Thirty-five percent. That’s how many Timberwolves fans approved of the Julius Randle trade the day it happened, according to an SB Nation Reacts poll of the Canis Hoopus crowd. Forty-eight hours later, once LaMelo Ball’s name hit the trade machine, that number was 83%. Same front office. Same summer. A 48-point swing in fan sentiment in two days flat.
That’s either the cleanest sequencing in recent Wolves history or a story fans told themselves because the ending happened to be good.
The order of events matters. On June 23, Minnesota shipped Randle and the No. 28 pick to Brooklyn in a three-team deal, clearing roughly $36 million and creating the biggest traded-player exception in the league at the time. Kevin O’Connor’s reaction doubled as the fanbase’s reaction: “Oof Minnesota wanted off Randle BAD.” A $33 million All-Star for a No. 33 pick reads like salary-dump desperation, not a chess move, and Wolves fans treated it that way for two straight days. Then Minnesota flipped Naz Reid and a small mountain of draft capital to Charlotte for LaMelo Ball and Josh Green. Suddenly the Randle move looked less like a fire sale and more like a setup.
Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic put the tension in one line: the front office “either looks like genius or gets lucky that LaMelo stays healthy.” Nobody’s proven which one it is. There’s no Tim Connelly press conference connecting Randle’s exit to LaMelo’s arrival. As far as anyone’s reported, that plan doesn’t exist. Marc Stein had the Wolves’ interest in LaMelo as the trade came together:
The Timberwolves and Raptors have emerged as two of the teams with trade interest in Charlotte’s LaMelo Ball, league sources tell @JakeLFischer and me.
More to come … pic.twitter.com/Sf5Ik7vAj2
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) June 25, 2026
Which is really the honest way to look at this. Minnesota needed cap room. Minnesota got cap room. Minnesota then spent that room on a 24-year-old lead guard who’s a career 20-and-7 guy. Whether the front office knew LaMelo was walking through the door when they picked up the phone on Randle is a question only the front office can answer, and it hasn’t.
What’s not speculation is how LaMelo has actually looked since. He averaged 20.1 points, 7.1 assists and 4.8 rebounds across four Summer League games in July, and the Wolves went 2-2 with him running the show. He and Anthony Edwards have reportedly already been in the gym together, with Ball staying at Edwards’ place and both of them planning to train in France with Rudy Gobert before camp opens. That’s the part the grief-stage coverage back in mid-July couldn’t have known yet. Edwards being “over the moon,” per Dane Moore’s podcast, hits different with actual Summer League tape behind it instead of just a trade press release.
None of that erases what Minnesota gave up to get here. We already broke down what losing Naz Reid actually cost this locker room the week it happened, and the emotional math hasn’t changed. Reid was the 2024 Sixth Man of the Year and, by most accounts, more beloved in the Twin Cities than his stat line ever justified. Minneapolis City Council member Aurin Chowdhury said Reid “meant hope, they meant passion, they meant community,” and that wasn’t hyperbole for a lot of fans watching him get shipped out. Add a 2033 unprotected first-rounder and three pick swaps on top of Reid, and Charlotte didn’t just get a nice consolation prize. They got fleeced — assuming LaMelo doesn’t get hurt again, which is doing a lot of work in that sentence given his history.
The 83% number feels great right now. Go ask again the next time LaMelo misses a month.
