You don’t have to go back that far in history to find a long stretch of time during which the Timberwolves were a national joke and a local punchline.
You don’t even have to go back a year to find a franchise at a potential crossroads, with plenty of questions about the viability of a plan to pair Rudy Gobert with Karl-Anthony Towns after a clunky first season and early first-round playoff exit during the 2022-23 season.
The rehabilitation, then, of the Wolves’ image — whether you want to go back one year, several years or a few decades — over the last several months has been nothing short of remarkable.
The Wolves are coming off a 56-26 season plus a trip to the Western Conference finals and following that up with a productive offseason that saw them land two highly regarded players in the first round of the draft to pair with a star-studded returning nucleus of players.
They have a roster that can win now and win later, setting up a window of contention. And a recent ranking, however arbitrary it might be, reinforced both the opportunity the Wolves have as well as the recent shift in franchise perception — something Chip Scoggins and I talked about on Wednesday’s Daily Delivery podcast.
Of the 36 franchises across the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL that have never won a championship, the Wolves are deemed to have the No. 1 chance of breaking that drought next.