Five takeaways from Timberwolves media day: Most of the band is back

At Monday’s media day for the Timberwolves, 16 members of the organization (President Tim Connelly, coach Chris Finch and the 14 players on the main roster) addressed reporters to mark the opening of training camp.

That made for about two hours’ worth of interviews with those 16 people, with a lot of talk centered on the continuity the Wolves have coming into this season. After making a significant trade at the dawn of training camp last season (sending Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks for Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and a first-round pick from Detroit that became Joan Beringer), the Wolves enter this season with last season’s roster largely intact.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker is now with the Atlanta Hawks, but the rest of the eight-man rotation that carried the team last season is back, and the Wolves have high expectations for young players such as Rob Dillingham, Terrence Shannon Jr. and Jaylen Clark, who will all be vying for the minutes Alexander-Walker vacated.

Here are some key takeaways from all those interviews Monday:

What lessons did the Wolves learn from losing in the conference finals back-to-back seasons and about taking that next step?

To Anthony Edwards, the importance of togetherness is a key ingredient in how the Wolves can become a championship-level team and not just one that gets close. He saw how the Oklahoma City Thunder were that way, and he wants that for the Wolves.

“The teams that go deep in the playoffs, they’re together,” the All-Star guard said. “Like, they really care about each other. It’s easy to say, ‘We brothers,’ and act like it.”

“I told Naz [Reid]: ‘Next time you have a camp, let me know. I’m going to come.’ That’s where it starts,” he said. “I think it starts in the summertime. It’s just things guys don’t know because we’re not used to winning. I think winning starts with being together, and it starts in the summertime, man. We’ve got to be together. We’ve got to be a team. We can’t wait until the All-Star break to try to become a team. We’ve got to do it now.”

DiVincenzo missed time last season because of turf toe on his left great toe. He then played the rest of the season with a plate in his shoe when he returned. Over the summer, DiVincenzo withdrew from playing for the Italian national team as a precaution, but he said he is “110 percent” ready to go for this season.

“I had the option to get surgery. I elected not to,” he said. “Surgery would have put me out, I think, five, six months, and we put a plate in the shoe to restrict that mobility of my toe. … Because now the season ended, I pulled the plate out of my shoe. I want to get back to being my normal self, and so it’s all precautionary. There’s nothing to worry about to start the season.”

One of the areas the Wolves have to improve is their defense when Rudy Gobert is off the floor, both Connelly and Finch have said. A quick glance at the numbers shows you how stark the difference can be. The Wolves were 4.4 points per possession worse during the regular season when their star center wasn’t on the floor. That became 11.7 in the postseason, according to NBA.com.

“I think we have some guys that would tell you that [they were] not where they needed to be defensively last year,” Connelly said.

“If I’m being honest, I think that bottles out to me,” Reid said. “Just being able to guard different matchups, switching, being able to be in pick-and-roll defense. I’m gonna take the onus in that instance. We can be a dangerous team if everybody buys into that, and I think we will.”

Reid comes to training camp just weeks after the death of his sister, Toraya, who was shot and killed in New Jersey. Shaquille Green, who was dating Toraya, has been charged with murder and other weapons charges in the case.

Reid said he was doing “fine, but I’ve been better.”

“I’ve had people around me supporting me,” Reid said. “Things don’t really go as planned in life, but there’s a lot of situations where I got a lot of support, and it helps a lot.”

Point guard Mike Conley said the Wolves will try to make things as normal as they can be for Reid as the team begins practice this week.

Last season, Conley was dealing with multiple health issues, chief among them a wrist injury that hampered his offseason work. That contributed to a slow start for him last season. But Conley said he was able to have a typical offseason this summer.