The Minnesota Timberwolves hired Gersson Rosas to be the new President of Basketball Operations in the summer of 2019. How has he fared so far?
The Minnesota Timberwolves went in a new direction during the 2019 offseason, retooling the roster and the front office. One of those new faces was President of Basketball Operations Gersson Rosas.
Previously, the role was held by Tom Thibodeau, who helped lead the Timberwolves to the playoffs for the first time since 2003-04 after acquiring Jimmy Butler but was fired only nine months following the Wolves’ return to postseason play.
After spending seven seasons with the Houston Rockets, Minnesota found a perfect partner in Rosas. In a short amount of time, he’s done an excellent job finding new staff members, from the front office to the bench, that fit the mold of a new culture.
While he certainly helped on hiring the right members of the front office, he’s done as good of a job retooling the roster. Since the Rosas era started in May of 2019, the Timberwolves roster has turned over all but two players.
Jordan Bell, Jarrett Culver, Treveon Graham, Jake Layman, Kelan Martin, Jordan McLaughlin, Shabazz Napier, Jaylen Nowell, Naz Reid and Noah Vonleh were all new players acquired on low-risk/high-reward contracts throughout last offseason, giving Rosas the flexibility to create cap space in the near future. However, by the trade deadline in February 2020, Minnesota would end up flipping the majority of their roster.
Over the span of just a couple of days, the Timberwolves traded for Malik Beasley, Jacob Evans, Juancho Hernangomez, James Johnson, D’Angelo Russell, Omari Spellman, Evan Turner and Jarred Vanderbilt. Minnesota had a great deadline and set themselves up for more success in the future.
Pairing Russell with Towns was obviously the headline, but the emergence of Beasley has been a welcomed surprise. His talent was always there, but the opportunity to grow wasn’t there in Denver. In just 14 games, Beasley blossomed into a potentially star-caliber player who looks to be on his way to a big payday.
Evans, Spellman and Vanderbilt really haven’t had much of an impact and may never will, but they are interesting additions nonetheless. The former will be an expiring contract this summer while the latter two will remain under contract through the offseason.
2019-20 Season Grade: A+
While Minnesota still has a long way to go in fixing the roster, Rosas has already set up the team for future success. A Big Two of young stars like Towns and Russell with the potential upside of a scorer such as Beasley, plus some intriguing fring rotation pieces in McLaughlin, Culver and Okogie is a great start.
Plus, the Wolves will have some salary cap flexibility in the near future, and depending on how the lottery balls fall in the coming weeks, likely a top-three pick and maybe even the first-overall selection in the 2020 NBA Draft.