January 6, 2012; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Wizards head coach Flip Saunders gestures from the sidelines against the New York Knicks in the second half at Verizon Center. The Knicks won 99-96. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

The first Minnesota Timberwolves personnel adjustments made by Flip Saunders were made in the scouting department. Moving on from the man credited with the Euro-centric flavor recently acquired by the Wolves and Brandon Roy favor-hires is the kind move that could either mark a departure from cronyism (unlikely) in favor of research-based, number-crunching, modern scouting techniques that Saunders has paid lip service to, but would be given the chance to prove by whatever moves to fill the now vacant regional and international scouting roles are taken.

As nice a story as European players Ricky Rubio, Nikola Pekovic, Andrei Kirilenko and Alexey Shved have been, the likelihood any of them, save Shved, wouldn’t have been on the Wolves’ radar regardless of their international scouting coordinator is debatable. As Rubio was a sensation, Pekovic was on everybody’s Euro-stash radar and AK is AK.

And I quote:

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Flip Saunders has started the restructuring expected when he took over as Minnesota Timberwolves president last week.

Saunders fired international scouting coordinator Pete Philo, regional scout Curtis Crawford and Will Conroy on Tuesday. The moves were made as Saunders clears room to get a staff together for next month’s draft.

Philo was instrumental in ushering in a new focus on foreign players. He helped land point guard Ricky Rubio, guard Alexey Shved and put the Timberwolves at the forefront of that growing trend. He also played a key role on draft night.

Crawford is a close friend of Brandon Roy’s and was moved into a scouting position after he did not make the team last training camp.

A few comments made during the reintroduction presser could, hopefully, if you squint and tilt your head and gaze into the tea leaves just right, imply that Flip gets it. That this Wolves roster needs fortification, balance and a clear path to march towards them without any Brandon Roy pratfalls.

We’re reaching the end of the Flip Saunders Small Plates portion of The Reintroduction period of the offseason and will be moving on to the less relevant, but definitely not less entertaining, personal revisionist history of David Kahn, via his multiple, voluntary exit interviews.

Here’s Flip in his own words…

Saunders on his thoughts on player transactions/contracts this summer… 
Saunders: “I think one, we have players that are under contract so we would buy those players at the contract. Kirilenko and Pek right now are under contract. As from what Glen has said, and since I’ve been in Minnesota hearing a lot, those players do like Minnesota and do want to remain here. So that’s the number one priority I think. You have people that want to be in the organization.

On the biggest concerns, needs for team… 
Saunders: “I think being at ESPN, I’ve studied all teams in the last year because that’s what I was paid to do, that was my job. But being here in Minnesota, yeah I see them a lot. I think the number one thing as I mentioned before, somehow we have to keep people healthy. And I don’t know if there’s a magic solution to that but we’ve got to try and see what we can do in order to do that. But I’d say more than anything, we need to get a balanced roster. I think we have somewhat of an unbalanced roster at positions. Get some players that maybe have interchangeable parts so I think that’s going to be the biggest thing.”