Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Wolves GM: Matt Lloyd: "The opportunity came up to sign Jonathan Kuminga, which again was the product of many, many phone calls and a lot of time investment. My wife asked me at one point, how many times has he called you? She was referencing Jonathan Kuminga's agent. How many times have you been on the phone with him since the middle of July? So I said, okay, I will look, and we went through my phone and we had 94 phone calls between July 15th to the day we signed Jonathan. Anthony Edwards was really instrumental in recruiting him to come here. We had several conversations with him, his representatives, and from Chris Finch to Tim Connelly to Alonzo Gee, who is on our staff, everything just came together."
What do you feel Ant’s role will be mostly on defense? I know he can shine in high-leverage situations but I’m just talking here about regular rotation minutes. If he’s somebody you want working a crucial role on defense sometimes, or is it better for him to conserve energy for his explosive offense? Finch: I think we are going to need him to get back to being a more high-leverage defender for us. His on-ball handling duties (on offense) will be reduced, which was probably the most taxing thing for him last year. I also feel that for him to have an MVP season, he has to have more of a defensive component.
Run It Back: Jonathan Kuminga's agent, Aaron Turner, reveals why he signed with the Timberwolves over the Lakers and a more lucrative offer from the Trail Blazers 🐺 "The conversations with Ant and Chris Finch... owner, GM, head coach, star player all in complete alignment that this is the guy that they want." @ChandlerParsons | @arockturner20
Shams Charania: In the last month, the Timberwolves persistently recruited Kuminga, offering their best financial tool in the taxpayer mid-level exception plus a large on-court opportunity. Edwards was a major part of the full-court recruiting press to sign Kuminga while president Tim Connelly traveled to Miami for a four-hour in-person meeting with Kuminga earlier this month along with productive conversations between the wing and coach Chris Finch.
Advertisement
Stad, the founder and managing partner of Dragoneer Investment Group, had been a significant minority investor in the Timberwolves and Lynx under the ownership group of Lore and Alex Rodriguez. Sources said the transfer of ownership between the Stad family and Lore developed after months of conversations and allowed Stad, Rodriguez and Lore to continue working together and maintain the current leadership structures of the Timberwolves and the Lynx. That includes Timberwolves president Tim Connelly, general manager Matt Lloyd and coach Chris Finch and Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, who also serves as the Lynx's president of basketball operations.
Those departures leave a big hole in the leadership category. Anthony Edwards has gotten increasingly more vocal over the years and is stepping it up even more this summer. He has been spending time at the team’s practice facility in Minnesota and taking extra care to make sure LaMelo Ball feels welcome in his new home. And it was Edwards and Ball, according to team sources who spoke to The Athletic on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on team discussions, who offered to foot the bill for the entire team to fly to Paris for the workouts. “He’s extremely excited about the (Ball) deal,” Chris Finch told The Athletic at summer league in July. “Now, it’s up to him to take the next step in leadership. His voice has grown intelligently and appropriately over the last few seasons. And now, it’s got to be the combination of the voice plus the everyday presence.”
Rudy Gobert’s teammates have helped him embrace the role Minnesota needs him to play, while his pride and confidence continue to drive him. “He’s driven by pride,” Chris Finch concluded. “He’s confident, and he has every reason to believe he’s a good player because he really is. He’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer.”
According to Finch, Gobert’s mistakes attract disproportionate attention, while much of his defensive work goes unnoticed. “All the things Rudy does at a very high level in the background aren’t always recognized. His mistakes, on the other hand, are very visible, so it’s easy for people to point them out. I think it’s unfortunate how much criticism he receives.”
Chris Finch on Anthony Edwards playing point guard and Wolves picking up LaMelo Ball: “In the playoffs it was just double team after double team. We got to get him back to his natural position off the ball. We didn’t create enough catch and shoot threes for him and when you look at the numbers with LaMelo on the floor with his teammates and the efficiency and the production, I mean Kon Knueppel shot 7% higher from the three-point line with LaMelo on the floor than he did without. I mean that’s a massive stat for a great shooter and that’s a big bump for a great shooter.”
Advertisement
Chris Finch on Anthony Edwards shaking hands early with Spurs: “I think it’s probably one of the more misunderstood things that actually has happened… I saw him walk down there and then when he came back, I said, “You’re not going to the locker room, are you?” Because that would have been a bad look. He goes, “Hell no, coach. I’m staying out here for my guys.” He wanted to just when the buzzer sounded he wanted to go you know, because he’s disappointed and what he went through to get back and playin that series. Was admirable. I mean we all was in awe of what he was able to do.”
Bubes has long been the right-hand man for Wolves head coach Chris Finch, winning him over when both were in New Orleans and then serving as his chief of staff in Minnesota. He’s done everything asked of him, including serving as the man on the hot seat during games to determine if Finch should challenge a call, spending a season as an assistant with the G League team in Iowa and easing Finch’s day-to-day operations by helping with planning, organizing and communicating with the rest of the staff. “He deserves the opportunity just because of how important he’s been to me,” Finch said. “So, I figured this was the summer to do that.”
Darren Wolfson: "I know from Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez down to Tim Connelly, to Chris Finch, to Pablo Prigioni, Elston Turner, others on the coaching staff, other guys, that the Wolves feel like they have a really good infrastructure in place to help LaMelo mature that much more. And there is a thought from the deep dive that they've done, that LaMelo took a big step forward last year, certainly on the court. We can have the conversation about the car accident off the court, but on the court, accepting playing lesser minutes, playing 28 minutes a night compared to 35 minutes a night. You look at that Charlotte Hornets offense, number one in the league from January 1st on. They were also a really good defense from January 1st on. LaMelo Ball drove a lot of that. The Wolves also feel like with their medical staff in place, and hey, recent history says this is a fact, the Wolves do a really good job of keeping their guys on the court compared to the rest of the league."
"How much of his style helped you prepare for what you are about to embark upon?" Micah Nori: "The one thing that coach Finch is, he is very very good at what he does. Number one, there's no paranoia with him and the other thing is he will let you coach and gives you a voice. When those things happen, I was fortunate to be with him for a long time and work with him. Philosophy-wise and the way we think about basketball is very very similar."