Minnesota Timberwolves Roundup: Towns praises culture, Rosas in the news

The offseason continues with more off-court news surrounding Gersson Rosas and the new culture he’s creating around the Minnesota Timberwolves.

It’s no secret that the Minnesota Timberwolves are in the midst of an organizational overhaul.

It’s also now clear that the franchise is simply not the same from a culture standpoint — even as it was stood just a few months ago.

The overhaul began with new president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas, who came from an organization with a strong structure in the Houston Rockets. He’s made myriad changes in the front office and to the coaching staff around head coach Ryan Saunders, who himself is one of the few holdovers in a leadership role.

There have been quite a few recent stories in the media regarding the positive culture shift in the Wolves organization, and fans aren’t likely to get sick of the positivity anytime soon.

Karl-Anthony Towns held his annual basketball camp in Minnesota this week, and while his planned media session was canceled, he did speak with WCCO Radio. During the conversation, he gave some fairly straight-forward quotes regarding the difference in the organization under Rosas than under the previous regime.

Among the quotes he gave, Towns says that the Wolves used to be “untouchable” for some potential free agents, but that they are now “touchable.”

Also from the article:

"Said Towns: “The culture we’re building here is very special. I’m very glad we’re introducing Culver and Nowell to a culture that we possess now. I don’t think the situation before would have been very beneficial to them.”"

To have Towns speak glowingly of the situation matters. It matters that the team’s best player and one of the league’s young rising stars is overjoyed with his current standing with the team.

Also, Rosas himself has gotten plenty of well-deserved attention for his new role, as both a grind-it-out riser who started as an intern and high school coach and the first Latino to hold a president or general manager title in the NBA.

Ben Golliver of The Washington Post wrote a lengthy piece highlighting Rosas’ path to his high-level role with the Rockets and ultimately to the Timberwolves. There are also some nuggets in there related to the culture shift and the team’s ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of D’Angelo Russell in free agency.

Rosas also appeared on The Full 48 podcast with Howard Beck last week to discuss many of the same topics. That conversation featured far more information surrounding the team and their pursuit of big names in free agency, so be sure to give it a listen.

Suffice it to say, the Wolves are getting a lot of positive press at the moment, and while the team will likely be in a similar spot next year from a wins perspective as they finished this past spring. the culture shift will pave the way for what could be a huge summer in 2020.