Timberwolves ownership drama having ‘no ripple effects’ among players

DENVER – For 36 hours before the Timberwolves game against the Nuggets, controlling owner Glen Taylor and minority owners Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez traded public barbs over the breakdown of an agreement for Lore and Rodriguez to take over as controlling owners of the team from Taylor.

While this was happening, the team, coaching staff and front office members carried on with their business, boarding a plane to Denver on Thursday in advance of Friday’s game, which just happened to be one of the biggest of the regular season to date.

The Wolves then beat the Nuggets 111-98, and it seemed as if the players weren’t bothered at all by what was happening with those who sign their checks.

That’s because the players might be a little different from some segments of the fanbase, who are more interested in the details of who said what and what might happen next. Among the team, there’s very much an attitude of rolling with the (verbal) punches.

“I don’t think it affects the players as much,” guard Mike Conley said. “Maybe it affects the image of the team, the aura of the team around a little bit. But as far as the players are concerned, I think we just are like, ‘Damn, that’s crazy.’ Then we go back to watching film and worrying about [Nikola] Jokic, Jamal Murray and [Michael] Porter and those guys. It’s a unique situation and it’s something we don’t have any control over. We’re trying to do our job.”

Anthony Edwards said he just found out about everything that was going on Friday, and that it wasn’t much of a concern to him. He said he was just “here to win basketball games.”

“I don’t have social media, so I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’,” said Edwards, who has his associates largely run his social media accounts. “I just found out today. Yeah, that has nothing to do with me.”

He added: “I’m just here to play basketball. Wherever that go, that go.”

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Before the game, coach Chris Finch didn’t seem too concerned that any drama at the top of the organization was going to affect what the team is trying to accomplish.

After joking that, “If there was ever a definition ‘above your paygrade,’ this is it,” Finch said nothing was different in how the team was preparing. Or that there has been “no ripple effects down here at troop level.”

“They’re preparing to do their jobs every night as I’m preparing to do mine and [President] Tim [Connelly] is preparing to do his and everyone is preparing to do theirs at whatever level they’re operating on as an organization,” Finch said. “I think it’s been great and it’s one of the reasons we’ve been able to have such synergy the last several years. For players, there’s a lot of things that might affect them, but they’re usually kind of microcosm things, not macrocosm things.”

From a macrocosm, center Rudy Gobert said things have improved since he joined the Wolves in 2022. He credits ownership for putting resources in the right places to help players be at their peak performance levels as much as they can and make them feel as comfortable as possible.

“Whether it’s nutrition, recovery, facility, family room, how our family is being treated — it’s a lot of things,” Gobert said. “This organization is becoming really a top-notch organization and I think it’s come a long way.”

Conley said when the season starts, players kind of go into a “black hole” where they are focused on a day-in, day-out basis of what they need to do just to get through games. Other matters in the organization don’t really need their attention.

“I’ve been a part of situations where organizations have stuff like that happen and most of the time, the team just keeps on moving and the management and stuff will figure itself out,” Conley said.