The trade came down June 25 and Wolves Twitter has been in a blender ever since. LaMelo Ball and Josh Green to Minnesota. Naz Reid, a 2033 unprotected first-round pick, first-round pick swaps in 2028, 2029, and 2030, and three second-rounders heading to Charlotte.
A 2033 unprotected first. Pick swaps for three straight years. The Timberwolves don’t control their own first-round pick from 2027 through most of the next decade. That’s not an aggressive bet — that’s a mortgage on the entire house.
Zach Harper at The Athletic graded this thing a D+. His core argument: LaMelo’s defense is atrocious, and atrocious perimeter defense is exactly what San Antonio just exploited to knock Minnesota out in the second round. Ball doesn’t solve the Wembanyama mismatch problem. He doesn’t fix what broke. CBS Sports landed at B+; Sports Illustrated handed out an A. So reasonable people disagree. But the most credible negative case is that this trade treats a symptom while the actual infection gets worse.
Then there’s the injury file. Ankle surgery in March 2025 that wiped out the rest of that season. Another ankle impingement in November 2025. He’s missed 25-plus games in three of the four seasons before this past one. The one thing you can say in his defense, the thing that actually makes this defensible, is that he played 72 games in 2025-26 and averaged 20.1 points, 7.1 assists, and 4.8 rebounds. That version of Ball, healthy and at full capacity, is what the Wolves are betting on. They saw a full season of it for the first time in years, and they decided that was enough to go all in.
Brian Windhorst put it plainly: “You throw a double-team at Ant Edwards with LaMelo Ball on the court, you are playing with fire.” That’s the pitch. Edwards draws the double, Ball makes you pay. The No. 1 and No. 3 picks from the 2020 draft, together, in their mid-twenties — and Anthony Edwards is reportedly over the moon about it. The word is he’d sign an extension today if he could. A 24-year-old franchise player being thrilled about his new running mate is not a small thing.
But LaMelo Ball went six seasons in Charlotte without reaching the NBA Playoffs. He won a Play-In game against Miami in 2025-26, then lost to Orlando in the first round. One playoff series in six years. The Hornets finished 44-38 this past season, their best record in nearly a decade, and it still only got them a first-round exit.
Now he’s supposed to push the Timberwolves over the top.
Anthony Edwards has about three years left on his $244.6 million extension. That’s the window. Three years to make this work before the contract situation forces a reckoning. If LaMelo needs a season to find his footing, or if the ankle betrays him again in January, the Wolves could be watching their prime Ant Edwards years dissolve in slow motion with no draft ammunition to reload.
And they gave up Naz Reid to do it.
Seven years. Sixth Man of the Year in 2024. Community work with Indigenous youth. Hoops for Hunger. People were honking outside Parkway Pizza. A Minneapolis City Council member had to go on record saying Reid and these Wolves “meant hope, they meant passion, they meant community.” That’s what got traded to Charlotte. That’s the emotional cost sitting underneath all the analytics arguments.
The Wolves might be right about this. LaMelo Ball at 24, healthy, next to Ant Edwards: that backcourt could be genuinely terrifying for the next four years. The optimistic case isn’t crazy.
The Minnesota Timberwolves may not be done making moves. 👀
After landing LaMelo Ball, Minnesota has also emerged as a team linked to potential trade discussions for Jaylen Brown.
Would this be the best Big 3 in the West? pic.twitter.com/bUHKf8rutP
— Hoops (@Hoopss) June 26, 2026
It just required trading away Naz Reid and every first-round pick until 2033 to make it happen. So it better not be wrong.