronts to try to remake the roster to better fit their vision for the team moving forward, league sources told The Athletic. That includes intensifying their pursuit of Golden State Warriors guard D’Angelo Russell.
Russell, who is currently in the first year of a four-year, $117 million contract he signed this past summer, has let it be known in certain terms that he wishes to team up with Karl-Anthony Towns. Russell’s admission came courtesy of an October 2019 interview that the young guard did in conjunction with Towns and Devin Booker. To call the timing “interesting” would be an understatement considering the fact that Russell had recently signed on with the Warriors.
Perhaps the remark was tongue-in-cheek, but the Timberwolves met with Russell when free agency opened back in July and were set on uniting him with his longtime friend, Towns. The opportunity to join the then five-time defending Western Conference Champions was too much for Russell to turn down, however, as he committed to the Warriors shortly after the meeting.
Still, there has been a fair amount of conjecture with respect to Russell and his longterm future with Golden State. There are at least some that believe the club acquired Russell to avoid losing Kevin Durant for nothing and that his coexistence with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson won’t be natural. In that respect, packaging Russell and sending him to another club in return for assets that more naturally fit with Curry, Thompson and Draymond Green could make sense.
The Warriors, however, have maintained that they didn’t acquire Russell simply to flip him. Still, we will continue to hear reports about Russell potentially being traded, even though this particular report from The Athletic falls a bit short of that.
It makes sense that Minnesota would be interested in Russell considering the fact that the club just dealt Teague, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to convince the Warriors to part with the young guard.
Still, as we near the NBA’s trade deadline on February 6, the Timberwolves appear to be in hot pursuit of the one that got away.