Timberwolves

The Minnesota Timberwolves Need to Find a Way For Kevin Garnett, Tom Thibodeau to Coexist

It’s just sad to see that everybody in that organization didn’t see the same vision.

— Kevin Garnett to Kevin McHale in an NBA TV interview

It’s hard to forget the glow that radiated from Kevin Garnett the day he came back to Minnesota. Former coach and president of basketball operations Flip Saunders, who himself had boomeranged back to the Twin Cities in 2014, had spoken about K.G. frequently in the 2014-15 season and delivered the man on Feb. 19, 2015.

“A great friend, Flip, came and brought an opportunity to me to come back where my origins were and where I had roots and where I was comfortable — all-in-all, a plan, an exit plan,” Garnett told McHale. “And I believed it and I accepted it and I went back to Minny.”

At his introductory press conference he extended a hand to a bowing Sid Hartman, he gave Eric Perkins a hard time for being a “big shot” now on local television and patiently waited while a former Fox Sports North reporter tried to remember a question he had for him. Then, six days after waiving his no-trade clause to come to Minnesota, he breathed life into the Target Center in an otherwise meaningless game against the Washington Wizards.

Not since he left for Boston did the arena feel that electric for a regular season game. A moribund franchise, nearly buried by a notoriously incompetent general manager, had come back to life. K.G. and Flip were going to get young players like Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine ready for NBA basketball and build a team around them and then eventually take over as owners once Glen Taylor sold the team.

“I wanted to be a part of an organization that I could actually have some stake in and some skin into, which I thought I did”

“I wanted to be able to give this back to this young kid now, KAT, and I wanted to give him everything that I had,” Garnett said. “And you don’t get that over segments, you get that through the course of the year. Now I had him every day, we’d see each other, same thing with Wiggs, and I would share myself and share whatever I had to give to the guys, and that’s really what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a part of an organization that I could actually have some stake in and some skin into, which I thought I did.”

Then Saunders tragically passed on Aug. 11, 2015, right before the beginning of the regular season, and former Wolves player Sam Mitchell was thrust into the head coaching role. “The plan was to have Sam be this leader for the future,” Garnett said. “We all agreed that his style was a bit unorthodox, but it was impressionable and it was impactful and, more importantly, it was something that talked.”

Mitchell was admittedly abrasive, actively argumentative with the media from Day 1 and had trouble connecting with his young players. According to an AP article from last January, nearly half the roster of 15 players privately expressed concerns about Mitchell that centered on three basic tenets: His outdated offensive system, his tendency to platoon his rotations and a lack of personal accountability for the struggles. All three were fair and accurate observations of what happened that year.

At the end of the season, Mitchell was unceremoniously fired, which drew ire from many of the players and media, alike. He appeared to be unaware of his status with the team in his postgame press conference the night he was fired, telling the media, “I’ll just go through the process and continue to work,” and “I’m sure you’ll see me around.” The idea was there was a coaching search, but that Mitchell would be part of it. Multiple sources reported before the game, however, that he would not be part of that search.

“The process by which Mitchell and [former GM Milt] Newton have been excised from the authority they held this past season has been disrespectful,” wrote Britt Robson, a MinnPost columnist who has written about the Wolves for various publications since their inception. He detailed the dismissal in his article that week, arguing that whatever you thought of Mitchell, the way he was let go was disgraceful.

“I am not sure he is even the best person to coach the Wolves going forward. I endorse the hiring of a search firm and the need to get a head start on soliciting the high profile candidates. There is too much at stake not to explore every avenue in search of the best possible outcome,” he continued. “But, like the firing of Dwane Casey during the middle of the 2006-07 season, there is a chance that the Wolves will come to regret their decision to let Mitchell go.”

Knowing what we know now, that’s unlikely. Tom Thibodeau was the premier coaching candidate available on the market, and with his credentials — he was the fastest coach to 100 wins in NBA history — and bulldog attitude, he is the right person to lead the team as its president of basketball operations. He has Saunders’ willingness to teach the game, more analytically advanced methods of coaching than both his predecessors and is hell-bent on getting Towns, Wiggins and LaVine up to speed with his system and defensive methods.

Given his history with Garnett — Thibodeau was essentially the Celtics defensive coordinator when KG was in Boston — there was some thought that two could work together in what was likely Garnett’s final season. Garnett could act as a mentor and the alpha male on the court, while Thibodeau focused on coaching the game, but Thibodeau essentially became the team’s alpha male and opted to have three other players — lightly-used Jordan Hill and Cole Aldrich, as well as Brandon Rush — as the veteran presence in the locker room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7kzeubLOoc

But once the season got started, it became obvious that the team missed Garnett’s presence. Minnesota’s “Big 3” were able to dominate in the first half of games, only to fall apart in the third quarter when they faced adversity. The ball stopped moving, players went rogue on defense and there was a general sense of panic, or at least stagnation, in crunch time. “For the second time in the first month of the season, I am compelled to state that jettisoning Kevin Garnett from the franchise has been a mistake,” wrote Robson, who predicted that the Wolves would win 40-plus games and earn the 7th seed this year. “I understand that Garnett is of limited…effectiveness as a player due to the enormous wear and tear on his body through his storied career. But Garnett has gravitas, earned through what he has done, what he knows, and how he communicates.”

Garnett’s playing days are all but over at this point, so the point of whether or not he should have been on the roster is rather moot. But he still is a large part of the organization’s history. He is the team’s best player of all-time. He was on the roster during its only successful run. And he’s going to have his number retired and should be part of Minnesota’s future.

“How they was doing Sam, how they fired Sam on the day of a game, you don’t do that. You don’t do that,” Garnett told McHale. “And you know what? There’s certain things that I was taught in this league — professionalism, loyalty, those things taught to me by the league, that’s what kind of person I am, I felt a certain way. So I started to take the steps to remove myself.”

For now, that’s probably what is best. Thibodeau has complete control and should be able to exercise that to the best of his ability. But in due time, he, and the team, have to find a way to welcome Garnett back.

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