The Minnesota Timberwolves determined the course of their franchise during the 2014 offseason.Rather than letting Kevin Love remain on the roster for one more year of seemingly perpetual mediocrity, head coach and President of Basketball Operations Flip Saunders decided to move the centerpiece before his contract expired, sending him to the Cleveland Cavaliers for a package of young players and picks headlined by Andrew Wiggins. And somehow, that only set the stage for another summer filled with even bigger decisions.During the 2014-15 campaign, the Wolves sunk to the bottom of the NBA standings, struggling to win consecutive games as injuries piled up and left Minnesota with even less talent than it could ever have imagined.That's all in the past now. The future is filled with boundless levels of optimism, matched only by the upside of the many promising pieces on Saunders' roster.Oh, and it's also filled with choices. Individually, none are as significant as trading away a franchise centerpiece with a year remaining before he can opt out of his contract. But the combined product makes this offseason even more crucial to the future of the Wolves, either forcing them back into the morass of mid-level organizations or boosting them up into the realm of title contenders for the first time since the early 2000s.Right now, the first decision is all that matters, and the Wolves have until June 25 to tell NBA commissioner Adam Silver the answer to their conundrum.Decision No. 1: Who to Draft'As talented as D'Angelo Russell and Emmanuel Mudiay may be, there are only two legitimate choices here. Now that the pingpong balls have allowed the Wolves to hold onto the No. 1 pick in the 2015 NBA draft, they have to be looking at either Karl-Anthony Towns or Jahlil Okafor.To be clear, neither one is a bad choice. I've already argued in some depth that Towns is clearly a superior option, given the incumbent pieces in Minnesota, but it's not as if selecting the Duke product would be a franchise-wrecking alternative.If Okafor is the choice, there are obviously going to be some positives.All of a sudden, a Minnesota offense that often stagnated in 2014-15 is going to have significantly more firepower.This young big man is unbelievably talented when he's working on the interior, displaying footwork you'd expect to see from a 10-year veteran in the Association, not a precocious freshman adjusting to play at the collegiate level.Even as a rookie, it's likely that Okafor will command some double-teams in the post, and that only opens up more space for the developing scoring games of Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine and Shabazz Muhammad.Towns won't give the Wolves that. In a few years, he should be a floor-spacing threat who frees up driving lanes for his athletic teammatesthink LaMarcus Aldridge or Al Horford in that facet of the gamebut his offensive ability is still very much a work in progress.That said, the Kentucky standout doesn't create any unsolvable problems, and thatnot his indelible, tantalizing upsideis why he's the easy choice at No. 1, regardless of the early indications we've received from sources around Saunders.Remember, this is smokescreen season. If each powerful figure in the Association were held to all rumors that swirled this time of year, or even all the statements that officially leave their mouths, the landscape of the NBA would look remarkably different. Right now, the Wolves roster is entirely incapable of protecting the rim. According to NBA.com's SportVU data, they allowed 57.9 percent shooting right around the basket this past season, and that was rather easily the worst mark in the league. The Los Angeles Lakers were next at 54.6 percent.Unless you're particularly bullish about Gorgui Dieng's ability to improve afterallowingopponents at the rim to hit at a 55.8 percent clip in 2014-15, help is needed.That help isn't going to come from the slow-footed Okafor. Defense is rather easily his biggest weakness, and that's not likely to change, given his style of play, body and heavy offensive involvement.Adding him into the lineup just makes it even tougher to protect the hoop, which is always such a crucial part of any team's defense. But Towns specializes in this area, making him a strong fit next to the rest of a roster that should feature plenty of internal improvement on the more glamorous end of the court.It's easy to stand back and say this is an easy choice, but that's coming from an outside perspective. Chances are, the Wolves themselves will debate between Okafor and Towns endlessly, up until the moment they have to let Silver know whose hand he's going to shake while kicking off the selection process.And no matter which promising center is added into the mix, he's going to force Minnesota into making another decision revolving around a player at the 5.Decision No. 2: The Pekovic ConundrumHaving Nikola Pekovic on the roster is significantly more palatable when his albatross of a salary is balanced out by the rookie-scale deals of so many key contributorsincluding whoever will be added as the No. 1 pick.However, he's still being paid an awful lot of money for a player with a declining role and a questionable future.The 29-year-old big man played in only 31 games this last season, as he was constantly hindered by a never-ending barrage of injuries to his ankles. Ultimately, he was knocked out for the season after playing just eight minutes in a March 11 contest against the Phoenix Suns, and he subsequently had debridement surgery to clean up and repair the Achilles tendon in his right ankle.Now, his future is up in the air."Of course I am [worried about the future]," the Montenegrin center told Kent Youngblood of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "I'm pretty much worrying about how this is going to affect my life in 10 years. I mean, I'm still thinking about basketball [too]. But when you deal so much with something like this...It's a big deal, I think."Fortunately, Saunders doesn't believe that his recently extended center is working his way back from a career-threatening injury, merelyrehabilitatingafter a fairly typical setback. "I don't think so," he told Youngblood when asked if this surgery put Pekovic's career in jeopardy. "Our indication is this is going to be a clean-up procedure that will put him in a situation where he can play at a higher rate."Ideally, Pekovic will be back on the court before too long, and this injury won't bring his NBA tenure to a screeching halt. But it might signal the end of his time with the Wolves, providing the final impetus to make a change in the frontcourt.Shortly before the 2013-14 season began, Pekovic, then a restricted free agent, inked a five-year extension with the Wolves that would pay him $60 million. According to Spotrac.com, the big man is now owed $12.1 million for each of the next two seasons, and he'll make $11.6 million during the 2017-18 campaign before hitting unrestricted free agency.That's a lot of money for a player who's suddenly going to be pushed into a bench role. Pekovic certainly can't play at the 4, as he's an interior-dwelling center with no jump-shooting range or passing skills to speak of. This past year, only 7.9 percent of his shots came from outside 10 feet, and that's actually thehighestpercentage of his NBA career.It's Dieng who will shift to power forward alongside either Okafor or Towns, and there are already other frontcourt players who need significant minutes. Adreian Payne, Anthony Bennett and others are all guaranteed playing time, which limits Pekovic's expected contributions even further.Saunders shouldn't have much trouble thinking of better ways to spend $12.1 million. Sure, he could let Pekovic serve as the leader of the second unit, giving Minnesota a strong Sixth Man of the Year candidate if the big man can stay healthy. But he could also try to trade him to a team that actually needs such a player, trying to get back more young contributors, veteran commodities who line up at positions of need or extra draft picks. "If the Wolves want defense, quickness, length and athleticism, then Pekovic'sdays in the Gopher State should be numbered," Bleacher Report's Zach Buckley wrote back in September, when Dieng was already asserting himself as a player on the rise after the FIBA Basketball World Cup. "Dieng is a perfect fit with this revamped roster. His dominant display at the World Cup is just the latest evidence of that."Recent eventsthe Achilles surgery and the likely addition of Towns/Okaforshould only push the team further in that direction.Decision No. 3: What Next'Even after figuring out who to draft and what to do with Pekovic, the Minnesota front office will have to determine how it views this ongoing rebuilding process.Are the Wolves going to opt for patience, promote internal growth and bide their time with at least one more year in the lottery' Or will they go after some big-name veterans who can take this team into the playoffs, youth and all'If they opt for the latter route, they might have to swing a few more deals. After all, this roster is already brimming over with young players who need playing time, and there aren't many more slots that can be filled:That's already 12 players, and the number could rise or fall, depending on whether Pekovic is traded and what the return for him might look like.Plus, we can't forget about the other likely additions.The Wolves already have the first and sixth picks of the second round. While one of those might turn into a draft-and-stash player or an NBA Development League contributor, the other will probably end up on the actual roster, pushing the total to 13 before free agency begins. If Kevin Garnett and Gary Neal are re-signed, that's 15.Trading Kevin Martin or Ricky Rubio is counterintuitive, as Minnesota would only be doing so in order to add more veteran contributors. Problem is, they'd have to get rid of the ones they already have in order to do so. Moving some of the young players is another option, though, Saunders likely would have to do so for pennies on the dollar, unless he parted ways with one of the marquee names.And that's not going to happen.Chances are, this is the roster the Wolves will end up working with, barring a few minor veteran additions during the free-agency period. But plenty could change that, and it all starts with the two major decisions that the front office has to address.First, Minnesota must choose between Towns and Okafor. After that, it has to figure out the Pekovic plan. Only then can it finish building the rest of the roster and deciding how competitive it wants to be during this stage of the rebuilding process.Note: All stats, unless otherwise indicated, come from Basketball-Reference.com.AdamFromal covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter:@fromal09.
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