As the afternoon moved to the evening and the NBA free-agent market opened, the Timberwolves were brimming with confidence heading into a meeting with All-Star point guard D’Angelo Russell.



A lavish presentation was planned, including a helicopter ride over the city of Los Angeles. The Wolves used the chopper as transportation to their planned meeting destination, sources said, a flashy statement meant to show Russell that they meant business. The plans were in place to make room to unite Russell with Karl-Anthony Towns, the two close friends and top two picks in the 2015 draft teaming up to turn around one of the league’s moribund franchises.



Towns had spent weeks leaning on a person he likes to call brother, the one Towns once said he would let date his daughter if he had one, to join him with the Wolves and remake a team trying to turn the page from Tom Thibodeau and Jimmy Butler and rediscover itself under Gersson Rosas and Ryan...