The Minnesota Timberwolves secured a playoff bid after earning one in the play-in tournament last year. However, they were quickly dispatched by the Denver Nuggets in the opening round. Let’s dive into our Minnesota Timberwolves 2023-24 season preview. We’ll examine the Minnesota Timberwolves’ futures odds, including their win total, for 2023-24 to pick the best bets and make our predictions. Make sure to check out OddsShopper’s tools for all the most up-to-date NBA odds!
Minnesota Timberwolves Season Preview: Futures Odds, Picks & Predictions for 2023-24
Minnesota Timberwolves Futures Odds: Championship, Conference, Division & Win Total
Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook
NBA Championship: +5500
Western Conference: +2900
Northwest Division: +550
Win Total: 44.5 -104/-118
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Minnesota Timberwolves Season Preview
While some may be optimistic about a full year with Mike Conley Jr. playing alongside Rudy Gobert and a healthier Karl-Anthony Towns, I’m not. Conley is another year older and is entering his age-36 season. The Timberwolves were only 2.3 points more efficient than their opponents over 100 possessions with that tandem on the floor. We didn’t see much of it in the regular season, but the Conley-Towns pairing was 10.7 points less efficient per 100 possessions than the Nuggets, by far Minnesota’s worst two-man pairing.
Towns and Gobert do not fit on the same team. The Timberwolves were 7.2 points less efficient per 100 possessions with them on the floor together against the Nuggets. Minnesota’s likely starting five this season, Conley-Anthony Edwards–Jaden McDaniels-Towns-Gobert, recorded a net rating of just +4.9 across 61 minutes of action, most of which came in a playoff push against shaky teams. This exact starting five, still with plenty on the line, found a way to lose to the then-Damian Lillard-less Portland Trail Blazers in April — and they did so despite getting 37 points from Anthony Edwards.
We saw what the 2023-24 Timberwolves will look like in the final few weeks of the regular season, in the play-in tournament and during the playoffs. The results were not good. Minnesota’s haphazard playoff push once Towns returned saw them go 5-3, beating the Hawks, Warriors, Nets, Spurs and Pelicans but falling to the Suns, Lakers and Blazers. The Wolves collapsed against the Lakers in the play-in before knocking out the overmatched Thunder. They then got waxed by the Nuggets in five games. Their lone victory over Denver saw Towns foul out early in overtime only for the Wolves to look better with him off the floor.
NBA Futures Picks for 2023-24
Is this a joke? The Minnesota Timberwolves, who won 42 games last year, have a win total of 44.5 entering the 2023-24 season.
The Timberwolves will likely deal Towns or Gobert before the trade deadline, largely because of the team’s lack of foresight regarding the salary cap. Unfortunately for the Timberwolves, their schedule is somewhat frontloaded: of their 14 games against the Western Conference’s worst teams by projected wins (the Jazz, Blazers, Rockets and Spurs) and their four games against the two Eastern Conference teams projected for fewer than 30 wins (the Pistons and Wizards), nine — or half — will come in the 31 (37.8%) games they have scheduled after the deadline. That means we’re likely to see the inefficient Towns-Gobert pairing for both the bulk of the regular season and Minnesota’s more difficult games.
I wrote at length about Gobert’s shortcomings before last season, and, unsurprisingly, he made them all clear again during that campaign. Although he is often praised as an elite rebounder due to his high rebound rate, Gobert actually struggles to come down with contested boards. In 2021-22, just 39.7% of Gobert’s rebounds were contested, much lower than other high-volume centers like Nikola Jokic (44.2%) and Joel Embiid (42.6%), and lower than rebound specialists like Clint Capela (42.6%), Steven Adams (53.1%) and Andre Drummond (50.1%). Last year, Gobert’s contested rebound rate (39.2%) again trailed Jokic (46.4%), Adams (51.8%) and Capela (49.8%) by a healthy margin.
The only thing that scares me about playing Minnesota’s win total under is superstar-in-the-making Anthony Edwards. However, the Timberwolves just have too many other problems for me to let Edwards’ upside bother me that much. Head coach Chris Finch has refused to pivot away from the Gobert-Towns pairing, which has proven disastrous across a 27-game sample — the Wolves are just 14-13 (51.8%) when both bigs are active. Minnesota’s win total of 44.5 requires the Timberwolves to go at least 45-37 (54.9%), which isn’t a realistic number — especially not with four non-division games against the Lakers, Clippers, Mavericks and Pelicans on the schedule.
Minnesota Timberwolves Win Total Pick: Under 44.5 Wins -118 (+111 Boosted) at FanDuel
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