MINNEAPOLIS -- Jaden McDaniels' phone was alerting him to the truth, but his response, typical when hearing something shocking, was denial.
"People were telling me and [I thought] I'm not believing it until my coach tells me," the Minnesota Timberwolves forward said. "Everybody in the group chat starts saying 'OK, this is going to be a challenge at first.'"
It was the afternoon of July 1 when the Wolves executed a four-player, four first-round-pick trade with the Utah Jazz for three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert.
The league's executives were stunned by the price Minnesota paid. But the players were taken aback that several of the most popular players within the team, especially veteran leader Patrick Beverley, were being sent out. They'd just had a strong 46-36 season, winning a play-in game to make the playoffs for the second time in 18 years.
"We were already in kind of the mindset to run it back with the pieces that we had," said guard Jordan McLaughlin, now in his fourth season with the Timberwolves. "And then for that trade to happen, it was different for us."
"It wasn't that it put us in a bad mood," said forward Taurean Prince, "but, uh, we were surprised."
What the players, the team's fans and the Wolves' rivals didn't understand at the time was just how all-in on Gobert the Minnesota leadership is. And they don't seem to care what anyone thinks about the infatuation or the details of the trade itself.
Spend some time watching the Wolves this fall -- including Wednesday's preseason game at the Los Angeles Lakers (10 p.m. ET, ESPN) -- and you will soon see they are convinced their massive offseason swing wasn't just a home run, but a grand slam. They believe Gobert isn't just a championship-level acquisition but that he provides an injection of rocket fuel to the rest of their team, particularly their other star players.
"We put up the 30 best players in the league on a board," said Wolves coach Chris Finch, broadly gesturing with his hands as he described meetings when the deal was first seriously contemplated.
"At any given time, like there's maybe three or four of them available. Some aren't even available if you gave 10 picks. And if you have one you can get and he fits and does a lot of the things that we like -- the more that we looked at it and the deeper we went, like just the more we felt like we couldn't not [trade for him]."
Part of the rationale was the well-established skills Gobert, a four-time All-NBA selection, brings himself. But what might have sold the Wolves was what their in-depth analysis predicted he will do for new teammates Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Edwards and D'Angelo Russell.
Finch, who has developed a reputation for being a tactician in his first two years as coach, spent hours wearing out some dry erase markers on the whiteboard going over how he saw it all would fit.
His assistant coaches and the basketball operations staff discussed where the Wolves would be vulnerable, how certain teams could exploit them and what all the downsides were looking for a reason to say no.
They couldn't find one, especially when they rationalized that they didn't have to give up any of their top four players: Towns, Edwards, Russell and McDaniels.
"It's a very small list of elite players," said Minnesota president of basketball operations Tim Connelly, who signed a five-year, 40 million contract with the franchise in May.
"When you're able to add a difference-maker and not trade a guy in a similar tier, it's so rare ... we didn't think we'd get a call like this for a long, long, long time."
Sachin Gupta, the team's vice president of basketball operations and one of the league's most respected analytics specialists, poured forth statistics on what adding Gobert would mean.
One potential boon for Towns, who only took five 3-pointers per game last season but shot over 40% on them: Could playing with Gobert increase his attempts by 50% or even double them?
"We faced so much doubling in the post with KAT last year," Finch said. "There were guys that the other teams didn't even guard honestly."
Towns also frequently dealt with foul trouble guarding opposing centers. Gobert can ease that and if they split time playing center, it would open new opportunities.
They look at how having Gobert to protect the rim might enable Edwards, who was 11th in the league in steals last season, to be even more aggressive.
They looked at Russell, who hasn't played in Minnesota with the kind of screen-setter that Gobert is and the projections on their pairing in that play looked tasty on the spreadsheets.
The general idea was to keep Towns and Edwards together all the time -- they were the heart of an offense developed last season that was No. 1 in the league after Jan. 1 -- and then have Gobert and Russell out there together as much as possible, ensuring 48 minutes of firepower if the groups were staggered correctly.
The Wolves, however, ranked 16th on defense in that span, and in their playoff loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, rebounding was a major thorn. In narrow losses in Games 5 and 6, the Wolves were outrebounded by a combined 28 boards.
Gobert led the NBA in rebounding last season.
As the hours passed and the Wolves mulled this move, they fell more and more in love.
There was also the team's new owner. Marc Lore, who, along with partner Alex Rodriguez bought about 25% of the team last year, is contracted to purchase another tranche of the team by December from existing owner Glen Taylor and then take over as controlling owner in 2023.
throw it up and Rudy will get it. pic.twitter.com/P2PuS4uJCn
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) October 1, 2022
But Lore, who led the team's bidding war recruitment to hire Connelly away from the Denver Nuggets after last season, already has a big voice. And he was a major champion of making the Gobert deal as well.
"It's not often you get a chance to bring in a player of Rudy's caliber without having to give up stars," he told the "Dane Moore NBA Podcast" in July.
It called to mind another NBA owner, the Golden State Warriors' Joe Lacob, when he was the driving force behind a then controversial trade in 2012 to acquire defensive center Andrew Bogut, who Lacob brazenly dubbed "transcendent" in the moment.
Warriors fans booed Lacob then -- the team won the title three years later with Bogut at center -- and there are skeptical eyes looking at the Wolves now. The NBA's general managers were stunned by it, recently voting the trade as the most surprising move of the offseason in a statement that maybe shouldn't be taken as an endorsement.
In the end, before they agreed to meet the Jazz's steep ask, Connelly looked at Finch and asked him a question plenty of others in the league wondered themselves once they heard about the trade:
"Tim said to me, 'Are you going to stick with it?'" Finch said. "When the other teams go small against us."
Because the Jazz were great with Gobert, too. Last season, the Jazz had the No. 1 offense for the entire season with Gobert and were sent home in the first round, just like the Wolves. Two years ago, the Jazz were top five in offense and defense and had the NBA's best record but were upset in the second round.
Gobert, at times in the postseason, got taken advantage of by smaller, quicker lineups that made him choose between playing his interior game and running around the perimeter on defense. Towns, who is no defensive stalwart, might become the new target to deal with smaller power forwards in playoff settings.
This is what Connelly was getting at with the question to Finch: There was skepticism when the Jazz gave Gobert a five-year, $205 million extension in 2020 for this same core reason.
Is it possible the Wolves might just be building the Jazz North by making this move at the cost of their draft future?
"When you have Karl Towns, you don't play small," Finch said. "We talked about some of the blind spots. We studied it. The concept didn't scare me at all, especially with KAT's versatility."
So that was that. According to Wolves officials, there was a great unity in the room to make it happen.
The Wolves basically haven't stopped smiling since, no matter what anyone might think.
Late in the summer, Finch flew to Europe and spent time with Gobert as he was playing for the French national team. Finch sold the new center on some of the team's ideas.
"I love the way Coach wants to use me and I'm excited about that, I love his approach to the game. He's going to find ways to make it work," Gobert said. "When you look at the roster and the talent we have with this group, it's incredible."