At this time last year, Tim Connelly’s head was still spinning from his whirlwind courtship with the Minnesota Timberwolves. He had just moved into his home in the Twin Cities suburbs with his pregnant wife and two children after nine years in Denver and was still figuring his way around town as training camp approached.

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A year later and the Connelly family is settled in. Tim Connelly knows the lay of the land now. His two oldest children are in school and his youngest is 10 months old.

“It was probably more challenging than we would have guessed, quite frankly,” Connelly said of packing up his family and moving to a new team and a new city. “But thankfully, people here have been super cool and super welcoming, which has made the transition about as easy as it could possibly be.”

The team he left won the championship. The team he presides over is preparing to enter an important season, one that figures to be a referendum on their highly debated core. Connelly is social by nature, preferring to do business over a meal or a beer while building rapport with people up and down an organization. Building those bridges took time, and he hopes the work put in will pay dividends this season.

“I didn’t know these guys last year and you can’t expedite trust,” Connelly said. “So now I feel like knowing these guys now for a year, I’ve been through some ups and downs. We can have much more productive conversations. I think we have a better understanding of how we can maximize these guys and what makes them tick both on and off the court. So the complete night and day this year as opposed to last year.”

Ahead of training camp opening next week, Connelly made an appearance on “The Jon Krawczynski Show” podcast to talk about Anthony Edwards, Rudy Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns and so much more, including the first charity event he and his wife, Negah, have organized in Minnesota. They are hosting a celebrity ping-pong tournament at the Nicollet Island Pavilion on Monday with every dollar generated going to Project for Pride In Living.

“We’re trying to do kind of the anti-fundraiser fundraiser where people can come, have some drinks, have some laughs, play a little ping-pong,” the Timberwolves president of basketball operations said.

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Connelly said a lot more in our conversation. Here are some of the highlights with the questions and answers edited for clarity and length.

What stood out during the summer evaluation process that may have been harder to see immediately after the season came to an end?

We thought we figured some things out as the season progressed, and now we have to hold ourselves to higher standards across the board. Our success, we have to just raise that collective bar, what it looks like and the little things that we didn’t do last year consistently. Our record versus sub-.500 teams, you can’t take yourself seriously if you lose as many games as we did versus sub-.500 teams. So we’ve got to clean up a lot. But when the emotions were kind of done a couple weeks after the season and a couple weeks after Denver won the championship, we dug in again and we found a whole lot more good than bad.

On Karl-Anthony Towns, after missing 52 games with a calf injury and all of training camp last season with an illness, and his standing in the league. 

Karl’s a great player. Karl and I have had conversations about this. And right now our team will be judged, we think, on how much we win. The great teams, and we’re trying to aspire to be a great team and we have a long way to go, the great organizations, it’s not about how individuals are viewed. It’s about how the team is viewed. I think Karl has accomplished so much individually. He’s checked every individual box. Our team, whether it’s Karl right down to our third two-way (contract), I think we want to be judged collectively as a team that can win and win in the postseason. I think once we do that, and Karl can be a huge part of that, then I think the way this league views you changes dramatically when you’ve had success in the postseason. …

Karl’s a great guy. His heart is as big as you’re going to find, and he is a teammate who’s extremely aware and empathetic of how he can help others. No one had to make more sacrifices than Karl when we made the Rudy trade. And I think he embraced it. I think he’s a guy that likes to show that he can do a lot of different things. And certainly, he’s capable of doing a lot of things. Whether it’s Karl or whether it’s any of our guys, I think the challenge and the mandate we’re giving our organization, not just our players, will be that we’ll be viewed in a positive light if we win a lot of games. We can’t completely control wins and losses. But if we’re healthy, we’re doing the things that we think we’re capable of doing, I think we’re going to have a special season. All of our players will have a positive light shed on them because we showed that we can win in the postseason.

On Anthony Edwards’ summer with Team USA and the expectations entering his fourth season. 

He’s just a great guy. And the people around him are great. He loves the city, he loves the organization. He and (coach Chris Finch) have a special bond. He’s a positive teammate, which in this day and age is not always the rule. Sometimes it’s the exception. He’s an uplifter of this entire team, and we couldn’t be more lucky to have him. And I think he’s going to he’s primed to have a monster year. 

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On Edwards handling the increased attention coming his way.

His work ethic has been insane this offseason. I mean, the guy’s in the best shape of his life. He’s so excited to take the next step, excited with the guys on this team and what they can do as they grow together. But I think with him, anything that’s not sincere or not kind of true to who he is, I think he smells it out quickly. So him forging his path, I think is the challenge that we’ve given him. And how can we help ensure he’s doing it in a way that’s reflective of who he is?

In Year 2 of Towns and Rudy Gobert paired in the frontcourt. 

We don’t have too much video, but we have enough video to understand where we were wrong and where we were right and kind of drill down on those things that were working and say maybe we were wrong with this is how things potentially could work. So I just think collectively, knowing all the actors is going to make things a whole lot easier.

On Gobert’s adjustment from Utah to Minnesota.

I think at times we kind of don’t appreciate how impactful it can be to make a big move. And the first one. So I think Rudy was very good last year by NBA standards. I thought by his standards, I don’t think he played up to his standards. I think he’d be the first to tell you. He was coming off a brutal European championship where I think he played until maybe eight days before the season. Nobody works harder than Rudy. Nobody pays more attention and detail to every single aspect of his game, his body, his mental approach. And he’s super, super excited to have a more comfortable season both on and off the court.

On free-agent Shake Milton’s impact on the team’s point guard depth behind Mike Conley Jr. 

We view Shake as a point guard. He’s started enough NBA games at that position where we feel confident that he can handle that load. He’s a guy that, when given the opportunity, he always produced and produced for good teams. Philadelphia has won as many games as anybody in the last three or four years. So we were excited to get him in. I think it gives us a different look with size at that position, his ability to score around the paint and his ability to be a good match for our bigs. He can make some of the passes that, at 6-5, 6-6, he’s allowed to make that maybe smaller guards can’t make. So we’re excited about him.

On contract negotiations with Jaden McDaniels.

We’d love to get something done. We want Jaden to be here as long as possible. Oftentimes those back-and-forths pick up more as the season gets closer, but fingers crossed. In my experience in Denver and here, we like to reward people who earned it. Jaden is a huge part of what we’re doing now. He’s going to get better and better and better. Great kid. And we think his best basketball is in front of him. As I told Jaden and his representation, the cool thing about extension talks is they should be overwhelmingly positive. The fact that you want an extension speaks to the team’s excitement about his upside. Very few guys are fortunate to get extensions, so again we’re hopeful we can meet that point where we’re both happy with something moving forward. I think he’s going to have a good year and we hope he’s here for a long, long time.

(Photo of Tim Connelly, Leonard Miller and Jaylen Clark: David Sherman / NBAE via Getty Images)