The Minnesota Timberwolves’ season is officially over, and that means end-of-season media availability. Plus, could the Wolves take advantage of the NBA’s rumored transaction window?
The Minnesota Timberwolves joined the other seven non-Orlando teams in officially ending their season this year with an end-of-season media availability.
The event featured virtual appearances from president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas and head coach Ryan Saunders. The entirety of the presser can be found on the Minnesota Timberwolves website.
One of the key subjects of the media availability is how the Wolves as a franchise are helping the Twin Cities community heal from the George Floyd tragedy, as well as what the players, coaches and front office staff are doing to affect change moving forward.
In addition to bringing in guest speakers for virtual meetings with the team, a series of Wolves players continue to be active in a variety of ways, and Saunders didn’t mince words when it came to the specific issue at hand.
"“Whether it be George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner or the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a light has been shined on the systemic racism and police brutality towards people of color, and it’s real,” Saunders said. “We as a community need to listen, we need to educate and communicate and get outside of our comfort zones. That’s something that our group has been trying to do since the tragedy.”"
Once again, kudos to the Timberwolves franchise for their activity when it comes to this terrible tragedy and what is becoming an overwhelmingly constructive response to both Floyd’s death and subsequent fires set around Minneapolis that damaged many businesses.
On the basketball front, the Wolves are rumored to be one of the teams that was extremely interested in the NBA opening a transaction window of approximately a week this summer to allow all teams, not just the 22 playing in Orlando, the ability to make final roster moves as part of the 2019-20 league year.
Over at our friends Canis Hoopus, Kyle Theige mentioned that ESPN’s Brian Windhorst made reference too this in his most recent The Hoop Collective podcast.
The Wolves are the only one of the non-Orlando teams sin the luxury tax, so it wouldn’t be a shock to see them be creative in trying to shed a bit of salary and perhaps inking one of their two-way players (Jordan McLaughlin, anyone?) to a multi-year deal.
We’ll have more on some possible end-of-June roster moves soon, so keep an eye out for that.