Minnesota Timberwolves Roundup: New owners, Juancho Hernangomez update

Another busy offseason week is over for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

This week, it became official that the Wolves have a new set of minority owners who will eventually become the majority owners of the franchise. They received a positive injury update on one of their players taking place in international competition this summer.

Minnesota Timberwolves: Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore are officially owners

The NBA Board of Governors officially approved former Major League Baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez and tech billionaire Marc Lore as owners of a 20 percent stake in the Timberwolves franchise.

The transaction has been in motion for more than three months now, but after recently overcoming a legal challenge from now-fellow minority owner Meyer Orbach, things moved quickly.

Last week, the NBA’s finance committee gave preliminary approval on the sale, and this week, the Board of Governors at large signed off.

The plan, of course, is for Lore and Rodriguez to gain another 20 percent of ownership stake by next December, and another 20 percent by December of 2023 in order to take the reigns of majority ownership in the team.

The Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx acknowledged the sale with a statement, and both Rodriguez and Lore celebrated on Twitter.

It’s certainly a new era at Target Center and Mayo Clinic Square, and it will be fascinating to see what changes take place in the near term. Early indications are that they’ll be extremely involved owners from the get-go.

Minnesota Timberwolves forward Juancho Hernangomez nearing a return?

Only a couple of weeks ago, it looked as though Juan Hernangomez‘s shoulder injury was severe enough that it could impact his availability at the start of the Wolves’ season in the fall.

After traveling to the United States with Team Spain for exhibition games in Las Vegas, Hernangomez was examined by Timberwolves team doctors. In an unexpected twist, he was included on Spain’s final 12-man roster for the Tokyo Olympics.

Of course, Hernangomez didn’t play in any of the exhibition games for Spain, but he was in uniform and on the bench in the loss to the United States early this week. It seems unlikely that Spain would include Hernangomez on their roster if he was entirely unable to play, so it’s clearly an encouraging sign that Juancho should be ready to go this fall, barring a setback.

It remains to be seen if his trade value is still impacted by the injury, but it’s great to see him back and relatively healthy so soon.

We’ll keep tabs on all Wolves players in Tokyo, of course, and will pay especially close attention to Hernangomez’s presence with Spain in light of his injury.