Souhan: Are the Timberwolves trading stability for excitement with A-Lo in line to be their new owners?

Now that Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez have won the arbitration ruling that clears the way for them to take ownership of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx, we’ll get to reality-test a theory that has become quite popular among fans:

That A-Rod and M-Lo will be the greatest thing to hit the Twin Cities sports market since the T-shirt cannon.

I have a different theory.

My theory is that the Wolves have just traded safety for excitement.

They just traded in an old, comfortable Cadillac on one of those newfangled trucks that might turn heads but also might explode.

Glen Taylor’s tenure as the owner of the Minnesota Lynx was generally spectacular. Under his watch, they won four titles and came excruciatingly close to two more.

His tenure as owner of the Wolves turned out to be the opposite of a bell curve. It looks more like a U.

Then, after he agreed to sell to Lore and Rodriguez and the Wolves made it to another Western Conference Finals as he willingly paid a high price in salaries and luxury taxes, he decided he might as well keep the team, asserting that Rodriguez and Lore couldn’t even make payments on time.

Rodriguez and Lore — let’s make it A-Lo — earned street cred by pushing for the hiring of basketball boss Tim Connelly, who masterminded the roster building that led to the conference finals.

That was a brilliant and aggressive move.

Was that indicative of A-Lo’s ability to run a franchise or a one-off they funded with Taylor’s money?

The typical Wolves fan seems biased against Taylor, who also owns the Minnesota Star Tribune, because of all of those years of Wolves mediocrity.

If you gave truth serum to every Wolves employee today, I believe the vast majority would be mourning this latest development, because so many of them trust Taylor and don’t trust A-Lo.

If you surveyed everyone who worked in or covered baseball during Rodriguez’s remarkable career, I believe more than 98% would not trust Rodriguez to run a professional sports franchise. Or the hot dog stand on the upper concourse of Target Center.

Assuming the ownership bid is approved by the NBA, A-Lo will get the chance to assuage my doubts. But to do that, and justify the glee of the average Wolves fan, they’ll have to:

1. Keep the team in Minnesota. I don’t believe the NBA wants the Wolves to move under any circumstances, but A-Lo have no ties to Minnesota.

2. Pursue a new arena with class. Because Taylor was never going to move the Wolves, he was never going to threaten to move the Wolves, so he was going to accept playing in a shoddy arena. A-Lo will want a new arena, perhaps in a new location, and to get it they will probably have to make threats. And if they make threats and don’t get what they want, they will be encouraged to carry through on those threats.

4. Prove it’s not about ego. The best owners provide financial stability and exude a reasonable amount of patience. A-Rod seems most interested in being a celebrity, in proving that he’s a player in the financial world. Will his ego allow him to operate with any level of maturity?