Kyrie Irving, Tom Thibodeau and an alternative Timberwolves universe

Welcome to the Friday edition of The Cooler, where you don’t need a prescription to use hindsight. Let’s get to it:

In the summer of 2017, the Timberwolves seemingly went “all-in” by trading two young players (Zach LaVine and Kris Dunn) as well as the No. 7 pick to Chicago for Jimmy Butler and the No. 16 pick.

In reality, though, all-in would have gone another step further: finessing a trade for Kyrie Irving, who was on the market. There were persistent rumblings that the Wolves were strongly in the mix for Irving — which likely would have involved trading Andrew Wiggins and plenty of future assets to Cleveland — and Tom Thibodeau even acknowledged it after Irving was eventually traded to…