Arbitrators rule in favor of Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez over Glen Taylor as next majority owners of Timberwolves

[ConSarnit]

Connelly is an employee. He does what the owner tells him. When Lore and Aron were calling the shots they said screw the cap and traded for Gobert. When the team got good because Taylors stink started to get rubbed off of it, he immediately changed his mind and tried to cancel the sale and then slashed payroll. The best possible thing for TWolves fan is to dump him. He is in the running for the worst owner in all of sports, just going by on court results.

Objectively wrong, Glen Taylor has always been willing to spend. Glen is a hands-off owner, he trusts the judgement of his front offices. Generally this goes horribly because of his track record of poor hires, but he’s never been an overbearing owner.

Your timeline is also completely off. Minnesota traded for Rudy Gobert prior to the new CBA agreement. They were willing to go into the Luxury-Tax, but the new Second Apron penalties put Minnesota in a position where it was not sustainable long-term. Tim Connelly had to make a difficult decision, and went the route of trading Karl-Anthony Towns (which was understandable and expected).

If Glen was penny pinching, there is absolutely no world where he would have allowed Keita Bates-Diop to be cut when he was owed $2.8MM, nor would he have accept P.J. Dozier to be given a $1MM guarantee (they actually waited until after Christmas to waive him, which costed the Timberwolves a tiny bit extra). If he was penny pinching, Keita would have been sent out with a second; that move alone costed Minnesota almost ten million dollars!

Ask Kevin Love if he thinks Taylor is willing to spend.

Don’t worry. Taylor is willing to spend. He made Wiggins promise to try hard and then gave him $150m. Somehow spending money, even on extremely dumb things, is a positive.

[kwajo]

I'm not sold on Lore and Rodriguez. They have no ties to Minnesota. As a longtime Minnesota sports fan... we've been threatened with relocation before (Twins, Wolves). And we've actually seen it happen (Lakers, North Stars).

Taylor saved the franchise (along with David Stern) from moving to New Orleans in 1994. He wants to keep it in MN.

On another front... I know a guy who's in the arena business. His company has ties with many sports venues around the U.S. About 18 months ago, when Rodriguez and Lore were involved, he told me new stadium talks were already happening behind the scenes. Then, everything hit the fan with ownership, derailing any of that.

Personally, I think that's one of the reasons why the team went all in on Gobert and the luxury tax. You can't make stadium demands while putting a mediocre to dreadful product on the court. We'll enjoy a honeymoon period with the new owners. But Target Center is arguably the worst arena in the NBA. It's the 2nd oldest... without any of the charm of MSG (obviously).

A new stadium will be demanded. It's going to happen... just a matter of when. Buckle up.

The new owners would only be penalized $50 if they break the current Target Center lease. Obviously, that's a very small price to pay... even for guys with only $1B.




[Note: All that being said... Glen Taylor was not an embarrassment as an owner for his actions off the court. But he had a truly terrible track record. He was in charge of the crappiness for years... from the Joe Smith fiasco to this ownership fiasco. It was time...]

Forgive my ignorance on the issue since I'm not from Minnesota, but has there ever been discussion of the Wolves sharing the Xcel Energy Center with the Wild? Isn't it much newer, and it is very common for NHL and NBA teams to both operate out of the same facility.

[Slimjimzv]

Congratulations to all Timberwolves fans! I can't imagine how good this must feel after decades of inept and cheap leadership.

[Domejandro]

Connelly is an employee. He does what the owner tells him. When Lore and Aron were calling the shots they said screw the cap and traded for Gobert. When the team got good because Taylors stink started to get rubbed off of it, he immediately changed his mind and tried to cancel the sale and then slashed payroll. The best possible thing for TWolves fan is to dump him. He is in the running for the worst owner in all of sports, just going by on court results.

Objectively wrong, Glen Taylor has always been willing to spend. Glen is a hands-off owner, he trusts the judgement of his front offices. Generally this goes horribly because of his track record of poor hires, but he’s never been an overbearing owner.

Your timeline is also completely off. Minnesota traded for Rudy Gobert prior to the new CBA agreement. They were willing to go into the Luxury-Tax, but the new Second Apron penalties put Minnesota in a position where it was not sustainable long-term. Tim Connelly had to make a difficult decision, and went the route of trading Karl-Anthony Towns (which was understandable and expected).

If Glen was penny pinching, there is absolutely no world where he would have allowed Keita Bates-Diop to be cut when he was owed $2.8MM, nor would he have accept P.J. Dozier to be given a $1MM guarantee (they actually waited until after Christmas to waive him, which costed the Timberwolves a tiny bit extra). If he was penny pinching, Keita would have been sent out with a second; that move alone costed Minnesota almost ten million dollars!

Ask Kevin Love if he thinks Taylor is willing to spend.

Kevin Love got a 3+1 (PO) max because David Kahn was a moron who wanted to save the five-year rookie maximum extension for Ricky Rubio. Totally unrelated to financials, Minneota did not save significant money by not giving Kevin Love that five-year max.

[Effigy]

Objectively wrong, Glen Taylor has always been willing to spend. Glen is a hands-off owner, he trusts the judgement of his front offices. Generally this goes horribly because of his track record of poor hires, but he’s never been an overbearing owner.

Your timeline is also completely off. Minnesota traded for Rudy Gobert prior to the new CBA agreement. They were willing to go into the Luxury-Tax, but the new Second Apron penalties put Minnesota in a position where it was not sustainable long-term. Tim Connelly had to make a difficult decision, and went the route of trading Karl-Anthony Towns (which was understandable and expected).

If Glen was penny pinching, there is absolutely no world where he would have allowed Keita Bates-Diop to be cut when he was owed $2.8MM, nor would he have accept P.J. Dozier to be given a $1MM guarantee (they actually waited until after Christmas to waive him, which costed the Timberwolves a tiny bit extra). If he was penny pinching, Keita would have been sent out with a second; that move alone costed Minnesota almost ten million dollars!

Ask Kevin Love if he thinks Taylor is willing to spend.

Kevin Love got a 3+1 (PO) max because David Kahn was a moron who wanted to save the five-year rookie maximum extension for Ricky Rubio. Totally unrelated to financials, Minneota did not save significant money by not giving Kevin Love that five-year max.

It's amazing how this wonderful owner time and time again was screwed over by these people that he hired, who made decisions that he had the final say on that looked terrible at the time and indeed turned out that way, through no fault of his own!

[Baseline81]

Kevin Love got a 3+1 (PO) max because David Kahn was a moron who wanted to save the five-year rookie maximum extension for Ricky Rubio. Totally unrelated to financials, Minneota did not save significant money by not giving Kevin Love that five-year max.

Care to defend how "cheap" he was when he wouldn't pay to get rid of Rambis? We all know what happened next. In the 2011 draft, Kahn traded back several times, banking enough cash considerations until it covered the amount needed.

[AbeVigodaLive]

I am actually pretty concerned about this. Glen Taylor had an extraordinary talent for continually making bad hires, but he has always been hands off, willing to spend, and loves Minnesota.

Throughout this process, Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez have repeatedly struggled to meet deadlines, have had to dilute their ownership stake to a significant degree, and already have plans to wage war with the public to fund a new arena.

Having a single owner with a majority stake was extremely lucky, and I’m pretty pessimistic about the team’s willingness to spend after the next couple of seasons.

So do you think they will move the team? If public stadium issue pops up again.

I think that they will get their stadium.

I guess the new owners have publicly stated that the goal is to have a PRIVATELY-FUNDED new arena... and that those discussions are already happening. Hopefully...

[Domejandro]

Ask Kevin Love if he thinks Taylor is willing to spend.

Kevin Love got a 3+1 (PO) max because David Kahn was a moron who wanted to save the five-year rookie maximum extension for Ricky Rubio. Totally unrelated to financials, Minneota did not save significant money by not giving Kevin Love that five-year max.

It's amazing how this wonderful owner time and time again was screwed over by these people that he hired, who made decisions that he had the final say on that looked terrible at the time and indeed turned out that way, through no fault of his own!

One of my core criticisms of Glen Taylor has been his poor hiring decisions and consistent willingness to stick by poor hires because he likes them on a personal level.

Unlike folks who are weaving ridiculous, crackpot conspiracy theories about Glen Taylor "being cheap" or "meddling with decisions", I actually understand the areas where he was largely a complete mess as an owner. You are so desperate to get digs in when you have absolutely no idea why Glen's tenure as the owner went as poorly as it did.

[Sealab2024]

When ARod and Lore brought up trying to hire Tim Connelly to run the roster Glen's response was "why would he ever want to come here"? That tells you all you need to know about Glen. He's small time from a much smaller period of Minnesota history. He wasn't overly meddlesome or cheap, he just was a really, really bad franchise owner who constantly backed himself into bad situations, hired second rate people and was way too easy to manipulate. I'm glad he's gone.

[Domejandro]

Kevin Love got a 3+1 (PO) max because David Kahn was a moron who wanted to save the five-year rookie maximum extension for Ricky Rubio. Totally unrelated to financials, Minneota did not save significant money by not giving Kevin Love that five-year max.

Care to defend how "cheap" he was when he wouldn't pay to get rid of Rambis? We all know what happened next. In the 2011 draft, Kahn traded back several times, banking enough cash considerations until it covered the amount needed.

The decision to fire Kurt Rambis was made prior to the Draft. This is public information that can be found with simple search on Google, but here is a link.


In fact, the 2011 NBA Draft trades literally demonstrate how ridiculous the penny pinching narrative is! Keep in mind that the limit for incoming cash in 2011 was $3,000,000.

1. Minnesota traded #20 and Jonny Flynn ($3,414,720 expiring) for #23, #38, 2013 FRP, and Brad Miller ($4,752,000 ; $848,000). This trade increased Minnesota's guaranteed money on the books by $2,185,280.

Note: This trade actually got amended after Jonny Flynn failed his physical. Minnesota had to give up an extra second and the #38 component of the trade may have been axed (hard to confirm).

2. Minnesota traded #23 to Chicago for #28 and #43.

3. Minnesota traded #28 for #31 and a future Second Round Draft Pick.

4. Minnesota traded #31 to Brooklyn for cash.

5. Minnesota traded #38 to Houston for cash.

Note: Minnesota potentially did not receive this cash because of the amendment to the trade because of Jonny Flynn's failed physical. Found that claimed on SBNation, but the original source focuses on Minnesota giving up an extra second.

6. Minnesota drafted Malcolm Lee at #43.

7. Minnesota bought #57 from Portland for cash, drafting infamous con artist Tanguy Ngombo.


Completely ignoring the weirdness with #38 (regarding the cash in the subsequent follow-up potentially not happening) and taking the trades at face-value, Minnesota took on $2,185,280 more in guaranteed salary. Even if we pretend that they got the full three million dollars in cash from teams (no evidence, but I'll be good faith), they then went on to trade some cash for Tanguy Ngombo.

How in the world does that make up for the $4,000,000 owed to Kurt Rambis after he was fired? The truth is that David Kahn was a moron who was addicted to wheeling and dealing. Glen Taylor potentially ended up in the red after the Jonny Flynn portion of the deal crumpled, but under the assumption that it didn't and everything went exactly as planned, getting #43, a future first, a second, and cash for #20 and taking on $2,185,280 in guaranteed salary seems totally understandable.


The narrative is even funnier when you look at the fallout of the 2012 NBA offseason.

After taking on the extra salary, Minnesota proceeded to trade two seconds and Brad Miller to New Orleans to eat that $848,000, waived Martell Webster (eating $600,000), and used the amnesty clause on Darko Miličić (eating $7.5MM!) to open up enough space to offer Nicolas Batum a four-year, forty-six million dollar deal (with bonuses pushing it over fifty million!). Glen Taylor ate over EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS and two seconds so David Kahn could fail at pursuing his dream free-agent Nicolas Batum.


Plenty of things worth criticizing Glen Taylor over (I think the post directly above mine is largely fair), but the penny pinching narrative is comically off-base.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

He almost destroyed Garnett's career for Joe Smith.

[Shaka_Zulu]

When ARod and Lore brought up trying to hire Tim Connelly to run the roster Glen's response was "why would he ever want to come here"? That tells you all you need to know about Glen. He's small time from a much smaller period of Minnesota history. He wasn't overly meddlesome or cheap, he just was a really, really bad franchise owner who constantly backed himself into bad situations, hired second rate people and was way too easy to manipulate. I'm glad he's gone.

This perfectly captures it. We don't really need essays of back and forths. And unnecessary gotcha moment chasing.


When we all should genuinely be glad a historically incompetent owner is finally gone.


What the new ownership will do is another matter. Not one we can say much about. They start with blank slate.



P.S except maybe their financial stature, is it confirmed one of their minority stake backers will be Michael Bloomberg? If confirmed that's huge.

[Sealab2024]

When ARod and Lore brought up trying to hire Tim Connelly to run the roster Glen's response was "why would he ever want to come here"? That tells you all you need to know about Glen. He's small time from a much smaller period of Minnesota history. He wasn't overly meddlesome or cheap, he just was a really, really bad franchise owner who constantly backed himself into bad situations, hired second rate people and was way too easy to manipulate. I'm glad he's gone.

This perfectly captures it. We don't really need essays of back and forths. And unnecessary gotcha moment chasing.


When we all should genuinely be glad a historically incompetent owner is finally gone.


What the new ownership will do is another matter. Not one we can say much about. They start with blank slate.



P.S except maybe their financial stature, is it confirmed one of their minority stake backers will be Michael Bloomberg? If confirmed that's huge.

Bloomberg in the mix does make me feel better for sure. Still makes me pause as to why these new York boys are investing in Minnesota but that could be for any number of reasons. We got the Wilfs from New York, here's hoping ARod and Lore are more like them than the accursed Texan Red McCombs.

[shrink]

Connelly is an employee. He does what the owner tells him. When Lore and Aron were calling the shots they said screw the cap and traded for Gobert. When the team got good because Taylors stink started to get rubbed off of it, he immediately changed his mind and tried to cancel the sale and then slashed payroll. The best possible thing for TWolves fan is to dump him. He is in the running for the worst owner in all of sports, just going by on court results.

Objectively wrong, Glen Taylor has always been willing to spend. Glen is a hands-off owner, he trusts the judgement of his front offices. Generally this goes horribly because of his track record of poor hires, but he’s never been an overbearing owner.

Your timeline is also completely off. Minnesota traded for Rudy Gobert prior to the new CBA agreement. They were willing to go into the Luxury-Tax, but the new Second Apron penalties put Minnesota in a position where it was not sustainable long-term. Tim Connelly had to make a difficult decision, and went the route of trading Karl-Anthony Towns (which was understandable and expected).

If Glen was penny pinching, there is absolutely no world where he would have allowed Keita Bates-Diop to be cut when he was owed $2.8MM, nor would he have accept P.J. Dozier to be given a $1MM guarantee (they actually waited until after Christmas to waive him, which costed the Timberwolves a tiny bit extra). If he was penny pinching, Keita would have been sent out with a second; that move alone costed Minnesota almost ten million dollars!

Ask Kevin Love if he thinks Taylor is willing to spend.

Kevin Love DID get the max. But at the time, the CBA only allowed one, 5-year max, and Taylor-hired David Kahn wanted to save the five year max for Ricky Rubio. Kahn offered Love the max for four years, but Love was offended and asked for the max for a three year max, with the last season a player option. [And as an aside, Taylor was president of the Board of Governors at the time, and pushed group a later amendment to get rid of the “only one five year max” rule in the next CBA.]

And of course, Taylor lets his basketball people make basketball decisions. He didn’t tell Kahn “be cheap with Kevin Love.”


Finally, it’s also telling that people are looking for hand-waving evidence of cheapness from ten years ago, when Taylor said yes to every trade an extension to accrue a tax bill of nearly $100 million right now. Seems pretty desperate.

[shrink]

So do you think they will move the team? If public stadium issue pops up again.

I think that they will get their stadium.

I guess the new owners have publicly stated that the goal is to have a PRIVATELY-FUNDED new arena... and that those discussions are already happening. Hopefully...

Yeah, but when the news tried to investigate the public statements about the location ARod and Lore had said, they found out that the property wasn’t for sale, and when they talked to the landowner, he said ARod and Lore hadn’t even talked to him! Maybe your friend knows more?

I’ll hope for a privately funded stadium, but we’ll see. The Wolves definitely need one.

[shrink]

I posted this in the Unpopular Opinion thread

I’m not making friends over on the MIN board with my opinion that Glen Taylor would be a better owner going forward than ARod.

1. Taylor won’t move the team.
2. Taylor is willing to pay when the team is a winner.
3. Taylor doesn’t interfere with basketball decisions.

The last trait magnified his problem of choosing bad GMs, but he took himself out of the process of GM selection now, so now he’s basically a MIN-loyal ATM.

[AbeVigodaLive]

I think that they will get their stadium.

I guess the new owners have publicly stated that the goal is to have a PRIVATELY-FUNDED new arena... and that those discussions are already happening. Hopefully...

Yeah, but when the news tried to investigate the public statements about the location ARod and Lore had said, they found out that the property wasn’t for sale, and when they talked to the landowner, he said ARod and Lore hadn’t even talked to him! Maybe your friend knows more?

I’ll hope for a privately funded stadium, but we’ll see. The Wolves definitely need one.

YES! I forgot about hearing about that.

The new guys could be very shady... we'll find out soon enough.

I have my suspicions that they wouldn't at least try for some public-funding support.

[firedavidkahn]

To give an example to non wolves fans how awful Taylor is... He has refused to retire Garnett's jersey.

Kevin Garnett!

One of the most loyal players in NBA history. Taylor managed to piss him off so much that his freaking jersey still isn't retired.

It's mind boggling how petty Taylor is. Now that Lore and AROD call the shots I would expect that to happen soon.

[JustBuzzin]

They about to trade Ant Edwards to the Knicks.

Luka in LA and Ant in NY. Everyone is happy.

[shrink]

To give an example to non wolves fans how awful Taylor is... He has refused to retire Garnett's jersey.

Kevin Garnett!

One of the most loyal players in NBA history. Taylor managed to piss him off so much that his freaking jersey still isn't retired.

It's mind boggling how petty Taylor is. Now that Lore and AROD call the shots I would expect that to happen soon.

Ummm .. Taylor has asked Garnett many times, and KG refuses to attend a ceremony until Taylor is gone.

Taylor decided not to have a ceremony honoring Garnett without him being there, and fans can appreciate KG in attendance. If KG had changed his mind at any point, I’m sure Taylor would have had the ceremony - he just stopped asking after a while.

I love KG, and he has every right to do this, but he’s the one being petty, and the reason his Jersey hasn’t been officially retired.