When the Timberwolves and CEO Ethan Casson set out to interview four candidates to fill the vacant president of basketball operations job, Casson said they expected perhaps two of those candidates would advance to an in-person discussion with owner Glen Taylor.
After the Wolves got done with those interviews Monday, Casson and his team convened Tuesday to discuss which candidates might advance. They had only one name in mind — Gersson Rosas, the former Rockets executive who was offered and accepted the job after he and his wife, Susana, visited with Taylor and his wife, Becky, at their home in Mankato.
"The thing that stood out to me the most," Casson told the Star Tribune, "was it felt like we were sitting across from somebody that wasn't interviewing for a president of basketball operations position. It felt like we were sitting across from somebody interviewing for the Timberwolves president of basketball operations position. He came in with a very holistic approach."
That meant Rosas had an intimate knowledge not just of the roster but of the team's history, the marketplace, front office. He laid out a vision for how to develop players, on the court and off the court. Rosas no doubt did his research, but his 16 years in the Rockets organization wearing many different hats — from intern to video coordinator to vice president — created a mind and know-how ready to assume this role.
"This feels like not only the type of person we want to go to the next step with but somebody that has an incredible capacity to lead us inside this next chapter of the Timberwolves story, Timberwolves history," Casson said. "He has a vision for us. He articulated a vision and by all accounts, this is somebody we really believe can execute on that vision."
Rosas emerged from an initial pool of candidates that included 25 to 30 names, Casson said. That list became four in-person interviews, with Nets assistant GM Trajan Langdon, ESPN analyst Chauncey Billups and Nuggets assistant GM Calvin Booth making their way to Minnesota over the past two weeks. Casson said each interview lasted from around 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and featured people from different facets of the organization. At the end of each day, the candidates spoke to Taylor, who also owns the Star Tribune, by phone. Casson said he was impressed with all the candidates and the depth of their preparation and research, but Rosas stood out in part because of how he spoke about collaborating across all departments, how not having blinders when it came to the basketball operations can help the Wolves. That's something that wasn't always present under former coach and president Tom Thibodeau.
"He really gravitated toward the spirit of alignment, spoke quite a bit around collaboration and those are really key attributes to any successful leader," Casson said. "That's not to take the place of building a championship-caliber team, which is absolutely the priority, but it's to complement that. We found that in Gersson. He's dynamic."
Casson said the dynamic of the interviews involved the candidates asking a lot of questions about the Wolves and getting a feel for the organization. The questions had ranged from the state of the organization and the fan base, what it's like to work with Taylor and other members of the organization, and questions about the roster.
