Late Wednesday night after the Timberwolves' season-ending romp over New Orleans, after everybody but the janitors and sportswriters had gone home, the team announced it relieved Sam Mitchell of his interim head-coaching duties and will initiate a search to hire both a new coach and leader of its basketball operations.
Wolves' dismissal of Sam Mitchell sends a message
The work to land a big fish has likely been ongoing for a while.
April 18, 2016 at 12:42AM
In reality, that search probably has been going on discretely for weeks.
That's the only logical way to explain why the team has hired executive search firm Korn Ferry to do owner Glen Taylor's legwork and manage a "comprehensive search" that's aiming high — former Chicago coach Tom Thibodeau the hunt's big game — at signing quite possibly one man for both jobs by the NBA's May draft camp.
Taylor informed Mitchell Wednesday morning during a 15-minute phone conversation that he will search for a new coach. By late afternoon, his decision was known worldwide and news of it greeted players — stunned either by the decision itself or its timing — when they arrived to play the season's final game.
One player joked he's afraid to go home for the summer, lest his locker be cleaned out upon his return.
The timing sure seemed suspect, didn't it? Why not wait, if only 24 hours until the Wolves had finished their season without the awkward juxtaposition of the team's present meeting its future, as it did Wednesday night at Target Center?
The answer could be simple as this: Time is of the essence — even if it's only a matter of hours — at this time of year when Washington fired Randy Wittman and Sacramento fired George Karl before lunchtime Thursday and Houston, Phoenix, Brooklyn and perhaps two or three other teams also are or soon will be searching for a new coach.
Taylor's decision to move on to a new coach now frees him to become personally involved immediately while he is gathered with other team owners in New York City for league meetings on a three-day trip for him that ends Friday.
You can argue Mitchell's dedicated work developing his team into one that has coaches everywhere now clamoring for the job should earn him the job permanently. You also can argue the Wolves with young rising stars Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine have reached a unique crossroads in their history, just as they did in 2009.
Back then, the Wolves had Kevin Love, Al Jefferson, four first-round picks in the 2009 draft, salary-cap space upcoming and a vacancy for a new front-office decisionmaker. Taylor hired a man, David Kahn, with little experience for the job, a decision from which it has taken the team seven years to recover.
All these years later, the Wolves are back at a place where the right decision changes everything for a team that hasn't made the playoffs since 2004. This time, Taylor has hired noted corporate recruiter Jed Hughes, a defensive-backs coach for Bud Grant's Vikings teams in the early 1980s who's moved into the corporate world and up many tax brackets since then.
In a team statement that announced the searches, Taylor said, "It's important that we find the best leaders to shape our talented team. … We owe it to our fans, our community and to our players to ensure our team has the best chance possible of winning an NBA title."
The Wolves' job is the best one that will be out there this spring. Thibodeau is the best coach available, if maybe not the best fit for every team.
A very longtime NBA assistant coach tutored by Bill Musselman, John Lucas, Jeff Van Gundy and Doc Rivers, Thibodeau and his Bulls' team won 62 games and reached the Eastern Conference finals his first season as a head coach. They never went that far again. But before he was fired after five seasons in a parting that mostly about personalities and conflict in the front office, he had won 50 or more games three times and compiled a 64.7 winning percentage in the regular season.
Former Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks knows how to nurture young talent into superstars, having done so with both Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. Aimed at bringing Durant back home as a free agent this summer, the Wizards will pursue Brooks as well.
A longtime confidante of the late Flip Saunders, current television analyst Van Gundy coached 11 seasons and led New York to the 1999 NBA Finals but hasn't coached since 2007. Saunders pursued protégé Dave Joerger during a 2014 coaching search, but he's currently contractually obligated for two more seasons with Memphis. That's not absolutely insurmountable — as Rivers' move from Boston to Los Angeles in 2013 proved — but it is trickier.
Something of a basketball savant, Thibodeau's single-minded drive and intensity ultimately proved too much in Chicago, where his insistence on pushing players' minutes to the limit were blamed for the Bulls' many injuries.
Those same qualities could prove perfect for a young team, if he adapts in his second time around. He'd provide defensive structure to a Wolves team that seemingly has lacked it forever and maybe take a team that learned to play hard under Mitchell's tutelage to another level.
And then there are Thibodeau's Minnesota connections: The Wolves were his first NBA job 27 years ago. He coached Kevin Garnett for three seasons when he assisted Rivers in Boston, a relationship familiar whether Garnett plays next season or moves toward a management job on his way to buying into the team. If Thibodeau is hired, he'd have the autonomy to restructure the team's front-office to help him do both jobs.
Thibodeau also is represented by the same agency that reps Towns, which could be a factor keeping Towns a Timberwolf well down the road.
The last time the Wolves were poised at this place, they hired Kahn, who in turn hired Kurt Rambis as coach. This time, Taylor appears aimed at signing one man big enough for both jobs.
Home for the holidays? Not the Wolves, who are heading for Atlanta, Dallas and Houston.
