Minnesota certainly isn’t in the driver’s seat in the Western Conference – the steering wheel is firmly in the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder – but the conference did open up a little wider late Saturday evening when a trade shook the NBA world to its core.

Luka Doncic being dealt from Dallas to the Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis is a head scratcher that seems to remove a conference title contender from the equation.

No, the Lakers likely aren’t contending for a title – not this season, anyway. But that was also the case for them prior to the trade. They weren’t good enough before, and they aren’t good enough now — even with a top-four player in the league like Doncic joining forced with LeBron James.

Davis was the Lakers’ best defender. Los Angeles will simply be too leaky on that end to play deep into May.

Getting Doncic opens a new, lengthy title window for the Lakers, but they don’t figure to be able to crawl through it until at least next season, after they’ve had a little time to build around the Slovenian superstar.

But the real domino here is Dallas. The Mavericks have fluttered around .500 for much of the season, with Doncic missing time with injuries, though reports suggest he could return to action within the next week. Multi-faceted big man Dereck Lively II is out for months with a foot injury.

Still, once Lively returned, assuming Doncic was available, Dallas had a championship-level roster. The Mavericks were just in the NBA Finals eight months ago, after breezing past Minnesota in the West Finals. Doncic is a playoff killer. Dallas had assembled a roster that complemented him well. The Mavericks were considered by many to be Oklahoma City’s biggest threat, and were a team that likely would’ve again proven tricky for Minnesota in a best-of-7 series.

And now Dallas doesn’t feel so dangerous. Davis is a high-end player, no question. Dallas now sports a dominant defensive frontcourt that rivals that of Cleveland.

But the Mavericks’ perimeter creation now starts and ends with Kyrie Irving. And that simply doesn’t feel like enough offense to push through three playoff rounds in the West.

Minnesota had no answer for the Mavericks in the postseason because, even at the previous edition’s peak, the Wolves’ elite defense had no sustainable solution for slowing Doncic.

Moving forward, Minnesota can simply stick Jaden McDaniels on Irving and Rudy Gobert on Davis and wish the Mavericks luck in their pursuit of 100 points.

Is Minnesota the new No. 2 team in the West, waiting in the wings should anything happen to the Thunder? The Wolves’ record certainly doesn’t suggest as much. Memphis has certainly had Minnesota’s number. Houston, while inexperienced, is tough as nails. But the path through the conference now looks a little less daunting. The Thunder are the only team most objective onlookers would say Minnesota cannot beat.

The Wolves have Anthony Edwards – at the time of this column’s publishing, they had not opted to move their young superstar – so they have a chance.

Especially after one of the true pre-existing contenders seemingly weakened its own armor, for reasons still not entirely understood across the association.

The basketball world is rightfully shocked. The Wolves should be encouraged. Repeating, or improving upon last season’s result may have just gotten far more likely.

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