3 key takeaways from the Minnesota Timberwolves at NBA Summer League

1. Organizational culture is a primary focus

I can’t remember seeing a Wolves team, in Summer League or the NBA, that looked like it was having as much fun as Prigioni’s Summer Wolves did during their unexpected run to the title game.

Organizational culture in today’s NBA — especially for a small market team on the rise —  is crucial, because it is what keeps homegrown players from fleeing for the alluring franchises in bigger markets.

In an interview with WCCO’s Cory Hepola on Thursday morning, Karl-Anthony Towns didn’t hold back in expressing his disdain for the team culture during the Thibodeau era.

Towns felt that the previous regime stunted the development of himself and his teammates, saying “And that’s a disrespect and a slap in the face to their development, you know, and I want to make sure that they develop not only as players but as human beings and as men.”

Towns also added:

"“In Minnesota, the thing, one of the biggest things where Ryan and with me is like, we have to make sure our culture is not based on just basketball. This is a family atmosphere. Everything we do here in Minnesota has to be able to have a family. A family backing and a family thought process. And building people’s personalities, characters and showing them more of themselves. And you’re more than basketball.”"

There is no question that President of Basketball Operations Gersson Rosas wants to create a organization that feels like a family in all aspects, with ownership, the business staff, coaching staff, and most importantly, the players.

This vision was on full-display at Summer League. In previous years, it was a rarity to see the full Timberwolves staff or any players on the sidelines for games.

This year, however, as Zone Coverage’s Dane Moore pointed out last week, nearly the whole team attended Summer League games or got in workouts with coaches and teammates in Sin City.

Summer League game attendance may seem trivial for some, but it is completely non-mandatory. If you were a superstar like KAT or a guy with a family like Wiggins, would you willingly travel to the desert in the middle of the summer for basketball games that generally mean very little in the grand scheme of things if you didn’t truly care and want to be there?

Of course not!

Not to mention KAT has been out of the country twice in the last three weeks and made a point to carve out time to be in Vegas with Wiggins, the full coaching staff, Rosas, and perhaps most importantly, first-round pick Jarrett Culver.

When the faces of your franchise care this much about being there for one another and the rest of the organization, it sets excellent precedent for younger players to follow.

This is especially important for the Timberwolves, considering their current young core makes up more than half their roster:

• Naz Reid – 19 years old
• Jarrett Culver – 20 years old
• Jaylen Nowell – 20 years old
• Josh Okogie – 21 years old
• Karl-Anthony Towns – 23 years old
• Keita Bates-Diop – 23 years old
• Noah Vonleh – 23 years old
• Jordan Bell – 24 years old
• Andrew Wiggins – 24 years old
• Jake Layman – 25 years old

And who better to institutionalize such a culture a young, well-respected coach like Ryan Saunders?

In the above interview with WCCO, Towns spoke very highly of the Wolves’ new head coach: “I felt it was more of a no-brainer. You know, the talent he possesses as a coach and as a motivator and as a communicator. I think he’s the best communicator in the NBA.”

Positive culture pieces don’t stop there, either. Current Wolves vets Covington, Teague, and Gorgui Dieng are all widely seen as excellent teammates who are all great mentors for their younger peers.

Teague worked as a coach for Summer League minicamp and reportedly made the trip to Vegas to help out the young squad.

RoCo offered his thoughts on Teague’s summer role two weeks ago on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BzbKIPyHjSX/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Times are changing in Minnesota.

The Wolves are both a team on the rise and full of guys who genuinely love playing for one another, spending time together, and want to stay in Minneapolis during the offseason.

This combination will create a place where current players want to stay and bodes nothing but sustained long-term franchise success and happy players for years to come.