Minnesota lost the preseason opener in Milwaukee, 116-98. Nobody who watched it is talking about the score. They're talking about the bench, specifically Cody Williams and Joan Beringer, and whether what they showed means anything at all.
It means something, though less than the highlight clips suggest.
Start with what Milwaukee actually is right now. The Bucks traded Giannis Antetokounmpo to Miami this offseason for a package of four players and draft capital, including rookie Nate Ament, and handed the keys to new head coach Taylor Jenkins. This roster is a demolition site with jerseys on. Jenkins said going in that he expected something like thirteen of his twenty-one available players to see the floor, and that he wanted his regulars to play longer stretches, but not until the fourth quarter. Milwaukee fielded a group with almost no chemistry for most of the game, built around a starting five of Ryan Rollins, Tyler Herro, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kyle Kuzma and Myles Turner that has no shared history and a defense still being installed from scratch. Whatever Minnesota's reserves did against that, they did it against a team actively trying to figure out who it is.
If your takeaway is that Cody Williams and Joan Beringer just proved they're the future of the Timberwolves, slow down. You don't get that conclusion from one preseason night against a roster this scrambled.
Minnesota isn't selling this depth as an accident, though. The front office spent the offseason building what's being pitched as the deepest roster in franchise history, because Chris Finch has spent recent years squeezing by on seven or eight trusted bodies, especially late in seasons and in the playoffs. Anthony Edwards, LaMelo Ball, Jaden McDaniels, Jonathan Kuminga and Rudy Gobert are the projected starters, and the plan is to get real minutes to as many as seven more players off the bench. That was the plan before anyone tipped off in Milwaukee. If the bench flashes signs of life in game one of a six-game slate built to test that depth, the experiment is working the way it's supposed to.
What I won't do is let Milwaukee's collapse get laundered into a story about Minnesota's genius. The Bucks are the ones who tore apart a championship-caliber core and will spend a season finding out what's left. If their reserves and half-installed rotation got run off the floor by a team deliberately stress-testing its ninth and tenth men, that lands on the decision to blow it up.
Cody Williams showing real feel as a passer and real defensive instincts is worth tracking. Those are skills that travel regardless of opponent. Whether Joan Beringer's night was a real signal or a product of facing a Milwaukee frontcourt still finding its footing, I'm not willing to say yet. Dismissing all of it as preseason mirage lets Milwaukee's front office off the hook for what they did this offseason. Their own decision to tear the roster down beat them.
