MINNEAPOLIS — The Timberwolves regular season starts this week, and with its commencement comes arguably the highest expectations for the organization in recent history.
This offseason saw a major roster shakeup, the second shakeup of its kind around the team’s nucleus headlined by Anthony Edwards, and the third overall roster iteration with the two-way superstar front and center.
Here are three bold predictions for the Timberwolves this upcoming season.
Joan Beringer becomes one of the best backup centers in the NBA
Going into his second NBA season, backup center Joan Beringer has an opportunity to earn a surplus of minutes that were occupied by the departed frontcourt players Julius Randle and Naz Reid.
Beringer has all the raw tools to be one of the premier shot blockers throughout the entire league, standing at a barefoot 6-foot-11, with a wingspan of 7-foot-4.5, as measured at the NBA combine prior to the 2025 draft. While that shot-blocking prowess can become lethal, it has at times come at his detriment, as the second-year man from France has seen a great deal of foul trouble in his young career.
On media day, he acknowledged the issue and says that he plans to continue to elevate his game in that area.
“I think it's a mental skill, honestly,” he said. “It's more, like, ‘be aware that you don't have to jump every time,’ you know, especially I want to block everything, so I most of the time I just jump, you know, and try to block everything. So, I just have to learn, you know, like, be up and be smart. And, you just, like, I think it's just mental skills to, you know, to develop.”
Beringer has gotten rave reviews from newly acquired teammate LaMelo Ball in their short time on the floor together.
“Yeah Joan, Joan a monster,” Ball said to reporters this afternoon. He go for everything, every loose ball. You love a player like that. So I love him.”
LaMelo Ball when asked about his first impressions of Joan Beringer:
"Yeah Joan, Joan a monster. He go for everything, every loose ball. You love a player like that. So I love him." pic.twitter.com/SnIR0hpBQx
— Dane Moore (@DaneMooreNBA) October 19, 2026
Ball should be an integral part of Beringer’s development when they share the floor, as the potential for a lethal lob duo between being unlocked could be beneficial for the Timberwolves this season.
Anthony Edwards wins the NBA’s scoring title
Anthony Edwards averaged a career-high 28.8 points per game last season, where he finished third in the association, trailing Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Los Angeles’ Luka Doncic.
While finishing in the top three is a noteworthy accomplishment in a league that has never seen higher scoring totals in its history, Edwards was playing in a facilitatory role — a role that saw him as the primary distributor on the floor during a large portion of his minutes. This season, the aforementioned acquisition of Ball will allow him to shift to his more natural position of attacking, score-first shooting guard, while also providing him more opportunity for open shots off the catch.
“If you look at the shots that Ant was able to make last night, they were all super easy,” said Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch after the Timberwolves’ preseason matchup at Madison Square Garden with the Knicks. “A lot of them were generated through LaMelo's playmaking.”
Article Continues BelowJaden McDaniels makes his first All-Star Game
While this is a somewhat bold prediction in a vacuum, several players, including Anthony Edwards have gone on record to speak this into existence.
“I definitely want Jaden to be an All-Star this year,” Edwards said at media day. “I’ve been saying I want him to be an All-Star this year because he’s that kind of a player.”
McDaniels has yet to be in true all-star conversations to this point in his career, though he’s seen a true offensive evolution in each of the past couple seasons, and while defense will likely always be is true calling-card considering he is one of the top perimeter defenders in the association, the acquisition of Ball could prove to be a key help to expanding the Washington product’s impact on the offensive end of the floor.
“I feel like (LaMelo)’s just such a good passer and like he knows when someone’s going to be open before the play,” McDaniels said during training camp. “And like he’s just always making the right play. So I mean, he’s just doing a good job.”
McDaniels averaged 14.8 points per game in the 2025-2026 campaign on a career-high 18.5% usage rate, per Basketball Reference. With Ball’s prowess in playing downhill and finding the open man on the perimeter, the now seventh-year man could see a significant uptick in open 3s, a shot that he knocked down 41.2% of the time last season, ranking in the 94th percentile of all qualified three-point shooters, per Databallr.