I like the trade. There's an obvious upside which is it puts the wolves in the championship conversation. The secondary upside is Rudy, LaMelo and, yes, even Ant represent multiple first round picks and good but not great players coming back in trade value. If this experiment fails, one or more of them is gone. The cupboard of the future will be restocked. The wolves will either get a championship out of this thing or recoup the future that Connelly had previously traded away. In that sense it's well thought out.
I have two concerns.
The wolves got off of one ball dominant player and just brought in an even more ball dominant player. Obviously, Randle and Ball play different positions and have different roles. However, will Ant tolerate a back court mate who takes over....too much. Randle was never the alpha. Ball might want to be the co-alpha. How will Ant react?
The NBA is full of knuckleheads. Ball is a knucklehead supreme. Some of the NBA knuckleheads are actually smart guys, just quite immature. From what I've seen and read, Ball is a complete dumbfuck. The question is will Ball's off court behavior impact the franchise and the team. This is a practical question, not a morality squad issue.
It's going to be a fascinating season. Lots of sellouts at TC.