published on May 15, 2024 in gacor

What the POBO candidate field tells us about where the Wolves want to go

The field is set and the interview process is under way as the Minnesota Timberwolves embark on their search for a new president of basketball operations.

Denver Nuggets assistant GM Calvin Booth, Brooklyn Nets assistant GM Trajan Langdon, Houston Rockets executive vice president Gersson Rosas and ESPN analyst Chauncey Billups all are scheduled to visit the Twin Cities over the next two weeks.

The field of candidates offers a glimpse into the course the Wolves have charted in their efforts to reinvent themselves going forward. Owner Glen Taylor has been fairly quiet since the plans for a new president were announced, but there can be some clear conclusions drawn on the type of person the Wolves want to lead them, some of the core values the organization is espousing for the next phase and some of the pitfalls that are out there as they navigate the process.

Here are some of the conclusions that can be drawn already and some of the questions that will need answers as the process develops.

Ethan Casson’s role

The Timberwolves CEO has been the driving force in the early stages of the process as the Wolves have looked to assemble a group of prospects to replace Tom Thibodeau, who was fired in January after consolidating as much power and influence in Minnesota as any coach or executive had across the league.

One of Taylor’s biggest struggles as an owner has been finding the right voice to lead the basketball operations department, one that is not only talented and capable but also fits with him from a stylistic perspective. You can discount all you want the personality side of the equation, but it was one area that made the Thibodeau union uneasy from the start and contributed to an unstable environment surrounding the team.

Tom Thibodeau’s hire was the result of a search firm tabbed by owner Glen Taylor. This time, Taylor has asked CEO Ethan Casson to lead the POBO hunt. (Jason Miller / Getty Images)

In an effort to have a more process-oriented, homework-filled search this time around, Taylor has tasked Casson with doing the initial legwork. Casson was not on staff when Taylor hired the search firm Korn Ferry to lead the search that landed Thibodeau and Scott Layden. Since coming on board as CEO, Casson has led an aggressive rebranding of the Wolves and has made sweeping changes to the business side of the organization, all in an effort to try to help the Wolves shed their long-held stigma in the market as a franchise that can’t get out of its own way.

Casson spent 11 years with the Timberwolves early in his career before leaving for the San Francisco 49ers. His roots in the organization have helped him earn Taylor’s trust, and that will play a big role in who emerges as the preferred candidate. Taylor and Casson have had long discussions about the type of leader they want and where they want the organization to go from here. It was Casson’s charge to put it into action, and it’s clear that several core values have been put into place.

Diversity matters

All four of the candidates slated to visit Minnesota for an interview are people of color. Booth and Billups are African American, Langdon grew up in Alaska as the son of a white father and African American mother, and Rosas is a native of Bogata, Colombia.

The Wolves had also targeted Clippers GM Michael Winger, who is white, but he has decided to stay in Los Angeles. Still, the diversity of candidates involved in the search makes this process stand out in a league where only four of its front offices are led by people of color — Toronto (Masai Ujiri), Cleveland (Koby Altman), Philadelphia (Elton Brand) and New York (Steve Mills).

The Timberwolves’ top three basketball executives — Thibodeau, Layden and director of player personnel Brian Pauga — were white. Layden and Pauga are still employed by the Wolves, and their futures will be a part of the discussions with the new president of basketball operations.

Calvin Booth spent four years in the Timberwolves’ front office, working his way up to director of player personnel before departing in 2017. (Isaiah J. Downing / USA Today)

The Wolves do have assistant general manager Noah Croom, assistant coaches Ed Pinckney, Malik Allen and John Lucas III and strength coaches Troy Sutton and Kurt Joseph as people of color on their staff, but there has been a push within the organization to add more diversity to leadership positions.

The Wolves hired former NBA player John Thomas as vice president of community engagement and Sianneh Mulbah, the team’s chief people officer, holds a strong level of influence as well. Casson and Ryan Tanke, the team’s chief revenue officer, have also prioritized adding women in leadership roles, including Mulbah, vice president of social responsibility Jennifer Ridgeway and vice president of business intelligence Laura Meyer. That is, of course, in addition to Cheryl Reeve and Carley Knox with the Lynx.

Milt Newton led the basketball operations after Flip Saunders’ passing in 2015. But assuming the chosen person emerges from this group of four, it will be the first time in franchise history that the Wolves have hired a person of color as the leader of the basketball side of the organization.

Winger’s decision

By all accounts, Winger was highly interested in pursuing this position. A Midwest native with Ohio roots, Winger rose up through the ranks in smaller markets, from Cleveland to Oklahoma City before going to the Clippers.

He spent months researching the dynamics behind the Wolves and was ready to plunge into the process after he spoke with Casson last week, league sources told The Athletic. Having the chance to re-establish the Timberwolves in the market while working with Casson and Taylor and refining a roster with Towns as the centerpiece was a compelling situation for Winger, sources said. But as plans were under way to schedule a visit, Winger spoke with Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and the rest of the staff and ultimately decided to stay in Los Angeles.

Why the Clippers? For those who haven’t paid attention lately, it’s a franchise that suddenly has monster potential. Winger is part of a top-flight front office that includes Jerry West and Lawrence Frank. He has helped repurpose the roster past the Lob City years without bottoming out and clear enough salary cap space to give the Clippers a chance at landing two top-shelf free agents this summer.

With Ballmer’s deep pockets, the L.A. market and weather and coach Doc Rivers helming a young and hungry roster, it is one of the most enviable positions in the league.

Add to it that one of the front-office members, Trent Redden, is rumored to be leaving to join David Griffin in New Orleans, and it’s not hard to conceive of the ultra-aggressive Ballmer doing everything he could to ensure an important piece of the puzzle wasn’t lost before such an important summer.

As Rachel Nichols said this week, “Why would anyone want to leave the Clippers right now?”

Background noise

Three of the four candidates come from strong front offices with a reputation for player development.

Rosas has sat at Daryl Morey’s right hand for more than a decade as the Rockets have emerged as the chief challenger to the Warriors in the Western Conference, adding James Harden and Chris Paul via trade to a team unleashed by Mike D’Antoni.

Booth is part of a Denver front office led by Tim Connelly that helped turn the Nuggets into the No. 2 seed in the West on the strength of drafting Nikola Jokic, Gary Harris and Jamal Murray and hiring Michael Malone as coach.

And Langdon has been a part of the Sean Marks-led team that inherited a mess in Brooklyn following the disastrous trade for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce and has steadily shaped the Nets into a playoff team in the East with D’Angelo Russell, Caris LeVert and Spencer Dinwiddie leading the way and coached by Kenny Atkinson.

All three of those franchises have gone about things in different ways, but their ability to find talent and develop it into rotation-caliber players has played a big role in their varying levels of success. The Nuggets found players like Malik Beasley and Monte Morris. The Nets hit on Joe Harris, Rodions Kurucs and Jarrett Allen and the Rockets hit on Clint Capela and Danuel House while D’Antoni’s system helped revive the careers of Gerald Green, Kenneth Faried and Eric Gordon.

Youth movement

Casson and Tanke are 45 years old, and the list of POBO candidates suggests that the Wolves are on the hunt for a basketball executive that more closely aligns with that age.

Langdon and Booth will turn 43 next month, Billups is 42 and Rosas is 40.

The 61-year-old Thibodeau was much more from the old school, preferring to keep most of the focus on what was happening on the court. That approach was validated in the 2017-18 season, when the team’s 47 wins and first playoff berth since 2004 contributed to 18 sellouts of Target Center. But when things did not go as well, both in his first season and his last, the more buttoned-up approach only served to isolate the team further from a fan base that quickly lost interest as the success abated.

Whoever does take the job, it won’t come easy. The Athletic will dive into the big questions facing the Wolves’ new POBO later this week. (Brad Rempel / USA Today)

These candidates indicate a desire to find a more modern approach, one built on the communication and collaboration that are points of emphasis in “The New NBA.” Those can seem like buzz words and nonsense for the skeptical, and they certainly don’t guarantee success going forward.

But it is often seen that an organization looks to bring in a completely different voice when it goes down this path. The voice of the previous regime was characterized by a lack of cooperation and communication, so the search begins for someone more interested in building bridges across the franchise.

Taylor may be 77 years old, but he has always had a fondness for a more open relationship with those who run the basketball operations. That was never Thibodeau’s approach, and the field Casson has assembled includes more outgoing personalities who are open to that kind of give and take.

There are risks that come with that approach as well. None of the four candidates has run a franchise before, and no one really knows how that transition to the biggest chair in the facility will go until they sit in it. While the Wolves considered an array of candidates from various age groups and experience levels, all four who will interview have a similar hole at the very top of the resume.

Langdon, Booth and Rosas have toiled in front offices for years, but how will they change when they are calling the shots? Billups has a sterling reputation as a leader on the court and a natural connector with strong relationships across the league. But when it comes to a great player transitioning into a front office role, is he more Magic Johnson or more Danny Ainge?

And whoever does take over has a difficult process ahead of him. The Wolves’ salary cap situation is not optimal, with Karl-Anthony Towns set to begin a five-year max contract while Andrew Wiggins, Gorgui Dieng and Jeff Teague with significant contracts that weigh down their ability to make changes to a team that missed the playoffs. He will also have to help walk the tricky path that comes with the Saunders and Layden dynamic.

Those questions make this a crucial interview process for the Timberwolves to navigate. They have a franchise player entering his prime and a fan base worn out by enjoying just one season of modest success in the last 15 years of futility.

The Wolves will have so many crucial questions to ask of these four candidates during this series of interviews and the candidates no doubt will have some hard questions to ask of the Wolves as well. Those subjects will be explored by The Athletic this week as the process unfolds.

This four-person field tells us that the Timberwolves are looking for diversity, forward-thinking and a personality that can connect all facets of the organization while emphasizing player development to build a team around Towns that can be competitive.

The importance of getting this one right cannot be overstated.

(Top photo of Chauncey Billups: Brace Hemmelgarn / USA Today)

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