Posts Tagged ‘Glen Taylor’

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Saunders Likely Back In Minny, Kahn Out

April 26, 2013  ·  11:05AM

Flip Saunders is expected to take over for David Kahn in Minnesota. (by Ned Dishman/NBAE)

Flip Saunders is expected to take over for David Kahn in Minnesota. (by Ned Dishman/NBAE)

Former NBA head coach Flip Saunders is expected to return to the Minnesota Timberwolves as the team’s next president of basketball operations, NBA.com has learned.

Saunders, 58, has been negotiating a contract that, with option years, could run through the 2017-18 season and could be worth more than $9 million over the full five years, according to league sources who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the hiring.

The move, which could become official as soon as next week, would end David Kahn‘s controversial tenure after four seasons and an 89-223 record during which the Timberwolves’ failure to reach the playoffs stretched to nine consecutive seasons. Kahn’s contract includes a team option for 2013-14 that will not be exercised.

Minnesota owner Glen Taylor and Saunders had been meeting in recent weeks, with Taylor confirming a report in March that Saunders was representing a group of prospective buyers interested in purchasing the franchise. Taylor, who turned 72 last week, has been seeking a minority investor or investors who eventually could take over majority control of the club.

Saunders, contacted Thursday evening in Bristol, Conn., where he was working as an NBA studio analyst for ESPN, neither confirmed nor denied his return to the Wolves.

“That’s the same speculation that was out there last month,” he said.

Taylor did not return phone messages seeking comment. He has told associates he would not discuss the matter with the media.

Saunders is the most successful coach in Minnesota franchise history, posting a 411-326 record in 9 1/2 seasons and steering the team to eight consecutive playoff berths. His time with the Wolves coincided with forward Kevin Garnett‘s ascendancy from high school draftee to perennial All-Star, NBA Most Valuable Player in 2004 and shoo-in Hall of Famer.

The 2003-04 team reached the Western Conference finals before falling to the Lakers’ last Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant team. But the expectations that success fueled led to Saunders’ firing in February 2005 after stumbling to a 25-26 mark.

He later coached the Detroit Pistons, going 176-70 from 2005-2008 near the end of the Pistons’ dominant Eastern Conference run, and the Washington Wizards, where the Gilbert Arenas gun situation blew up a potential playoff team. The Wizards went 51-130 with Saunders before he was fired in January 2012. Last spring, Saunders served as a consultant to the Boston Celtics at the invitation of coach Doc Rivers. He joined ESPN’s NBA coverage crew this season.

A native of Cleveland and a point guard at the University of Minnesota, Saunders coached in college and then for seven seasons in the Continental Basketball Association. He was brought to the Wolves in May 1995 by former Gophers teammate Kevin McHale as Minnesota’s general manager, then added head coaching duties when Bill Blair was fired seven months later, in December of Garnett’s rookie season.

Saunders shed the GM title in the wake of Minnesota’s salary-cap violations uncovered in 2000 in its signing forward Joe Smith. A series of illegal contracts, including future seasons after Smith played for what was considered to be less than market value for two years, ultimately cost the franchise three No. 1 draft picks and a $3.5 million fine, still the largest in NBA history. Taylor was suspended for one year and McHale, the Wolves’ VP of basketball operations at the time, agreed to take a leave of absence for the 2000-01 season.

Sources close to Saunders say that, since exiting the Wizards job, he is comfortable with the prospect of a front-office job rather than a future coaching position. Despite his firing in Minnesota in 2005, Saunders and Taylor have maintained a good relationship.

David Kahn (by David Sherman/NBAE)

David Kahn (by David Sherman/NBAE)

Kahn, hired in May 2009, took over a team that had missed the playoffs for five seasons and had posted losing records in the most recent four. He began an aggressive overhaul of the roster – more than one, eventually – and drew immediate criticism for drafting point guards with both the Nos. 5 and 6 picks that spring. Ricky Rubio, a heavily scouted prospect who fell to Minnesota after a poor workout with Sacramento, spent two more years in Spain before coming to the NBA and becoming one of the league’s bright young stars. Syracuse product Jonny Flynn, however, was a disappointment from the start and most recently played in an Australian pro league.

Wesley Johnson, the No. 4 pick in 2010, and Derrick Williams, the highest pick in Wolves history at No. 2 in 2011, also have been underwhelming in their young NBA careers. Other trades have helped rival clubs more than they have Minnesota (Al Jefferson and Corey Brewer). And after four years under Kahn, two of the Wolves’ three best players – All-Star power forward Kevin Love and center Nikola Pekovic – were scouted and drafted by McHale.

Kahn — a former sportswriter who got a law degree, worked in the Indiana Pacers’ front office and served as an executive in the NBA Development League — also made a pair of dubious, expensive signings. In July 2010, he signed failed big man-turned-NBA punchline Darko Milicic to a four-year, $20 million contract (though not fully guaranteed). The Timberwolves used the amnesty clause to rid themselves of Milicic in July 2012.

Also last summer, the Wolves lured Portland guard Brandon Roy out of injury-driven retirement with a two-year, $10 million deal; Roy lasted only five games this season before knee problems shelved him again. Kahn did sign Andrei Kirilenko back into the NBA after the former Utah forward’s one-year hiatus in Europe and added backcourt help via Alexey Shved of the Russian national team.

Kahn’s first hire as head coach, Kurt Rambis, went 32-132 in two seasons before being fired. His replacement, Rick Adelman, got the Wolves to 26-40 in the post-lockout 2011-12 season, then provided roster input that led to the acquisition of players such as Chase Budinger and Dante Cunningham and the departures of Milicic, Johnson and Michael Beasley, among others.

A rash of injuries this season – from Rubio’s remaining rehab of his March 2012 knee surgery to Love’s twice-broken hand, with significant games also lost by Budinger, Roy, Kirilenko and more – thwarted what Taylor, Kahn, Adelman and Minnesota fans felt would be the pursuit of a playoff berth. Taylor said in March that the injuries made it difficult to fully assess the team’s or Kahn’s performance. But sources said Taylor also planned to evaluate Kahn’s rapport with people inside the organization and in the NBA.

Adelman’s status for 2013-14 remains uncertain while his wife Mary Kay‘s health issues continue to be addressed. The veteran coach missed 11 games while doctors in Minnesota worked to determine the cause of her seizures.

Adelman, who will turn 67 in June, returned to pick up the 1,000th victory of his coaching career and has talked optimistically about the current roster’s potential. He and Saunders reportedly have a good relationship after years of competing on NBA sidelines, and the Wolves are hopeful that Adelman decides to return.

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How Not To Treat — Or Act Like — A Superstar, Northwoods Edition

December 12, 2012  ·  3:53PM


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Give Kevin Love credit for this much: he didn’t say that he didn’t say what he supposedly and, as it turns out, most definitely said.

Yeah, those comments offered up to Yahoo! Sports  were all his, the Minnesota All-Star power forward acknowledged to reporters after the team’s practice Wednesday. His critical, grumpy, even petulant-sounding remarks about the Timberwolves, his bosses and his less-than-desired contract experience were accurate. But he also said he did not like the tone of the story and that he talked about other, more upbeat topics about the Wolves that apparently got left on the cutting-room floor. Like his tendency to use perceived slights for motivation.

Here is some of the offending quotage as told to Yahoo! NBA guy Adrian Wojnarowski in a piece largely focused on the decision by Wolves management to offer and sign Love to an extension for four years rather than five:

“I don’t know who labels people stars, but even [T'wolves owner] Glen Taylor said: I don’t think Kevin Love is a star, because he hasn’t led us to the playoffs,” Love told Yahoo! Sports. “I mean, it’s not like I had much support out there.

“That’s a tough pill to swallow.”

No, Kevin Love isn’t over Taylor and GM David Kahn refusing him what he had earned. He isn’t over Kahn marching into the trainer’s room after a loss and thrusting a contract offer sheet into his hands. Where else does it work that way in the NBA? “I’m not the one to always follow professional protocol – but I do know what it is, even at 24 years old,” Love says.

Love also is quoted talking about the broken hand he suffered in training camp and speculation within the franchise that maybe he had hurt it in some way besides the “knuckle push-ups” he claimed. He questions Kahn’s performance and vision, and Wojnarowski provides context (Minnesota had the sixth, fourth and second overall draft picks from 2009 to 2011 and came away with disappointments Jonny Flynn, Wes Johnson and Derrick Williams). That has led to a crazy-quilt of roster building. “You walk into the locker room every year, and it’s completely turned over,” Love said. “You start to wonder: Is there really a plan here? Is there really any kind of a … plan?”

But most of the piece dwells on Love’s disenchantment with the franchise and the prospect that he could leave via an opt-out clause in 2015.

Love will never get over how badly he wanted the designation as the Wolves’ franchise player, how deeply he believed it had been deserved and how Kahn was so smugly defiant in refusing to recognize it. When the Wolves should’ve been throwing a parade that Love wanted a five-year maximum contract designation a year ago, the franchise could forever regret the consequences of telling a superstar player he wasn’t worth that commitment.

For as foolish as it was to tell a first-team All-NBA forward, an Olympian, that that the Wolves would be saving the super max deal for someone else, Taylor and Kahn somehow gave into Love’s insistence of an opt-out after the third year of the four-year deal. Privately, Kahn has told people that he isn’t worried, that the Wolves can pay Love the most money on the market and that he doesn’t believe he’ll leave for less.

It’s a terrible miscalculation.

The story, obviously, went viral in Minnesota, dividing the Twin Cities like Moses’ staff, only not along traditional Minneapolis vs. St. Paul allegiances. No, this split is between those who blame the Wolves for messing with the team’s first superstar since Kevin Garnett in a star-dependent league and those irritated by what sounds like ego and lack of appreciation from a 24-year-old grumbling that he had to settle for $62 million rather than $80 million.

It’s not that simple, of course. Love know he is set financially for life, not just off his current deal but whatever he lands after that, whenever and wherever. But it was the statement Kahn and Taylor made by holding back that fifth year compared to, say, the way Chicago embraced Derrick Rose, not just with five years but without even offering or being asked for an out clause.

Are the Wolves holding that five-year deal (the CBA permits a club to extend only one player that long) for Ricky Rubio? Does it have anything to do with Rubio being a Kahn draft pick – he fell into the Wolves’ laps at No. 5 in 2009, right before Kahn grabbed the point guard he liked – and Love being a leftover from Kevin McHale‘s regime?

As for the team’s prospects as a perennial contender, coach Rick Adelman – a longtime Love pal from their days in the Portland area, where the Wolves star hooped with an Adelman son – has organized the basketball operation on and off the court. He even has increased his personnel input. But Adelman is 66, Andrei Kirilenko and Luke Ridnour will both turn 32 this season and, well, Kahn’s track record remains as spotty as ever.

From the Wolves’ side, there was the issue of Taylor, a central figure in the 2011 lockout as chairman of the NBA’s Board of Governors, almost immediately handing out a contract of maximum length and cost so soon after a claimed fiscal crisis. And the truth is, Love – two-time All-Star, U.S. gold medal-winner, rare inside-outside threat as a top rebounder and 3-point – hadn’t put Minnesota on his back to a playoff berth the way, oh, Rose (with way more help) had.

Missing the start of the season with the broken hand surely didn’t help Love’s mood. His push-back from basketball after the London Olympics had him returning in less than his stellar shape last season. He resumed life as a double-double machine, but his accuracy has been way off – 38.2 FG percent, 21.6 from the arc and 67.4 from the line thanks to the bum hand – and the Wolves are only 4-5 since he’s been back. Team insiders have caught him arguing calls with refs rather than getting back on defense, or holding his 3-point form rather than crashing the boards when he misses.

Soon, maybe even this week, there’s the prospect of Rubio coming back and igniting the 9-9 team again the way he did as a rookie. If that happens, maybe the charismatic point guard would be more deserving of the five-year deal.

He’d have to want to stay in Minnesota, mind you, despite the prospect of Love leaving.

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League Mourns Loss Of Sasha McHale

November 25, 2012  ·  1:05PM

The Houston Rockets and the NBA family are mourning the loss of Alexandra “Sasha” McHale, daughter of Rockets coach Kevin McHale. Sasha McHale was just 23-years-old when she passed away Saturday afternoon in Minnesota.

From the Houston Chronicle…

McHale has been on a leave of absence to be with his daughter and his family in Minneapolis since Nov. 10. His daughter has long battled lupus, an auto-immune disease, and was hospitalized with a related condition.

Rockets owner Leslie Alexander released a statement Sunday morning…

“I extend my deepest condolences to Kevin and Lynn for the loss of their beautiful daughter, Sasha, on Saturday afternoon. Kevin and Lynn are loving and dedicated parents who will need our continued support throughout this very difficult time. Our entire organization is mourning the McHale family’s loss and we ask that you keep them in your thoughts and prayers.”

Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor, for whom McHale worked for 15 years, issued a statement as well..

“On behalf of the entire Minnesota Timberwolves organization, we are extremely saddened to learn about the passing of Sasha. While Kevin was with our organization, we all watched Sasha grow up, and become an outstanding young woman. She will be sorely missed by her family and friends. Our thoughts and prayers are with Kevin, Lynn and the entire McHale family.”

***

John Schuhmann is a staff writer for NBA.com. Send him an e-mail or follow him on twitter.

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Rubio’s knee, not timetable, matters

September 28, 2012  ·  3:15PM

 

They waited two years for him after spending the No. 5 pick in the 2009 draft on a worth-the-gamble move. What’s the big deal if the Minnesota Timberwolves have to wait another three months? Or even four?

Ricky Rubio wants to be ready when he’s ready.

Only days shy of a training camp he’ll experience mostly as a bystander, Rubio continued his rehabilitation from knee surgery at the team’s practice facility. He is one of several NBA guards (Derrick Rose, Eric Maynor, Iman Schumpert) fighting back from torn ligaments, each on a timetable dictated less by the date of his injury than his body’s reaction to the repair.

Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star Tribune caught up with Rubio Thursday:

Back running on his surgically repaired knee for the third week now, … Rubio stopped long enough Thursday at Target Center to show off three scars that stripe his left leg and said he could play his next NBA game by December, nine months after he tore two ligaments there.

“I don’t know, they say December, but it could be January,” he said. “I don’t want to say a time because I don’t want to rush it. I want to be ready when I am ready.” (more…)

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Love Liking Wolves’ Summer Moves

September 26, 2012  ·  12:43PM

 

Not so long ago, Kevin Love didn’t seem like the happiest of campers regarding his whereabouts, present or future, with the Timberwolves of Minnesota.

Nothing against the Land of 10,000 Lakes, but Love was weary of playing for the Franchise of 10,000 Mistakes

In his five NBA seasons, Minnesota had lost nearly 74 percent of its games (104-290). He was the only member of Team USA this summer (newbie Anthony Davis excepted) who never has tasted the playoffs. The Wolves roster last season still looked like a halfway house for players of doomed potential. And Love wasn’t thrilled when owner Glen Taylor and basketball president David Kahn played hardball and held fast to a four- rather than five-year contract extension. That early-out after three years started looking good almost immediately.

But Love’s spirits clearly seemed buoyed Tuesday by his experiences at the London Olympics and some time away from the Wolves’ 2011-12 grind. He met with some Twin Cities media types sporting a fancy bauble around his neck and some sincere optimism for a team that largely has been made over. Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote:

On Tuesday, he showed off his Olympic gold medal at a summer-ending Target Center news conference and declared himself pleased with management’s moves that included adding veteran Brandon Roy, Andrei Kirilenko, Lou Amundson as well as Greg Stiemsma and Alexey Shved while letting Michael Beasley, Anthony Randolph, Darko Milicic and others go.

“There’s definitely a different feel going into the locker room, definitely a different feel just being down there playing with those guys,” said Love, who arrived back in the Twin Cities from Southern California late last week. “I’m really excited, I’m really excited about this team. … I think we’ve definitely added value to this team. I think the locker room is going to be great. I think the players we have on this team can make an immediate impact.”

(more…)

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Rubio’s Return Ahead Of Schedule?

August 16, 2012  ·  12:19PM

HANG TIME NEW JERSEY – While the Chicago Bulls proceed with caution in regard to Derrick Rose‘s recovery, the Minnesota Timberwolves are optimistic about the eventual return of Ricky Rubio.

Rubio tore his ACL on March 9, 50 days before Rose. The Bulls see Rose coming back after the All-Star break, while Wolves owner Glen Taylor believes that Rubio could be a little ahead of that relative timeline, as Charley Walters of the Pioneer Press writes…

Taylor said he could only guess when Rubio will be healthy enough to play after coming off March knee surgery. The Wolves will open the season Nov. 2.

“The doctors said he was progressing faster than normal, and normal was supposed to be in January,” Taylor said Tuesday, Aug. 14, a day before heading to China on a two-week charity mission. “Faster than normal would be December. He’s going to start running and stuff in a few weeks.”

That’s good news for Wolves fans, because their team was not the same without Rubio last season, going 5-20 after his injury. You’d think that they would have fallen off offensively, but a look at the numbers reveals that Rubio’s absence was felt much more on the other end of the floor.

Wolves efficiency before and after Rubio injury

Timeframe W L Pace OffRtg DefRtg NetRtg
Before injury 21 20 95.7 101.6 100.7 +0.9
After injury 5 20 96.3 101.3 108.3 -7.1

Pace = Possessions per 48 minutes
OffRtg = Points scored per 100 possessions
DefRtg = Points allowed per 100 possessions
NetRtg = Point differential per 100 possessions (more…)

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Love Impatient With Wolves’ Losing

July 9, 2012  ·  8:11AM





Something has to happen in Minnesota.

That sounds like an ultimatum, even though Kevin Love — the frustrated Timberwolves power forward who said it, in an interview with Marc Spears of Yahoo! Sports — isn’t in the best position anymore to give one.

Love would have been, of course, had he opted to play the 2012-13 season on a one-year qualifying offer of about $6.1 million, rather than accept a four-year, $61 million contract extension in January that was frustrating in its own right to the Wolves’ leader and inside-outside punisher. If Love were 12 months away from unrestricted free agency rather than 36 (his deal has an opt-out after three years), you can bet both Minnesota management and the team’s fan base would be heeding — and probably convulsing — over every dissatisfied thing he said.

As it is, Love has no actual hammer to hold over president of basketball operations David Kahn’s and owner Glen Taylor’s heads. He’ll have to settle for the less-tangible weapons of public relations and threatened crankiness by a star player.

That’s not nothing, though. So with just a little less clout behind it, Love’s message remains the same: Something has to happen in Minnesota. (more…)

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Wolves Make Push For Batum, Others

July 2, 2012  ·  2:32PM





HOUSTON – It sure doesn’t look like the Timberwolves will be content to just tread water until Ricky Rubio returns from his ACL injury. The promising team that appeared headed for a playoff berth when their star point guard went down in March is aggressively attacking free agency.

The Wolves are evidently getting ready to extend a four-year, $50-million offer to Portland swingman Nic Batum. But that’s just a start in Minnesota.

After the Wolves brass of owner Glen Taylor, G.M. David Kahn and coach Rick Adelman traveled to Seattle over the weekend to meet with retired guard Brandon Roy, that visit was enough to land Minny on a list of five finalists along with Chicago, Dallas, Indiana and Golden State.

The team also has plans to meet with Lakers free agent power forward Jordan Hill and are said to be trying to put together a trade with L.A. that could land Pau Gasol. Boston center Greg Stiemsma was flown into Minneapolis for a visit on Sunday morning.

But all indications are that Batum is the one on the front burner, according to Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: (more…)

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Labor Talks: In the Midnight Hour

October 10, 2011  ·  12:32AM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Perhaps “no comment,” officially, is the best thing anyone could say at this late stage of the NBA lockout.

After more than five hours of closed-door negotiations in New York Sunday night, the two sides agreed to stay quiet about what was said and resume negotiations Monday at 2 p.m. ET.

“We don’t have any comment at all, other than we are breaking for the night and reconvening tomorrow afternoon,” NBA Commissioner David Stern told reporters after emerging from the meeting, which was scrapped as of late Friday night only to be revived over the weekend.

The continuation of talk is better than the alternative. Stern issued a Monday deadline for a new labor agreement to be reached before the first two weeks of the regular season were canceled. Union executive director Billy Hunter was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles this morning for a previously scheduled regional meeting with players, but will instead be back in the meeting room alongside union president Derek Fisher and the rest of their negotiating team.

“We’re not necessarily any closer than we were [going into] tonight,” Fisher told reporters when he hit the New York sidewalk shortly before midnight.

Stern, Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver, owners Peter Holt of San Antonio and Glen Taylor of Minnesota, and senior vice president and deputy general counsel Dan Rube met with Hunter, Fisher and union vice president Mo Evans. Attorneys Jeffrey Kessler and Ron Klempner were also present.

Getting all of them in a room together just two days after both sides agreed that they would not meet without the precondition that the players accept a 50-50 split of BRI was a victory in itself. The introduction of the 50-50 split is what shut down talks Tuesday, when the players rejected the notion outright. According to Sports Illustrated‘s Chris Mannix the subject was not discussed at all during Sunday’s session, which focused solely on … .

We won’t find out exactly where things stand until someone speaks about it in-depth, and preferably on the record. (Both sides agreed not to do so, according to Ken Berger of CBSSports.com.) But the clock continues to tick on Stern’s deadline.

The regular season is scheduled to begin Nov. 1 …

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Labor Talks: The Men In the Room …

October 9, 2011  ·  9:34PM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – The key players for both sides of the NBA’s ongoing labor dispute are in the meeting room in New York. As first reported by the New York Times and later confirmed by TNT’s David Aldridge and Ken Berger of CBSSports.com, the proposed “last-ditch” effort to save the on-time start of the regular season is under way in New York.

The key negotiators from each side: NBA commissioner David Stern and deputy commissioner Adam Silver for the owners, with union president Derek Fisher and executive director Billy Hunter representing the players, along with San Antonio owner Peter Holt, head of the league’s labor relations committee and Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor, who is chairman of the NBA Board of Governors. Attorneys for both sides are also reportedly in attendance, per Berger.

Berger also reported via Twitter that players union vice president Mo Evans is in the meeting room as well.  The negotiating session began roughly three hours ago, according to reports, with no timetable set for how long it might last.

Perhaps the most significant nugget unearthed tonight is that the reported precondition that the players had to agree to a 50-50 split of BRI in order for the meeting to take place was (obviously) dropped before the sides entered the room.

Stay tuned for more details …

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