Okay, so how did the Minnesota Timberwolves do in their first offseason under the guidance of their new team President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly? I don’t think that there is one correct answer, is there? It all depends on what you believed that the team needed to do, right?
So, what did the team need to do this off-season, and then judging how effectively the team adhered to that goal seems more along the lines of how well the off-season has gone, right?
The biggest mystery of any offseason program is not to judge and assess an NBA team to its competitors. Doing that creates the false hope that a struggling NBA team must make up all of the difference with the NBA Championship team.
There is no easy way to look at what the Timberwolves have built this offseason until the season has played out. That means that the team’s new roster design has panned out. But what do we do to judge their moves in the meantime?
Goal V: Hire a top team executive
The Minnesota Timberwolves believed that the organization needed to rebrand itself. To that end, the team conducted nearly a year-long executive search to find THE right guy. And, at the end of that search, the Timberwolves had successfully lured one of the top NBA executives, if not the top NBA executive, to assume the role of Minnesota Timberwolves President of Basketball Operations.
The first step for Connelly in his new role was to bring some of the best basketball minds in the NBA, and stockpile one of the best assembles of NBA thinkers in the industry. Why be so greedy? Well, as the Minnesota Timberwolves succeed, other teams will prune from the Timberwolves’ front office and try to graft those executives into their own organization to duplicate results.
Connelly wanted to gather as many of the best in the NBA to ensure enough time to mentor replacements along the way.