Timberwolves Notes: Ownership troubles, Towns as ROY

It appears as though all of us hoping for new ownership for the Timberwolves will have to wait much longer, based on Friday’s comments from Glen Taylor.

More likely than not, the Timberwolves will need a new owner in order to take the next step as an organization in the coming years. For a few months now, fans have been led to believe that such a shift was coming, but now it appears as though those hopes are dead in the water.

The talks began back in November, and things progressed nicely through the winter months, with positive news trickling in as recently as late February and even into early March.

Yours truly has gone on record as stating that a potential ownership change would be key to the Timberwolves’ off-season, largely due to any coaching hire that the new group would make. But alas, that doesn’t seem to be happening any time soon, based on what Taylor told the Star Tribune.

"Taylor also said he doesn’t expect to complete his negotiations to sell 30 percent of the franchise to Los Angeles private-equity investor Steve Kaplan and said he has turned to discussions about selling a lesser percentage to other investors without the intention that they will eventually buy controlling interest.…Taylor had negotiated with Kaplan intending to sell him controlling interest eventually, a plan that Taylor, 74, called his responsibility to ensure the franchise’s succession as he ages.“That’s probably not going to happen,” Taylor said of a sale to Kaplan’s group, citing Kaplan’s current ownership in the Memphis team as a complicating factor.He said that could take “a couple years to get resolved” and said at “this particular point I don’t have anybody in mind” to become the team’s next majority owner."

It’s unfortunate, as it’s anyone’s guess how long any eventual ownership transaction would take at this point.

Elsewhere, Jeremias Engelmann of ESPN.com penned an…interesting Insider article surmising that Denver Nuggets’ big man Nikola Jokic is the rightful Rookie of the Year award winner, over both Karl-Anthony Towns and Kristaps Porzingis of the New York Knicks’.

It’s a sentiment based solely on ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus statistic, which was created in part by Engelmann himself. It’s a fine stat, and I’ve cited it frequently here at Dunking With Wolves.

More from Dunking with Wolves

But like every single other statistic, it must be used in context and not considered a stand-alone ranking of players. It’s foolish to think that player abilities are that simplistic, of course, and it’s literally the only way that an argument could be made for any player other than Towns to win the award.

Kelly Scaletta did the Lord’s work over at TodaysFastbreak.com in examining exactly why Engelmann’s argument is hogwash.

For starters, he makes the same argument I did above: no single stat should be taken as gospel, no matter how comprehensively it is designed to be used. He follows that up by offering that there are plenty of other plus-minus stats that rank players differently, including FanSided’s own Nylon Calculus’ version.

Scaletta also chastises Engelmann for skirting past the actual box score stats. While they certainly needed to be taken with a grain of salt, it’s a facet that Towns thoroughly dominates and Jokic actually ranks sixth when combining points, rebounds, and assists per game.

The arguments regarding Towns’ alleged problem with goaltending is also systematically defended, and Engelmann also calls into question the “stat-stuffing” assertion that ESPN’s piece had made.

Next: Wolves Podcast: On Glen Taylor, Player Development

Please read both pieces and form your own opinion, but I’m not sure there are many folks siding with Engelmann on this one.

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