Who’s afraid of the Big Bad TWolves? 5 reasons why the NBA should be
By Bret Stuter
III – The jury is still out, but the Timberwolves have assembled some of the brightest NBA execs under one roof.
The Minnesota Timberwolves front office is like a Who’s Who ensemble of the best NBA executives in the industry today. But this was no accident. New owners Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez want to make the Minnesota Timberwolves one of the most successful NBA teams and have committed to doing so by hiring the hottest and brightest NBA executives to run the team.
And so, the team recruited and hired one of the best names in NBA circles, Tim Connelly, as the team’s new President of Basketball Operations. He has subsequently led the charge to hire even more help to assist the team.
The Timberwolves hired former New Orleans Pelicans GM and current Utah Jazz assistant coach Dell Demps and lured Orlando Magic Matt Lloyd to join the E-suite as their new Senior Vice President of Basketball Operations. They will join Executive Vice President Sachin Gupta, who is one of the key pioneers of employing data analytics in the areas of roster building, statistical projections, and comparative analysis.
Money ball
In short, he is the guy who runs the Timberwolves ‘money ball’ aspects. (forgive the dated nature of the video, but it still describes Sachin Gupta’s role)
And so, the Timberwolves have quickly retooled the front office, infusing new decision makers with the existing regime in a nice blend of analog and digital factors to weigh and consider in building a new NBA Roster.
They bring experience from the Pelicans, Jazz, Magic, Nuggets, 76ers, and of course, the Timberwolves. For every trade or free agent transaction, you can bet that someone in the organization has first-hand experience with that player. Take the Rudy Gobert trade as an example? Chris Finch wanted to roll star center, Karl-Anthony Towns, to the power forward role and land a traditional rim-protecting NBA center.
Dell Demps, with his tenure in the Utah Jazz organization, had the perfect fit for that role in Rudy Gobert. And so, the negotiations began. But this was more than a speculative hope. This was a trade that was driven by the first-hand knowledge of someone within the Minnesota Timberwolves organization.
When it comes to the NBA Draft, that is where the expertise truly kicks in. Gupta can find a needle in a haystack, and the combined ability of Connelly, Lloyd, Demps, and more have all driven successful NBA searches for the right prospect in the NBA Draft. Now, they will temper and forge their processes together. While they may not get each selection correct, they are wise enough to know that swinging and missing is a possibility.