Minnesota Timberwolves: David Vanterpool to be associate head coach

The Minnesota Timberwolves are reportedly hiring former Portland Trail Blazers assistant David Vanterpool as their new associate head coach.

The Minnesota Timberwolves opened an official search for a head coach shortly after Gersson Rosas was hired to run the front office, and it was reported they only interviewed a few candidates before ultimately hiring interim coach Ryan Saunders to the full-time job.

One of the candidates who was interviewed that was not offered the job, however, has now joined the team as the associate head coach, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

David Vanterpool has been an assistant in Portland since 2012. Before that, he spent five years as an assistant coach with CSKA Moscow.

He’s largely credited with running the Trail Blazers’ defense, which finished eighth in rating in 2017-18, and while it slide to No. 16 in the league this year, has largely been a successful unit despite the team’s best players remaining decidedly offensively-minded in Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum.

Clearly, Rosas thinks highly of Vanterpool, and he isn’t alone in that belief. Vanterpool also reportedly interviewed for the head coach role with multiple organizations, including Cleveland, Orlando, and Charlotte.

Why would Vanterpool leave a perennially successful team in the Blazers to come to the Wolves for anything less than the head role? For one, he’ll be the associate head coach, which appears to be a clear promotion in title and surely in salary, too.

Secondly, head coach Terry Stotts isn’t going anywhere in Portland, and this gives Vanterpool the opportunity to work with a different organization that is reshaping itself from the top down. And while I’m not here to suggest that the writing is already on the wall for Saunders, there’s no denying that an interim head coach recently promoted to the main chair is in a more tenuous role than someone as experienced and successful as Stotts.

There could be a comparison to be made to Nick Nurse in Toronto, who went from assistant to head coach after Dwane Casey was fired, although Casey was a veteran coach while Saunders is getting his first crack at the lead chair.

Count Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic among those who believes that Saunders was fully on board with the addition of Vanterpool as his right-hand man.

At any rate, this move is yet another addition from a successful organization, and another individual who was apparently highly sought-after by the rest of the league.

Gersson Rosas has already made his stamp on this organization, and he’s far from finished. Stay tuned.