Lynx make last-minute trades ahead of draft night, Timberwolves clinch spot in playoffs

NINA MOINI: It's a big week in basketball. The NBA Playoffs begin Saturday, and tonight in New York City, the WNBA Draft takes place. The Minnesota Lynx made a big move overnight, trading their 1st Round pick, Number 11 overall, to Chicago. In return, the Lynx will get Chicago's 1st Round pick next year. MPR News Editor Todd Melby spoke to Lynx Head Coach Cheryl Reeve about this year's draft field and the likely Number 1 pick, Paige Bueckers of Hopkins.

CHERYL REEVE: There's lots to like about her game. I think the thing that stands out is supreme efficiency at a time when the scoring numbers, that's what people look at, I think Paige understands shot selection better than most players her age. How to get the best shot, whether it's her shot, team shot. She'll be a great player in the league We're looking forward to trying to figure out how to scheme against her and make it difficult for her, but I'm excited she'll be in the league in 2025.

TODD MELBY: You anticipated my next question. How are you going to guard Paige Bueckers?

CHERYL REEVE: [LAUGHS] Well, we got some work to do. We spent a lot of time watching college players, and when you know you're not going to be able to get the Number 1 pick, a lot of that time is scouting. So we've got a lot of work already done. And then the WNBA is different. I think Caitlin Clark will tell you the adjustment-- the physicality, I think, is the number one thing that people talked about. But there's more. There's the schemes of coaches and different ways that you're played, and your ability to react to those schemes quickly. For young players, that might take a little while.

TODD MELBY: How strong is this draft class?

CHERYL REEVE: Strong at the top. Like, the Number 1 pick. And then I think from there, we've got a-- I think a pretty strong international flavor to the 1st Round, which we haven't necessarily seen as of late. And I'd say from there, there's a real opportunity for some role players in the W, and those are obviously a little harder to project.

NINA MOINI: That's head coach Cheryl Reeve of the Minnesota Lynx speaking to MPR's Todd Melby yesterday. The Dallas Wings pick first in tonight's draft and will likely choose Paige Bueckers. ESPN reports Bueckers is also set to sign a three-year deal with Unrivaled. That's a 3-on-3 League that plays during the WNBA offseason. While Minnesota no longer has a 1st Round pick in tonight's draft, it does still have two seconds Round picks and a 3rd Round selection. The Lynx open their season on the road against Dallas on May 16.

Also, the NBA Playoffs begin this weekend, and the Timberwolves have made the cut. Wolves Coach Chris Finch says the team took time to adapt to changes made after last year, when Karl-Anthony Towns was traded.

CHRIS FINCH: We didn't make a big trade in the middle of the season to sort things out. We didn't fire coaches to try to things out. They sorted it out themselves. Those guys made the right adjustments and sacrifices and figured out who they needed to be as a team.

NINA MOINI: Joining me to talk about this and other Minnesota sports news are our sports contributors Wally Langfellow Langfellow and Eric Nelson. Thanks for being here, guys. Happy Monday.

ERIC NELSON: Yeah.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Happy Monday to you.

ERIC NELSON: --Nina.

NINA MOINI: Well, we got some good news going on in the sports world. It sounds like for the Timberwolves, they made the playoffs. They're going to start in LA, though, I don't know how good of news that actually then is, Wally.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, yeah. I mean, there's no question that as far as a name recognition, there's no bigger name in the NBA than LeBron James, and that's who they're going to face, albeit a 40-year-old LeBron James, and Luka Doncic, who may be the best player in the NBA-- certainly in the top 5, I would say. He was a thorn in the side of the Wolves last year when he was playing for Dallas, and Dallas knocked the Timberwolves out of the Playoffs in the Western Conference Finals.

So hard to say. I think that the Wolves certainly are playing some of their best basketball over the last couple of weeks. Other than the debacle in Milwaukee last Tuesday night where they managed to blow a 24-point lead in the fourth quarter, they've played some pretty good basketball. And so the fact that they brought-- you mentioned Karl-Anthony Towns. Well, the fact that they brought Julius Randle in and Donte DiVincenzo, it's taken time for them to come together.

They do not have home court advantage. The Lakers will have that. The first two games will be in LA. The next two will be in Minneapolis, and then if it comes down to a game 7, that would also be in Los Angeles. So we'll see how it plays out. They got the wins that they needed to, though. They had to win on Friday, a game that I saw over at Target Center. And they beat a not-so-good Nets team, and then they had to win yesterday, and they got 43 points from Anthony Edwards. And they beat a not-so-good Utah team 116 to 105.

So on to the next round. Fingers crossed. I would say this, though, if they don't at least make it to the Western Conference Finals, which is as far as they got last year, I think they have to look themselves in the mirror and say, was the Karl-Anthony Towns trade worth doing? And was that a mistake? Because if you don't go as far as you did last year, what's the point?

NINA MOINI: Right, exactly. Well, we'll see what happens there. Eric, can you talk a little bit about what we heard from Coach Reeve at the top there? What did the Minnesota Lynx prioritizing this year?

ERIC NELSON: Well, I think it's really just to pick up where they left off last season.

NINA MOINI: Mm-hmm.

ERIC NELSON: They were seconds away from winning their fifth WNBA Title. The opponent was the New York Liberty. And the officiating down the stretch, it was horrific. I mean, Coach Reeve even said it at the end of the game, they thought they got bagged. So I think that's probably going to be fueling their motivation. They're going to have a boulder on their shoulder. They're going to bring back everybody. They did deal away their 1st Round pick in tonight's WNBA draft to the Chicago Sky, they're going to get a 1st Round pick in 2026.

Minnesota still has three choices in the draft, two in the seconds Round and one in the 3rd Round. And I just think this is a team now that is starting to peak. They have an excellent coach, as you know, in Cheryl Reeve. She's won titles. She's an Olympic coach. She is certainly one of the top coaches in WNBA history.

And I would argue, if you want to talk about just purely winning, probably the greatest head coach in the history of professional Minnesota sports. I mean, this is a championship desert up here. Not a lot of titles, not a lot of parades celebrating teams that win it all, but Cheryl Reeve's done it four times, and twice they've knocked on the door. They also lost to the LA Sparks a few years ago in the Finals on a controversial call.

So when you bring back Napheesa Collier, when you bring back Alyssa Pili, when you bring back Diamond Miller and all these other great players they have with Cheryl Reeve guiding the way, I think it's Championship-or-bust mindset for the Lynx.

NINA MOINI: Sure. And you know Paige Bueckers from Hopkins, it really is too bad that she can't play with the Lynx, but very curious about just how much she's getting paid for this league, Unrivaled. I mean, it's fascinating, it's great for her, but can you just explain what that is and how that helps her?

ERIC NELSON: Yeah. And Napheesa Collier is one of the founders of Unrivaled, along with Breanna Stewart. So it started last year. It's 3-on-3. They play in the offseason, which you pointed out leading into this segment. And the revenue they took in last season was 27 million. So that's surpassed what the expectations were. Bueckers signed an NIL deal with Unrivaled last year, but she did finish at UConn, as you know, we with the Huskies. They won the NCAA Final Four last week. She's an outstanding product out of Hopkins High School here in the Twin Cities.

The Dallas Wings are going to choose her tonight Number 1, in the WNBA Draft. And the Wings are hoping for the kind of splash that Indiana got when Caitlin Clark came to the Fever last season because all of a sudden they sold out every game, people were buying the jerseys and all the souvenirs, and you couldn't turn on the television without seeing Indiana on a game.

Now, will it be the same for the Dallas Wings? I don't know. The DFW Metroplex down there, it's mostly all Cowboys all the time, they are football-obsessed. The Stars and the Mavericks and the Rangers are left fighting for crumbs. But I think the Wings move up the food chain with Bueckers, especially if they start to win. And yeah, Minnesota would love to have her, but she's too good. She's going to go right away in this draft. She's gone.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. Well, she's a star. Another star from the Minnesota Twins, legend Joe Mauer, got this cool new bronze statue. I saw photos of it. It's beautiful. Wally, what was that like? Were you there. Or are you there, Wally?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: No, I'm here. I did not see-- I did not see the unveiling. Yeah, I just ran out to go see the statue. No, I didn't see the unveiling of it, but it's getting rave reviews. It's of him getting ready to throw a ball-- theoretically to throw out a runner down at second base. The creator of the statue did a great job. And it, along with the Kirby Puckett statue and the Tom Kelly statue and then the others that are around different parts of the stadium, it's a great addition. I mean, Joe Mauer was Twins baseball for, what, 15 years? And played his whole career here. Was the Number 1 Overall Draft Pick, all that stuff, the batting titles.

So yeah, well-deserved. Hopefully, what happened yesterday unveiling the statue will bring them some luck. It did yesterday, anyway. They managed to salvage their final game of the series with Detroit because they had lost 6 out of 7 leading into that. And you're starting to hear some rumblings now as Rocco Baldelli, the manager, is he going to survive this? I mean, are they going to-- could he be on the hot seat, so to speak, if they don't start winning consistently here? Because through the first 15 games, not counting yesterday, they're off to their worst start ever in franchise history. So that's not good.

So they definitely need to pick things up. And they did yesterday. They got a good start out of Simeon Woods Richardson. And we'll see if they can continue that. They have a very good New York Mets team in town beginning tonight, and so things don't get any easier. The Mets have the highest payroll in all of baseball. They went out and got Soto, who-- they paid him millions of dollars to come in. We'll see. You get a chance to go see one of the best players in baseball, clearly, if you go down to Target Field tonight, tomorrow, or Wednesday. But Twins need to keep things going because as I said, having lost 6 of 7 prior to yesterday, it's starting to get ugly around here.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And we have about 30 seconds, but Eric, do you want to talk about who the Wild just signed?

ERIC NELSON: Well, the Wild got Zeev Buium, the kid out of Denver, Denver Pioneers, college hockey top prospect. So he's going to join the team immediately. Make his NHL debut tomorrow night against the Anaheim Ducks in St. Paul. And basically, if the Wild get one or two points in that game, they punch a Playoff ticket. If they lose, don't get any, and Calgary knocks off Vegas Tuesday night, and then the LA Kings Thursday out in SoCal, you're going to see the flames in the postseason and the Wild saying, what happened?

NINA MOINI: All right. Eric and Wally, appreciate you guys as always. Thank you for stopping by.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: All right.

ERIC NELSON: All right, Nina. Take care.

NINA MOINI: Have a great week. Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson, our wonderful sports contributors, hosts of the sports talk show 10,000 Takes. I'm Nina Moini. This is Minnesota Now. Thank you for listening on this Monday. I hope you have a great start to the week. Hope you'll tune back in tomorrow right here at noon.

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