Since Tim Connelly left the Nuggets for Minnesota, he’s built a team designed to battle with Nikola Jokic. The Timberwolves furthered that notion with their first-round draft pick on Wednesday night, drafting another big man out of France, Joan Beringer.
Connelly’s first move in Minnesota was bringing in a different French center, Rudy Gobert, to form a twin towers lineup with Karl-Anthony Towns and Naz Reid coming off the bench. The team took a year to click, but they thwarted the Nuggets’ title defense in the 2024 playoffs thanks to their size and physicality.
They lost Towns last offseason, but brought in another big forward in Julius Randle to go along with Gobert and Reid. And now, they’ve selected another young center who will be mentored by Gobert, and relied upon to come in and battle Jokic and other NBA big men.
Nuggets’ biggest rivals have owned them recently
The Wolves and Nuggets have been one of the better rivalries in the NBA over the past few years and it looks like that will only continue going forward. The Nuggets knocked the Wolves out of the playoffs in a hard-fought round one series in 2023 in Connelly’s first season after leaving Denver for Minnesota.
But the following season is when the Wolves really turned it on, including their impressive comeback win in Game 7 in Denver to stun the Nuggets and end their season. They followed it up by sweeping the Nuggets during the regular season, mostly in dominant, blow-out fashion.
Nuggets fuel the fire with Wallace hire
To heat things up even more, the Nuggets struck back earlier this week, hiring one of Connelly’s top assistants, Jon Wallace, to come run the front office in Denver along with Ben Tenzer. Wallace came up in the Nuggets’ front office, but followed Connelly to Minnesota, working there the past few seasons.
But the Nuggets were able to pry him away and lure him back to Denver, only adding fuel to a growing rivalry. Overall, this is all great for the league and for basketball. The NBA is better with some healthy dislike among teams, and passionate sports hatred and rivalries are great things that fans and the league should embrace.