The original Kevin Garnett trade is already eight years old and the Minnesota Timberwolves’ last playoff game was on May 31, 2004 in the Western Conference Finals. It has been a very long and frustrating 11 years for the Wolves. They’ve hit the 4,000-day mark on this rebuild and Garnett somehow has ceremoniously come home.

The maddening part of this period for the Wolves has been to play the what-if game. Every franchise has a version of this but the Minnesota account is especially painful.

It could begin with Rashad McCants over Danny Granger in 2005, but the final death knell for the possibility of reloading around Garnett on the fly came in 2006 when they were gifted Brandon Roy at No. 6. Roy was widely considered the second best prospect in that draft and more importantly for Garnett, he was a four-year senior and ready to contribute immediately. The Wolves instead flipped Roy for Randy Foye, Roy became Rookie of the Year and quickly a perennial All-Star until injuries led to his amnesty and his brief post-amnesty stint with the Wolves in 2012.

For all the good moves, such as a similar draft day flip in 2008 of O.J. Mayo for Kevin Love and acquiring a second lottery pick in 2009 from the Washington Wizards for Randy Foye and Mike Miller, the missteps by David Kahn were major. The Wolves drafted Ricky Rubio with that Wizards’ pick and then Jonny Flynn with their own instead of Stephen Curry. Minnesota also forwarded Ty Lawson onto the Denver Nuggets that night for a future draft pick that became Luke Babbitt at 16 in 2010, which became Martell Webster.

The 2010 draft was Wesley Johnson over DeMarcus Cousins, while Paul George was also on the board at Johnson’s position.

A core of Love, Curry and Cousins, with Rubio coming over in 2011, enters this decade in an entirely different position than the one that Love could never carry above .500. 

After initially trying to stay competitive by trading Love for a soon to be maxed out Klay Thompson, the Wolves were bad enough to win the lottery following the departure of their franchise player just as Cleveland and New Orleans were before them. It is possible to rebuild without the high lottery pick dip, but it is always the quickest possibility with the least amount of resistance. 

The Wolves strangely once had three former No. 2 overall picks in Darko Milicic, Michael Beasley and Derrick Williams (thanks again DK) and now they will have three No. 1 overall picks.

While Anthony Bennett is a former first overall pick in name only at this point, Andrew Wiggins and either Karl-Anthony Towns or Jahlil Okafor, the Wolves instantly have two young, inexpensive potential All-Stars to build around just as the cap explodes. The Wolves almost certainly won’t draw a major free agent in 2016 or 2017, but they will have a ton of cap space to build around, particularly if they salary dump Nikola Pekovic as the Blazers did in 2007 with Zach Randolph when they drafted LaMarcus Aldridge and Greg Oden in successive year.

Karl-Anthony Towns blocks shots at an elite level and could become a reliable three-point shooter. He’s a unicorn. And he should be the Wolves’ pick at No. 1. It is fairly easy to envision the Wolves evolving into an elite defensive team with Towns and Wiggins as two-way stars.

The Jahlil Okafor argument is one we all think Flip Saunders is capable of talking himself into and would be a fine scenario if they would have ended up at No. 2. Okafor is a brilliant individual scorer and passing big man that could turn the Wolves into an elite offensive unit, but the issues with his interior defense would be a repeat of what made the Love/Al Jefferson and Love/Pekovic teams so limited. For as many easy buckets Okafor may produce, he will be allowing just as many on the other end of the floor. It takes a very specific and difficult to acquire player for Okafor to play beside to maximize his value, while the possibilities with Towns are endless.

Minnesota can roll out a ton of lineup combinations with Towns and Wiggins as anchors, playing a version of the positionless basketball that the Golden State Warriors and Milwaukee Bucks are using with their athleticism and versatility with the likes of Zach LaVine and Shabazz Muhammad. The only limit for the Wolves now is the imagination of Flip Saunders. 

The Wolves were bad on offense and exceedingly bad on defense last season, so they still have another lottery or two in them, but the Western Conference just got richer and tougher.