Friday, October 1, 2021

Minnesota Timberwolves Owner Glen Taylor OWES the Fans!

 

Glen Taylor
Photo credit to Ann Heisenfelt/Associated Press

Minnesota Timberwolves fans have endured a LOT of pain since Glen Taylor bought the team in 1994. Included in that pain has been because of the staggering amount of LOSING the team has suffered. 
I have been a fan since the team was given the name "Timberwolves" over the "Minnesota Polars." Those names were submitted by the fans of the just announced expansion franchise by the NBA in 1988. I am disgusted with Taylor. I have been a fan through it all and I remain a fan even after I moved to Dallas in 1996. 

Taylor's reign as owner has been a great big, giant shit stain to the fans and to the State of Minnesota. He has made bad move after bad move and he has hired awful people to run the team along the way.
Recently, the team held its annual Media Day. While watching the press conference where new minority owners Mark Lore and Alex Rodriugez were formally introduced, I grew more and more annoyed as I thought about how Taylor has given the fans nothing but embarrassing incidents to endure as a result of his poor leadership as team owner... that is in addition to giving the fans very, very little to cheer about. 

What sets me off most of all is the fact that Taylor bought the team for $88 Million dollars. The new, incoming owners agreed to purchase the team (and the WNBA Lynx as well) for a staggering $1.4 Billion Dollars!!! Taylor has done nothing to deserve profiting $1.3 billion dollars... NOTHING! Some argue that he saved the team from leaving the state but, what has he given us for all the public and governmental support he has enjoyed over the years? 

This is crazy to suggest, I get that but... before Taylor is allowed to drift off into the sunset with a $1.3 Billion dollar profit, I think Taylor owes the fans for supporting the team over the years and forcing us to admit to the world that we are Timberwolves fans.
I propose that Taylor either outright give minority ownership shares to the fans or at least let interested fans buy shares in the team for pennies on the dollar or less. I think it would be fitting if the money collected from selling the shares to the fans, is paid to all of the existing minority owners. Frankly, Taylor has profited far more than he deserves, 
Selling or giving away minority ownership shares in the team to the fans should be a provision in the agreement he has for selling the team. If he doesn't give fans the shares, he should be forced by the NBA to donate most of the profit he has gained after buying the team, to charity or something like that. 

I have chosen to highlight several of the awful choices Taylor has made during his 25 years as owner.

Kevin McHale


Photo: McHale: MGN/Taylor: KSTP

I remember watching Wolves games when McHale was the color commenter. He was critical of the players and he liked to suggest what was wrong with the team. Taylor noticed and hired him as the teams General Manager. McHale brought in Flip Saunders to coach the team and I give credit for that because, Saunders proved to be the best coach in franchise history. After the team advanced to the Western Conference Finals, things started downward the following season. In 2005, McHale fired Saunders and made himself the head coach.
McHale was the mastermind behind one of the biggest scandals in professional sports history...

Joe Smith Salary Cap Scandal
Photo Credit: Getty Images
He was involved in what is still considered to be the biggest violation of league rules in NBA history when he was caught attempting to circumvent the league’s salary cap.
Smith signed as a free agent with the Timberwolves and it was later discovered that he had signed a series of illegal contracts. The contracts circumvented the league salary cap so the team could sign him for less than his market value and pay him only $1.75 million. Taylor played a big part in the scandal and the punishment handed down by Stern was severe. The team had their first-round draft picks taken away for the next five years. The team was fined $3.5 million and McHale accepted a 9-month leave of absence. The punishment for Taylor’s role in the mess was a one-year suspension. Stern took pity on the team and later returned their 2003 first-round pick, the 26th overall. Taylor cost the team four first-round draft picks, which undoubtedly cost the franchise the ability to build around Kevin Garnett.

David Kahn







In the 2009 NBA Draft, the Wolves had the fifth and sixth overall picks but passed on the chance to draft future NBA league MVP, Stephen Curry, who went seventh.
Kahn was also responsible for mishandling then star- Kevin Love's contract extension. Love had wanted a 5-year max contract offer but, Kahn only offered a 4-year deal with the 4th year being a player option. Love made it clear he would not re-sign with the Wolves when the contract expired and it led to Love asking for a trade. Love was eventually traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers by incoming POBO, Flip Saunders for Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett and Thaddeus Young.

In 2009, Taylor signed Kahn to a five-year contract with the first three guaranteed and the remaining two years being one-year team options. After three years, Taylor exercised the 4th year option and said at the time that he “was satisfied” with the job Kahn had done to that point. 

Kevin Garnett


Oh what a mess Taylor has made with the best player the team has ever had.
Kevin Garnett had the Wolves on the brink of the NBA finals in 2004. That was the last time the Wolves were any good. I won't go into all the details regarding Taylor's history with KG as it is common knowledge that the two have not been on good speaking terms in years. A lot of the rift came as a result of Flip Saunders' untimely passing in 2015. Garnett retired after his former teammate, friend and head coach, Sam Mitchell was fired immediately after the 2015-'16 NBA season when Taylor hired Tom Thibodeau. To this day, Taylor has not been able to retire Garnett's number 21 jersey because of the bad blood between the two. 

Tom Thibodeau








Immediately after the 2015-'16 season ended, Taylor fired head coach, Sam Mitchell and replaced him with Tom Thibodeau, who was also given the title of President Of Basketball Operations.

Taylor made Thibodeau do his job while holding both of his arms behind his back. Andrew Wiggins was up for a contract extension and Taylor directed Thibodeau to offer a max-contract. The contract was not deserved and Taylor was criticized after he publicly said he wanted to talk to Wiggins in-person to get his word that he would put forth the effort to work hard and improve as a player. Further evidence that Taylor undermined Thibodeau’s authority with player management, came from Derrick Rose.

In Rose’s book, “I’ll Show You”, he mentions a conversation with Thibodeau:

“With Minnesota, Thibs was honest. Even when he didn’t play me when I first got there, he was just telling me the politics of it. ‘They have certain people here, they feel like they need to play certain people.”

Taylor has meddled with the people he hired to run the day to day basketball operations, making it obvious that Taylor does not know basketball as Kevin Garnett said in an interview on TNT... "Glen doesn't know shit about basketball."

Jimmy Butler

Photo by Zhong Zhi/Getty Images











Jimmy Butler told Tom Thibodeau after the 2017-'18 season he wanted to be traded. Thibs ignored Butler's demand and things came to a head as training camp got started the following season. Butler went public with his trade demand and he made the organization look really bad... More so than usual. 
Glen Taylor got involved and essentially rendered Thibodeau a lame-duck team president. Taylor told Thibodeau to trade Butler when he received a fair offer. The Houston Rockets offered four first-round draft picks for Butler but, Thibodeau rejected the deal. Soon after, a deal had been reached with the Miami Heat but talks broke down at the last minute. Heat President Pat Riley indicated that Thibodeau tried to add to the deal after they had previously agreed to terms of the trade.

At the annual NBA Board of Governors meeting, it was reported that Taylor announced to the other owners that they should go directly to him with any Butler trade offers. Taylor’s actions undermined Thibodeau and his authority.

Ryan Saunders

David Zalubowski/Associated Press

The fallout from the Jimmy Butler mess led to Taylor firing Thibodeau a few months after Butler was traded to the 76ers. Taylor showed his never-ending loyalty to the late Flip Saunders by hiring his son, Ryan Saunders as Head Coach of the Timberwolves.
The move was fairly well received by the fans because of the connection the team and fans had with the Saunders family. Ryan, as popular as he was, just wasn't ready to be a head coach in the NBA. Saunders compiled a won-lost record of just 43-94 (.314 win %) over parts of three seasons and was fired in 2021 after the team started the season with a 7-24 record. Saunders was ultimately fired by...

Gersson Rosas

Elizabeth Flores/Star Tribune via AP











In 2019, Glen Taylor had the fans and even the media believing that his long history of bad hires was over. A week before training camp for the 2021-'22 season opened, it was announced that the Timberwolves had fired President of Basketball Operations, Gersson Rosas. 
Speaking as a fan of the team, I was among the people who thought Rosas was doing a good job as the top boss. I am still of the belief that Rosas was a good judge of talent and did a better job drafting players than any of those who came before him. I give Rosas a pass for the miss he had with drafting Jarret Culver at number 6 overall in the 2019 NBA Draft. Rosas traded Dario Saric to move up to the 6th spot from number 11 and he chose Culver. It has been reported that Culver was not his intended target and he had wanted to draft PG Darius Garland before the Cleveland Cavaliers surprised the league by selecting Garland at number 5. Looking at the players drafted immediately after Culver, Coby White, Jaxon Hayes, Rui Hachimura and Cam Reddish, haven't exactly proven to be much better than Culver.
Rosas did very well in the 2020 draft when he scored with Anthony Edwards and traded the 17th pick in exchange for the 28th pick, Jaden McDaniels and 23rd pick, Leandro Bolmaro.
The reports as to why Rosas was fired say that he made a mess of the front office while making a toxic work place and then came the news that he had had an affair with another Timberwolves employee, who was also married. Not a smart move.
Regardless of the good that Rosas did with constructing the current roster and the bad workplace he created in the front office... He has been deemed a "bad hire" and we have none other than Timberwolves Owner, Glen Taylor to thank for it.

To summarize... Glen Taylor needs to actually give back to those of us who has been forced to endure the embarrassment that is the Minnesota Timberwolves over the 25 years he has owned the team. 



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