During one of the Timberwolves’ darkest hours of a dark season, as they were getting handled by Atlanta at Target Center on Wednesday night for their 13th consecutive loss, Malik Beasley was sitting across the street at the Loews hotel watching his new team flail away. And he was frothing at the mouth.



Beasley was part of the first big trade of the week for the Timberwolves, the one on Tuesday that sent Robert Covington to Houston and also brought Juancho Hernangomez and Jarred Vanderbilt from Denver in a four-team trade that involved 12 players.



Beasley hustled from Denver to the Twin Cities on Wednesday, eager to get an opportunity for a bigger role on a team that desperately needed him. So eager, in fact, that he wanted to play that night against the Hawks. His flight landed in Minneapolis at 11 a.m., and he told his coaches that he wanted to be in uniform when the team tipped off eight hours later.



“He was bouncin’ off the walls,”...