Reality is setting in for the 2025 Minnesota Timberwolves. With nine games remaining in the regular season, the Wolves are on the 16th tee box and need to birdie the last few holes to ensure their place in the Western Conference playoffs. As things stand, the Wolves sit a half-game behind the LA Clippers for the sixth and final guaranteed playoff spot, with the Golden State Warriors also a half-game up on the Wolves for the seventh seed and home-court advantage in the first Play-In game.
If the season ended today, the Timberwolves would either play the Houston Rockets in the 2-7 matchup or the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 1-8 matchup, assuming they beat one of the Warriors, Sacramento Kings, or Phoenix Suns to survive the Play-In. The Timberwolves could get frisky in a first-round matchup against the Rockets, but they have next to no chance of beating the Thunder in a seven-game series.
All signs point to an early exit after reaching the Western Conference Finals last season for the first time in 20 years. But what if the Timberwolves didn’t have to run through the traditional Western Conference gauntlet to get to the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history? The current NBA Playoff format isn’t set in stone. Adam Silver threw a huge wrinkle into the established status quo by introducing the Play-In tournament in 2021, and there are rumblings around the league that another change could be discussed in the future.
Most recently, The Ringer’s Kirk Goldsberry floated an “NBA Sweet 16,” as he called it. A playoff bracket that included the NBA’s 16 best teams, regardless of conference, vying for the Larry O’Brien trophy. It would be seeded by overall record, so as of writing this, the Thunder would be the top seed, followed by the Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics, and so on.
The Timberwolves would be a scrappy 13 seed if the playoffs began today, and their first-round matchup, ironically enough, would be the Rockets. They’d go on to play the winner of the 5-12 matchup, which would pit the New York Knicks against the Detroit Pistons. If the Wolves somehow got past the two-seed in the West and either the third-seed or the fifth-seed in the East, they would likely match up with the top-seeded Thunder in the semifinals. The new 16-team bracket would have its pluses and minuses for the Timberwolves.
A big plus of the 16-team bracket is the upward mobility it would give the Timberwolves late in the regular season. With nine games left in the season, the Wolves would sit only 1.5 games out of the ninth seed held by the Pacers. That would give them a first-round matchup with the eighth-seeded Memphis Grizzlies, giving the Wolves an easier initial matchup. If they fell between 10 and 12, they could see the Knicks, Denver Nuggets, or Los Angeles Lakers. The Grizzlies, Nuggets, and Lakers are all teams the Wolves could see in the second round of the Western Conference playoffs.
The downside here would be if they move up, the Wolves would be almost guaranteed to play one of the consensus top three teams in the Thunder, Cavs, and Celtics. If they moved to the ninth seed, they’d play the Thunder in the second round. If they were 10th, it would be the 58-win Cavaliers, and 11th would land them a matchup with the 54-win reigning champion Boston Celtics. The Wolves would likely match up against the Nuggets, Lakers, or Grizzlies in the second round of the Western Conference Finals if they secure the seventh seed and avoid the league-leading Thunder until the Conference Finals.
It would help give the Wolves a break from the Western Conference gauntlet that has dominated the East since Michael Jordan retired from the Bulls in 1998. The Timberwolves are the eighth seed in the West and would be neck-and-neck with the Pistons for the fifth seed in the East and 1.5 games behind the Pacers for fourth. All four Eastern Conference Play-In teams would be kicked to the curb in the new 16-team free-for-all, while all 10 postseason-bound teams in the West would make the cut. While the mixing of conferences would give the Wolves a respite from the West, it would also cull the easy-out teams from the East, making each early-round matchup a battle between more evenly matched teams.
For now, the 16-team playoff bracket is hypothetical. The current format has added some competition to the end of the season, with more teams vying for inclusion in the postseason thanks to the Play-In than in past years, when up to a dozen teams would be tanking. Any change might have to wait for expansion, which Adam Silver reiterated is still years away at the NBA Board of Governors meeting this week.
Until that happens, the Wolves will have to play the path in front of them and fight their way out of the Play-In before trying to take down some Western Conference giants on a Cinderella run to the Finals.