Timberwolves coach Chris Finch on new deal: ‘You want the expectation of success’

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said the organization didn’t have to tear up his old contract and hand him a new one after this season, but he was grateful for what he called “an incredible gesture” on the part of ownership, President Tim Connelly and CEO Ethan Casson.

Finch and the team recently agreed to a new deal that provided a pay raise and will keep Finch in Minnesota through the 2027-28 season. Finch said he celebrated the new deal with an outdoor drink at a North Loop establishment.

“I’m extremely grateful, humbled and proud — I would think is the trio of emotions,” Finch said in a phone interview. “... It’s kind of mind-blowing still to me. It always is. We’re really lucky to do these jobs, and they’re really hard to get and hard to keep and hard to do. But from where we started to where we are now, it’s been really a lot of fun and I think it’s a sign of the belief in the future, is what it really is.”

The future appears bright after the team made its first Western Conference finals appearance since 2004. Finch said the team won’t shy away from embracing the high expectations the fanbase will have coming this season.

“You want the expectations of success,” Finch said. “That means you have the bones to be a really good team, which I believe we do. The NBA is not in a dynastic period. I don’t think any one team or teams are going to be just living at the top. I think it’s going to be a little bit fluid and chaotic, particularly the new CBA might handicap teams staying together or coming together.”

The Wolves will be one of those teams dealing with additional restrictions brought on by that CBA as they will likely be exceeding the so-called “second apron” of the luxury tax to keep their current team together for next season and beyond.

Finch has guided the Wolves through four seasons amid some uncertainty above him, whether it be three different people running the basketball operations (Gersson Rosas, Sachin Gupta and Connelly) or uncertainty in ownership, as Glen Taylor, Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore will go through arbitration to help determine who will be controlling owners.

When it came to working for different heads of basketball operations, Finch said his previous relationships with all three were beneficial in keeping the team aligned.

“I’m a stay-in-my-lane guy. I trust them,” Finch said. “They’ve all done a great job to get where they are. They all have had particularly different strengths in their skill sets that I also value. But I trust them and their abilities to do their job, and they trusted me and my abilities and our staff’s abilities to do our job. We have alignment, but we also have this stay-in-your-own-lane mentality.”

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For instance, Finch isn’t trying to ram through his desired personnel moves, and the front office isn’t trying to tell him how to coach in-game or how to manage playing time.

“But we are conversational about these things all the time to take each other’s perspectives,” Finch said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to learn about roster building and what medium- and longer-term outlook looks like. They learned things don’t exist in a vacuum, and there’s things that happen, decisions that may be made, and in the locker room, those things are perceived differently. That might have an impact on how the guys perceive what I’m doing or what the organization is doing.”

Finch’s four years in Minnesota mark his third longest stay in one place since he began his coaching career. He coached in Sheffield, England, for six years and was an assistant in Houston for five. The Eastern Pennsylvania native has found a home and has loved living in Minnesota since taking the job in February 2021.

“I love it. I really do,” Finch said. “I’ve embraced being here from the beginning. And people have been outstanding and have embraced me. I love places that have a soul and a sense of community. You can feel that because people have great pride in being from here. … I’ve lived all over the world and you can feel it when you come into a place, and you can feel it as soon as you came here.”