The NBA Cup has now been around for three years. After each of these in-season tournaments, an All-Tournament team is named, which includes the top five players.
Throughout the numerous decades of the NBA playoffs, the league has never decided to announce an All-Postseason team. With the NBA finals having recently been completed, Zach Kram of ESPN decided to name his first and second teams for the 2026 playoffs.
While the Minnesota Timberwolves didn't quite advance as far as they did the previous two years, Kram still has a representative from them on the second team in Jaden McDaniels. McDaniels' impact in the playoffs was truly felt, particularly in the first round, even if it's been about a month since they were eliminated.
McDaniels is only player named that didn’t reach conference finals
Obviously, the further a team advanced through the playoffs, the more likely it would be that they’d have players on 1 of the teams that Kram named. The NBA champion New York Knicks have three guys on the first team (Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby) and one on the second (Mikal Bridges). The Western Conference champion San Antonio Spurs have one on each (Victor Wembanyama first, Stephon Castle second).
Out of the 10 players named, the only one who did not advance at least to the conference finals is McDaniels. He earned a spot on the second team alongside Bridges, Castle, Alex Caruso, and Jarrett Allen.
Now in his sixth season, McDaniels continued to look like a playoff riser as he also did in the previous 2 postseasons. In Minnesota’s 12 postseason outings, the 25-year-old posted averages of 16.3 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 2.4 assists. He reached double figures in scoring every game, and had a career-high (regular season or playoffs) of 32 points in the series-clinching Game 6 victory over the Denver Nuggets.
Not only that, but he made life miserable in the opening round for another notorious playoff riser in Jamal Murray, as he made just 31.9 percent of his field goal tries for the series with McDaniels as his closest defender. The Spurs advanced in six over Minnesota in the conference semifinals, but De’Aaron Fox wasn’t all that much better.
The end result in the playoffs wasn’t what the Timberwolves were hoping for. What it did though was further solidify that the team should view McDaniels as a cornerstone piece, and that they should build around both him and Anthony Edwards.
