Dane Moore reporting indications are that Taylor lost arbitration

[thinktank]

I don't think "Taylor ordered Connelly to trade KAT"
I do think Taylor advised Connelly to have a path out of the second apron. A Towns trade was the most feasible way to accomplish this without completely gutting the team.

That doesn't mean we'll never pay the second apron again. It's not saying that Lore and Rodriguez wouldn't have done the same thing either.

That’s all true.

However, it’s very hypocritical to argue that the Lore / ARod projection was a PLAN to cut payroll when Taylor DID CUT PAYROLL, and never bat an eye about the latter.

So the Taylor bobos are blaming ARod / Lore for something that they had no involvement in, when Taylor is the one responsible for it.

Not to mention all the time the Taylor bobos spent questioning the Lore / ARod team’s wealth.

The cognitive dissonance is incredibly thick here.

[Klomp]

I don't think "Taylor ordered Connelly to trade KAT"
I do think Taylor advised Connelly to have a path out of the second apron. A Towns trade was the most feasible way to accomplish this without completely gutting the team.

That doesn't mean we'll never pay the second apron again. It's not saying that Lore and Rodriguez wouldn't have done the same thing either.

That’s all true.

However, it’s very hypocritical to argue that the Lore / ARod projection was a PLAN to cut payroll when Taylor DID CUT PAYROLL, and never bat an eye about the latter.

So the Taylor bobos are blaming ARod / Lore for something that Taylor is responsible for.

The cognitive dissonance is incredibly thick here.

I agree with this.

I do very well believe there was a plan to cut payroll. It had to be at least an option because of the new CBA. But because Lore and Rodriguez are new, I think it's natural to fear that it will always be the case. We have had our share of penny-pinching ownership groups in this market, so it's natural to think a new owner won't be any different.

I would also add that I think part of the whole "cheap owner" argument goes well beyond the players, and that doesn't get discussed often enough. Taylor is cheap when it comes to facilities, and the Target Center is growing rapidly outdated. That's a revenue source that he has ignored, but is something that Lore and Rodriguez want to address.

[shrink]

Really shrink? You know darn well what posting this is going to bring. Do you not recall the amount of back and forth that took place when the article appeared the first time?

This specifically refutes your conspiracy theory that “we don’t know Taylor didn’t force Connelly to make the KAT trade.” In fact, my quote was part of the “Was Alex Rodriguez Behind the Karl Anthony Towns?” article.

If you are afraid of the results of being refuted with facts, maybe don’t post your conspiracy theory crap that needs to be refuted?

You’ll die on this hill of KAT being traded by Lore / ARod even though Taylor owned the team.

So be it.

That would suck—you’re a huge KAT backer and the guy you admire so much (Taylor) sold you (and us) out.

Oh, boy. More short, factless, insulting posts by thinktank. The board misses your contributions when there isn’t something to argue about.

And as usual, you messed up basic information. My position isn’t that ARod and Lore forced Connelly to trade KAT.

My position is that Taylor did not prevent Connelly from trading KAT. I will leave it to other posters to post their conspiracy theories and their psychic powers to understand people’s motivations, who state those things like facts. Hint hint.

[shrink]

Btw, it’s a little silly for people to argue that TAYLOR forced Connelly to cut lux tax payments by a small amount, without fairly pointing out TAYLOR must have forced Connelly to add $100 mil in lux taxes for him to pay.

If Taylor was cheap, he wouldn’t have said yes to adding $100 mil in luxury taxes, right?

And Connelly’s final result next year appears to be aiming to get under the second apron, to remove some GM restrictions, but STILL pays plenty of lux taxes. The only people talking about cutting the roster to get under the lux have been ARod and Lore.

[thinktank]

If Taylor was cheap, he wouldn’t have said yes to adding $100 mil in luxury taxes, right?

Sir, he elected to trade KAT.

He could’ve said, “We just went to the Finals. Let’s keep KAT going into the season.”

My guess is the reporting on that will come out shortly once “the cat is away”, no pun intended.

[shrink]

If Taylor was cheap, he wouldn’t have said yes to adding $100 mil in luxury taxes, right?

Sir, he elected to trade KAT.

He could’ve said, “We just went to the Finals. Let’s keep KAT going into the season.”

Amazing how you can just ignore adding $100 million dollars! Real money!

[thinktank]

If Taylor was cheap, he wouldn’t have said yes to adding $100 mil in luxury taxes, right?

Sir, he elected to trade KAT.

He could’ve said, “We just went to the Finals. Let’s keep KAT going into the season.”

Amazing how you can just ignore adding $100 million dollars! Real money!

Your argument is he’s deep pocketed. Where? Could’ve had KAT here for no penalty going into the season.

[shrink]

Sir, he elected to trade KAT.

He could’ve said, “We just went to the Finals. Let’s keep KAT going into the season.”

Amazing how you can just ignore adding $100 million dollars! Real money!

Your argument is he’s deep pocketed. Where? Could’ve had KAT here for no penalty going into the season.

Your argument is that despite Taylor upping his luxury taxes to $100 mil last summer, a couple months later he is suddenly cheap, and your lucid dreaming concluded that his sudden cheapness caused him to force Connelly to trade KAT.

How does that make sense to you? To anyone?

[shangrila]

I don't think "Taylor ordered Connelly to trade KAT"
I do think Taylor advised Connelly to have a path out of the second apron. A Towns trade was the most feasible way to accomplish this without completely gutting the team.

That doesn't mean we'll never pay the second apron again. It's not saying that Lore and Rodriguez wouldn't have done the same thing either.

It doesn't have to be a conspiracy theory.

Towns was paid a lot of money and has a significant injury history, that will only be compounded by his most recent surgery and as he naturally ages.

There are legitimate reasons for moving off him other than saving luxury tax payments

[thinktank]

Amazing how you can just ignore adding $100 million dollars! Real money!

Your argument is he’s deep pocketed. Where? Could’ve had KAT here for no penalty going into the season.

Your argument is that despite Taylor upping his luxury taxes to $100 mil last summer, a couple months later he is suddenly cheap, and your lucid dreaming concluded that his sudden cheapness caused him to force Connelly to trade KAT.

How does that make sense to you? To anyone?

It makes sense when you factor in the timeline of Taylor’s re-negging on the sale deal and, I would hypothesize, his own understanding of how, despite his best efforts, he could not retain the team.

Be patient. I can’t wait for the full story.



But you’re asking the wrong question and this is a diversion from my point that yall are silly to be questioning Lore and ARods finances. You were silly then and you’re silly now.

[guest81]

The difference is that ARod and Lore could be substantially worse. Future franchise-crushing worse.

1. We know Taylor won’t move the team.
2. We know Taylor will pay lux taxes when we have a winner.
3. We know Taylor won’t over-ride his GM and lets him make basketball decisions, even ones he doesn’t agree with.

We don’t know any of these things for ARod and Lore, and there is plenty of evidence for all three that he will be worse than Taylor in these areas.

Finally, I would remind people that Taylor’s biggest (only?) flaw was the GMs he selected. He no longer does this, and the last two (Rosas and Connelly) were selected by an advisory group. It’s hard for me to see the danger of Glen, when he basically keeps the team in Minnesota, keeps his wallet open, and doesn’t make any basketball or hiring decisions. He’s just an ATM now.

I know some emotional fans want payback for the past, but they are risking the future of the entire franchise to get it.

Glen signed Joe Smith under the table, he didn't want to give Kevin love the full max and threw him under the bus, and he also made rosas he ryan saunders. And thats just off the top of my head.

So you’re saying he OVERRODE his GM to sign Joe Smith, and OVERRODE his GM and forced him to not give the four year max to Love, and not save it for Rubio? The opposite is true. Perhaps he SHOULD have overrode his GMs in these cases, but he let basketball people make basketball decisions. As I already stated, we have evidence he didn’t override Connelly with Gobert, even when he didn’t like the trade.

Do you have evidence that Taylor OVERODE Rosas to hire Ryan Saunders? Maybe Glen felt loyalty to Flip’s memory, but Rosas certainly benefited by having a young coach he could boss around and make him play Rosas’ way, even when it was losing. And remember the circumstances. Towns was very close to the Saunders family, and he had just been blasted by Jimmy, while he towed the company line for the team, so he might have wanted to throw him a bone. Finally, when Saunders was fires, he let his GM handpick his coach (Finch), despite some in the media implying he was a racist for hiring a white coach.

Taylor has a long history of empowering his GM’s, and letting them make the basketball decisions. If anything, he does this too much, and gave his poor hires too long a leash. Still, it’s a good thing now that he isn’t doing the hiring anymore. And finally, letting GM’s do their jobs without interference is not common in the NBA. Zach LaVine is in SAC because Vivek always liked LaVine.

So you really dont think part of the reason rosas got hired in the first place is because he told Glen that he would hire Ryan? So rosas wanted Ryan so bad that in the first instance he could he fired him and brought in what you said yourself his handpicked guy? This is a Glen Taylor burner account i swear

[guest81]

Wolves fans don't need to be apologetic on Taylor's behalf to have serious concerns about the funding, integrity and competence of a Lore/ARod ownership group.

Dallas Maverick fans would like a word with you about Miriam Adelson...

Sent from my N152DL using RealGM mobile app

Exactly. I hate Glen, but I fear Arod/Lore. Both sides have huge potential for negative and it feels far more likely they will destroy the team than improve it.

Maybe I’m missing it, but the only thing Taylor was doing before was hiring GM’s (poorly), and now he isn’t even doing that. Now he just ponies up the money when the GM wants something (or ARod and Lore want him to buy them a lavish owner’s suite). Where is the “huge potential for danger” from Glen anymore?

Because he's a senile old man that knows nothing about basketball and would have to find a new gm

[guest81]

And yet, we couldn't even try one year after making the Western Conference Finals for the second time in franchise history? It's not like I'm over here asking for four or fives years in a row...

You know Steve Ballmer ducked the LUX, right?

But Glen’s $100 mil in lux taxes isn’t enough, you want him to do what no owner has done - another year in the second apron.

Embarrassing entitlement.

I hear you. At the same time I think you have to ask the question of who knew what when? My understanding of Glen is that he is well connected among NBA ownership and governors. Glen and the new group might not have known the exact effect of the 2nd apron, but I have to believe they knew it would be draconian regarding super tax teams, and that it would involve cap smoothing with the tv money. Why trade for Rudy if you are not prepared to be a super tax team? We knew Ant was getting a max, Jaden and Naz would both need money, we gave KAT his super max, and we did it all with an imperfect but not totally blind eye to the future. It is the responsibility of Glen or whoever is buying the team to build sustainably. Trading 4 years of firsts, an unprotected swap, and Kessler for a massive Rudy contract laid the table for either a massive tax bill or a dangerously short window. As it happens we got both. Now they want to make the same mistake again trading for KD. I don’t have a dog in the fight because I don’t like any of them.

Guys the new CBA didn't come out until after the gobert trade happened. It isn't like before where all you had to worry about is paying extra money. There are serious consequences from a team building standpoint where it makes no sense for anyone to be in other then like the Celtics

[shrink]

Exactly. I hate Glen, but I fear Arod/Lore. Both sides have huge potential for negative and it feels far more likely they will destroy the team than improve it.

Maybe I’m missing it, but the only thing Taylor was doing before was hiring GM’s (poorly), and now he isn’t even doing that. Now he just ponies up the money when the GM wants something (or ARod and Lore want him to buy them a lavish owner’s suite). Where is the “huge potential for danger” from Glen anymore?

Because he's a senile old man that knows nothing about basketball and would have to find a new gm

This doesn’t respond to my question.

Even if he is senile, old and knows nothing about basketball, he okays everything his GM does. He doesn’t choose GMs any more.

So how is he a huge potential danger?

[shrink]

Glen signed Joe Smith under the table, he didn't want to give Kevin love the full max and threw him under the bus, and he also made rosas he ryan saunders. And thats just off the top of my head.

So you’re saying he OVERRODE his GM to sign Joe Smith, and OVERRODE his GM and forced him to not give the four year max to Love, and not save it for Rubio? The opposite is true. Perhaps he SHOULD have overrode his GMs in these cases, but he let basketball people make basketball decisions. As I already stated, we have evidence he didn’t override Connelly with Gobert, even when he didn’t like the trade.

Do you have evidence that Taylor OVERODE Rosas to hire Ryan Saunders? Maybe Glen felt loyalty to Flip’s memory, but Rosas certainly benefited by having a young coach he could boss around and make him play Rosas’ way, even when it was losing. And remember the circumstances. Towns was very close to the Saunders family, and he had just been blasted by Jimmy, while he towed the company line for the team, so he might have wanted to throw him a bone. Finally, when Saunders was fires, he let his GM handpick his coach (Finch), despite some in the media implying he was a racist for hiring a white coach.

Taylor has a long history of empowering his GM’s, and letting them make the basketball decisions. If anything, he does this too much, and gave his poor hires too long a leash. Still, it’s a good thing now that he isn’t doing the hiring anymore. And finally, letting GM’s do their jobs without interference is not common in the NBA. Zach LaVine is in SAC because Vivek always liked LaVine.

So you really dont think part of the reason rosas got hired in the first place is because he told Glen that he would hire Ryan? So rosas wanted Ryan so bad that in the first instance he could he fired him and brought in what you said yourself his handpicked guy? This is a Glen Taylor burner account i swear

After Jimmy and Thibs threw Towns under the bus, I would not be surprised for any GM to want to find a coach that would keep the team’s biggest star loyal to the franchise. Rosas got the extra benefit because he could tell this young coach exactly how he wanted the team to play, even if he lost. Do you think a vet coach would put up with that?

Again, do you have any evidence that Taylor overrode Rosas’ decision that Rosas wanted a different coach? Any at all?

[thinktank]

Maybe I’m missing it, but the only thing Taylor was doing before was hiring GM’s (poorly), and now he isn’t even doing that. Now he just ponies up the money when the GM wants something (or ARod and Lore want him to buy them a lavish owner’s suite). Where is the “huge potential for danger” from Glen anymore?

Because he's a senile old man that knows nothing about basketball and would have to find a new gm

This doesn’t respond to my question.

Even if he is senile, old and knows nothing about basketball, he okays everything his GM does. He doesn’t choose GMs any more.

So how is he a huge potential danger?

Your question is moot. Taylor’s damage is already done and he’s about to lose arbitration any minute now.

YAY.

[shrink]

You know Steve Ballmer ducked the LUX, right?

But Glen’s $100 mil in lux taxes isn’t enough, you want him to do what no owner has done - another year in the second apron.

Embarrassing entitlement.

I hear you. At the same time I think you have to ask the question of who knew what when? My understanding of Glen is that he is well connected among NBA ownership and governors. Glen and the new group might not have known the exact effect of the 2nd apron, but I have to believe they knew it would be draconian regarding super tax teams, and that it would involve cap smoothing with the tv money. Why trade for Rudy if you are not prepared to be a super tax team? We knew Ant was getting a max, Jaden and Naz would both need money, we gave KAT his super max, and we did it all with an imperfect but not totally blind eye to the future. It is the responsibility of Glen or whoever is buying the team to build sustainably. Trading 4 years of firsts, an unprotected swap, and Kessler for a massive Rudy contract laid the table for either a massive tax bill or a dangerously short window. As it happens we got both. Now they want to make the same mistake again trading for KD. I don’t have a dog in the fight because I don’t like any of them.

Guys the new CBA didn't come out until after the gobert trade happened. It isn't like before where all you had to worry about is paying extra money. There are serious consequences from a team building standpoint where it makes no sense for anyone to be in other then like the Celtics

Just so everyone is clear, the lux tax was known when Taylor agreed to Connelly’s Gobert trade. He knew he’d be paying a lot, publicly said he thought we paid too much, but still supported Connelly.

The restrictions for the apron stuff was unknown at the time. Those things hamstring GMs, not owners.

[thinktank]

If something is a concern to the GM then that should be a concern to the owner as well.

If not, then that org is dysfunctional.

[guest81]

Maybe I’m missing it, but the only thing Taylor was doing before was hiring GM’s (poorly), and now he isn’t even doing that. Now he just ponies up the money when the GM wants something (or ARod and Lore want him to buy them a lavish owner’s suite). Where is the “huge potential for danger” from Glen anymore?

Because he's a senile old man that knows nothing about basketball and would have to find a new gm

This doesn’t respond to my question.

Even if he is senile, old and knows nothing about basketball, he okays everything his GM does. He doesn’t choose GMs any more.

So how is he a huge potential danger?

Because connley isn't going to stick around if Glen is the majority owner therefore Glen would have to find a new gm

[guest81]

I hear you. At the same time I think you have to ask the question of who knew what when? My understanding of Glen is that he is well connected among NBA ownership and governors. Glen and the new group might not have known the exact effect of the 2nd apron, but I have to believe they knew it would be draconian regarding super tax teams, and that it would involve cap smoothing with the tv money. Why trade for Rudy if you are not prepared to be a super tax team? We knew Ant was getting a max, Jaden and Naz would both need money, we gave KAT his super max, and we did it all with an imperfect but not totally blind eye to the future. It is the responsibility of Glen or whoever is buying the team to build sustainably. Trading 4 years of firsts, an unprotected swap, and Kessler for a massive Rudy contract laid the table for either a massive tax bill or a dangerously short window. As it happens we got both. Now they want to make the same mistake again trading for KD. I don’t have a dog in the fight because I don’t like any of them.

Guys the new CBA didn't come out until after the gobert trade happened. It isn't like before where all you had to worry about is paying extra money. There are serious consequences from a team building standpoint where it makes no sense for anyone to be in other then like the Celtics

Just so everyone is clear, the lux tax was known when Taylor agreed to Connelly’s Gobert trade. He knew he’d be paying a lot, publicly said he thought we paid too much, but still supported Connelly.

The restrictions for the apron stuff was unknown at the time. Those things hamstring GMs, not owners.

The luxury tax sure. It was more to the broader point of whose decision it was to trade KAT. I think it's clearly connleys decision but it wasn't made for financial reasons but all the limits on team building being in the second apron brings