Timberwolves – Page 60 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Lynx’s Reeve May Draw NBA Interest

Posted on July 25, 2019July 25, 2019 by David Shama

The hiring of a female head coach in the NBA has gone from possible to likely in recent years.

In 2014 Becky Hammon became the first full-time paid assistant female coach in the league when she joined the Spurs staff. During the last few months there has been a trend in hiring females with the 76ers, Cavs, Celtics and Kings placing women on their staffs. There are now nine female assistants in the NBA.

Major League Baseball, the NBA, NFL and NHL have no female head coaches, but the NBA has been a pioneer in its hiring of women as assistants and referees. Is the league ready for its first female head coach?

“Well, I think as a league we’ve been about as flexible as any league, and so probably if it’s going to be done, it’s probably going to happen in the NBA,” said Glen Taylor who owns both the NBA Timberwolves and WNBA Lynx.

The NBA has long been known for its diversity and openness to change. NBA commissioner Adam Silver is an advocate for more females in his league. He wants about half “of new officials (referees) entering the league” to be women, per a May 9 story on Nba.com from the Associated Press. Speaking at an event in Washington, D.C., Silver also said: “There’s no reason why women shouldn’t be coaching men’s basketball.”

Taylor told Sports Headliners the first female to become a head coach in the NBA will face “a lot of pressure,” but he thinks it’s just a matter of when—not if—that a woman is leading a club in the league. That person might be promoted from an assistant’s position in the NBA, but certainly Cheryl’s Reeve’s resume could some day put her in the conversation for a head job in the league, or perhaps a No. 1 assistant’s role.

Reeve, 52, is both the Lynx’s general manager and head coach. She is also an assistant coach on the USA Women’s National team that will compete in the 2020 Olympic Games. Since becoming head coach of the Lynx in 2010, she has coached Minnesota to four WNBA titles. Taylor has consistently been impressed with her work. “I am a great fan of her,” he said.

Going into this season Reeve worked with a reshuffled roster including the absence of star players Lindsay Whalen (retired) and Maya Moore (sabbatical for 2019). Yet the Lynx has surprised followers by being a competitive team. Although on a losing streak recently, the club has a 10-10 record is and only 3.5 games out of first place in the WNBA Western Conference.

“I just gotta admire her, how she has changed her defensive strategy and offensive strategy to fit the new players,” Taylor said last week. “It’s been just terrific.”

Worth Noting

The Twins, who hold a two game lead in the American League Central Division over Cleveland, will see the Indians in Minneapolis for a four-game series starting August 8. Prior to that series the Twins will compete against three teams playing less than .500 baseball (White Sox, 45-54; Marlins, 38-62; Royals, 39-64), plus the National League East Division leading Braves, 60-43. The Indians, though, will have a more difficult schedule facing three of four opponents who are at or above .500, including the AL West Division leading Astros, 66-38.

The Twins and Indians will also play two series in September, one in Minneapolis and the other in Cleveland. This season the Twins are 5-4 against the Indians.

Aaron Hicks, the Yankees outfielder who the Twins gave up on and traded to New York, beat Minnesota with a two-run home run on Tuesday night and is hitting .329 in his last 19 games. In that stretch he has seven home runs, 16 RBI and 16 runs scored.

The Twins, who lost two out of three to the Yankees this week in their series at Target Field, attracted a sellout crowd last night of 40,127. It was the club’s eighth sellout of the season.

The Vikings, valued at $2.4 billion, rank No. 35 on the Forbes list released this week of the 50 most valuable sports franchises in the world. The NFL Cowboys ranked No. 1 at $5 billion, with MLB’s Yankees second at $4.6 billion.

Sports Illustrated ranks Golden Gophers senior wide receiver Tyler Johnson No. 62 among its top 100 college football players going into the 2019 season.

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Wolves Owner Sees ‘Building Year’ Ahead

Posted on July 18, 2019July 18, 2019 by David Shama

With a new president of basketball operations, revised coaching staff and roster shakeup since last spring, Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor expressed optimism about his franchise during an interview Tuesday with Sports Headliners, but he said it will be a challenge to make the playoffs.

“It’s going to be difficult, but that’s our goal (the playoffs),” said Taylor, who also thinks it’s unlikely his club will add an impact player in the coming months through free agency or trade.

The Timberwolves finished 36-46 last season and didn’t qualify for the playoffs after doing so a year earlier. It was a disappointing season for a franchise that has qualified for the postseason just once since 2004. Last summer the team was anticipating the season with Tom Thibodeau and Jimmy Butler being two centerpieces of the franchise but both are long gone.

Gersson Rosas replaced Thibodeau as president of basketball operations and Ryan Saunders took over Thibs’ coaching duties. The team’s perceived leader is no longer the outspoken Butler, with a mellower dude in Karl-Anthony Towns auditioning for the role much of last season and going into this one.

Gone are about half the players who were on the roster when the season opened last October, including personnel who were either starters or regular contributors off the bench. The roster now is shaping up as younger, less experienced and trending toward a more inexpensive payroll.

“I know that this is going to be a building year because we’re going to have young people, but I am optimistic just because I know that we have potentially a lot of young players who could play really a lot better,” Taylor said. “Now if we can just do that, (and) get confidence and not be injured, I think we could really have a fun year. I think they’re going to be a fun team to watch because (coach) Ryan (Saunders) is going to move that ball up and down the court really fast.”

Rosas and Saunders favor a fast pace offensively with the Timberwolves expected to emphasize more three-point shooting. Minnesota attempted 2,357 three-pointers last season, the fifth fewest in the NBA, per Basketballreference.com. Taylor said he expects the Timberwolves’ strategy will be to have players penetrate toward the basket and “kick” the ball out to open teammates for three-point attempts.

Towns, who some authorities consider one of the NBA’s top 10 talents, is 7-feet tall, and he is both a low-post scorer and three-point shooter. He is also a friend of D’Angelo Russell who the Wolves recently flirted with signing as a free agent. Russell averaged 21.1 points last season with the Brooklyn Nets before signing a new max contract for a reported $117 million four-year deal with the Golden State Warriors.

Both a point guard and shooting guard, the 23-year-old Russell would have given the Wolves a potential star player to join with Towns, also 23. With Derrick Rose and Tyus Jones moving on via free agency, the Wolves need backcourt help in both scoring and playmaking. And rumors persist the front office wants to trade veteran Jeff Teague, the team’s expected starting point guard who is overpaid at a reported $19 million salary this year.

Taylor said he came close to signing Russell, but when the Warriors offered the max money to the former Ohio State star, he didn’t get back to him or Rosas. Would Taylor have offered a max deal, too? “We never really got there, so I don’t know,” he said.

Asked about whether fans should anticipate one significant player acquisition before the season begins this fall, Taylor responded: “No, I don’t think so. We don’t have that person in mind. I mean we tried for Russell. That didn’t work out.

“…We don’t have anybody particular (targeting for acquisition) but we’re keeping our eyes open just in case that we find a team that wants to make some change. So I don’t know that it would be called significant. They’re looking (the Wolves front office) at some deals. but significant means probably somebody who can really break into the starting lineup and make a difference.”

Taylor said the organization is proceeding as if the present roster will be the team in the fall. The focus is to make the players on the roster better and bring them closer to reaching their potentials. “A lot of our goal is to improve within,” Taylor said.

When Timberwolves fans think about players changing for the better Andrew Wiggins leads most everyone’s list. The first overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, he has superb athleticism but too often appears and performs lackadaisically. Wiggins was the one individual Taylor mentioned when talking generally about the goal of players becoming better during the offseason: “…We gotta hope Andrew comes back with the improvements that we expect.”

What improvements does Taylor want to see from the 24-year-old forward-guard who he signed to a reported $147 million contract in 2017? Taylor specified getting better on defense, penetrating to the basket “like he did when he was a rookie,” and “concentrate on threes.”

Taylor said the players can’t do all the improving needed without help in multiple areas such as nutrition, conditioning and basketball skills. He believes the Timberwolves, including with new assistant coaches David Vanterpool and Pablo Prigioni, have talented instructors who can challenge the players and improve them.

Vanterpool was named associate head coach in June after seven previous seasons as an assistant with the Portland Trail Blazers. He is known for his defensive expertise.

Prigioni, an assistant last season with the Brooklyn Nets, has a resume of over 20 years of basketball experience in America and internationally as a player and coach. He is expected to make a significant impact in multiple areas including offensive play.

The Wolves find themselves in a challenging spot next season with not only a number of good teams in the Western Conference, but potentially four great clubs in the Warriors, Los Angeles Clippers, Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Lakers. The affable Taylor, who has owned the Wolves for 25 years and saved the franchise from relocating, remains an NBA fan and said he looks forward to competing against the better teams on the schedule “to see if we can knock them off.”

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Humble Baldelli Makes Big Impression

Posted on July 9, 2019July 9, 2019 by David Shama

As Major League Baseball pauses this week for its annual All-Star Game break, the Minnesota Twins are the surprise team of the American League with over half of their 162-game schedule completed. At 56-33 the Twins have the third best record in the AL and lead the Central Division by 5.5 games over the Cleveland Indians.

Before the season began no one thought the Twins, who finished with a 78-84 record last season, would have more than 50 wins at the All-Star break. If there was such an honor as Mid-Season American League Manager of the Year, the award would likely go to Minnesota’s Rocco Baldelli.

Last fall at age 37 he became the youngest manager in the majors. Twins front office executives Derek Falvey and Thad Levine gambled their reputations last year by firing Paul Molitor, a Minnesota sports icon and the 2017 AL Manager of the Year. Baldelli had four previous years as a coach for the Tampa Rays but no managerial experience on any level.

Falvey didn’t hesitate when asked if Baldelli would receive his vote if there were a contest to name a Manager of the Year in July. “In my opinion, of course,” Falvey told Sports Headliners. “He’s been everything we could have asked for and more.

“And I think he’d be the first person to tell you there’s five other guys (managers) he’d vote for…because that’s his humility. That’s what he cares about. …What I get to see inside (of Baldelli) is even more special than what he does on the outside. I am really proud that we have him.”

Falvey, the Twins chief baseball officer, was aware of Baldelli’s humility before he hired him and saw that attribute among several that would make the former big league outfielder an outstanding leader. “I (also) saw…a guy who had done a lot of things in baseball. He hadn’t managed yet but he’d been an All-Star player, he’d been a key prospect, he’d had his career cut short by adversity.

“This guy had faced some challenges in his life, but he was also a great coach. He had impacted young players, he had impacted veteran players, and he does it all with an intense humility. So I think that what I saw in him more than anything was just a true leader. Someone who has all the leadership capabilities that in my mind you could see translating into the role of manager, even though he hadn’t done it yet.”

The Twins are a diverse group with players from the United States and other places. They are a mix of young and older players, many of whom are new to the organization. And yet collectively the Twins appear to be an all-for-one bunch that has rapport and celebrates each other’s success. Player leaders like 39–year-old DH Nelson Cruz have played important roles in the culture, but of course Baldelli has as well.

Falvey knows his manager not only relates very well to his players, but to everyone else in the organization including scouts, analysts and front office personnel. “He can interact with anybody but he also has the strength of his convictions,” Falvey said. “I think he believes in certain things around the game, the way it needs to be played. I think it (Baldelli’s convictions) lines up really well with our organization and what our collective views are in terms of our values for our baseball team, and I couldn’t be happier with what he has done.”

Baldelli played seven seasons in the majors, six with the Rays and one with the Boston Red Sox. In 2003 he finished third in AL Rookie of the Year voting. The first-year outfielder hit .289, the highest average of any rookie in the league.

Baldelli missed the entire 2005 season due to elbow and knee surgeries. Injuries limited the rest of his career and he retired as a player at age 29 in 2010.

The Twins play with the fight and determination Baldelli demonstrated as a player–persevering through injuries and winning close games. That kind of character prompts Falvey to be optimistic his club can continue its success in the second half of the season.

“We play every game like it’s our last,” Falvey said. “We try and win every night. We’re not going to win them all. We know that, but I truly believe that if we continue to play the way we’ve been playing, we’re going to put ourselves in a great position late in the season.”

Worth Noting

Twins shortstop Jorge Polanco represents the Twins as the starting American League shortstop in tonight’s All-Star Game in Cleveland. Polanco, who turned 26 last week, is having the best start yet to his still brief MLB career, and he ranks fifth in AL batting average at .312.

Former Twins manager Paul Molitor gave Polanco opportunities to establish himself as the club’s starting shortstop in 2017 and 2018. Molitor also worked in the Twins organization prior to managing and he has been familiar with Polanco’s potential for about a decade.

“I knew that there was a chance that he was going to do some special things offensively,” Molitor told Sports Headliners. “You know, when we signed him as a 16-year-old kid, everyone talked about his defense, and his hands, and all those type of things. But as it has turned out, he has been more than adequate defensively…(and) one of the elite players offensively in the American League.”

It will be a surprise if Tyus Jones is on the Timberwolves roster by week’s end. Gersson Rosas, the club’s president of basketball operations, must soon match a reported qualifying offer of three years and $28 million from the Memphis Grizzlies for Jones, or lose the restricted free agent. The Wolves, who likely believe $28 million is too pricey for the Minnesota native point guard, seem likely to let Jones leave Minneapolis after four years with the NBA club unless they sign him with intentions of packaging him in a trade.

Wolves head coach Ryan Saunders has known Jones since he was in high school at Apple Valley. Although Jones has been a backup in the NBA with the Wolves, it seemed possible that his role could expand under Saunders, partially because of their solid relationship. But it’s Rosas, not Saunders, who is making the ultimate decisions regarding personnel.

At about 6-feet and under 200 pounds, Jones is undersized as a pro and defense certainly isn’t his strength. But among his attributes is making big plays when games are about to be decided. It’s the same ability he showed in high school and college at Duke. In the right organization, like the San Antonio Spurs who are legendary for their team concept or the Los Angeles Lakers where he could be a complementary piece to superstars, Jones would be valuable.

The University of Minnesota sent emails yesterday introducing the Gopher Pass for home football games. Priced at $28.56 per game, the all-mobile ticket allows “viewpoints” in TCF Bank Stadium for each of Minnesota’s seven home games. If a game is sold out, Gopher Pass purchasers will not have a seat in the stadium but will have access to a standing room only area. Four monthly payments of $49.99 are offered for what is being promoted as the “most flexible ticket ever” for Gophers football fans.

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