Minnesota Timberwolves: Rosas makes another creative front office hire

The Minnesota Timberwolves have made yet another outside-the-box front office hire.

More than 16 months into Gersson Rosas’ tenure, the Minnesota Timberwolves front office continues to get more diverse and unique.

The hiring of 247Sports analyst and scout Josh Gershon is the latest such move by Rosas and his team.

Minnesota Timberwolves: Rosas makes another creative front office hire

Only a few weeks into Rosas’ time as president of basketball operations with the Wolves, he hired Sachin Gupta to be his righthand man. Gupta was the brainchild behind the ESPN Trade Machine, and while he had been in several front offices including Houston, Detroit, and Philadelphia, was seen as a bit of an outside-the-box hire.

Later that same offseason, Rosas hired Robby Sikka to be Vice President of Basketball Performance and Technology. Even though Sikka had a strong background consulting with virtually every pro sports league in the United States, he had yet to be hired by a team. The Wolves were on the leading edge there, too.

Before those two hires, Rosas had brought Gianluca Pascucci on board as an assistant general manager. Pascucci wasn’t necessarily outside the box in that he had a long career in both Houston and Brooklyn, but while making salary cap-centric hires such as Gupta and forward-thinking, sports performance hires like Sikka, Rosas hired someone with a global scouting background in Pascucci.

With their latest hire, the Wolves have done it again.

Looking ahead to the potential “double draft”, which could happen as soon as 2021 but at this point looks more likely to go down in 2022, Minnesota is bringing in a scout who has specialized in prep prospects in 247Sports’ Josh Gerson.

This is a classic case of savvy front offices getting ahead of the game.

Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Sachin Gupta mentioned the so-called “double-draft” in a conversation with The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski a couple of weeks ago. It’s obviously something that is on the mind of Wolves’ brass, and this hire only underscores that.

Most teams haven’t spent a ton of time scouting prep prospects, and for good reason. But that could change in as soon as under 12 months, and the Wolves are getting ready for it.

While Rosas’ outside-the-box thinking and diverse hires haven’t yet translated to wins, we’re only one season into his tenure. The 2020-21 season will tell us a lot — especially about his head coaching hire (Ryan Saunders), his choice of a second star (D’Angelo Russell), and the makeup of his front office.

There’s a lot to be said for being progressive in terms of process. Now, fans simply want to see the on-court results.