Click here

Sources close to the situation told HOOPSWORLD that Adelman is expected to reach a contract agreement with the Timberwolves next week.

Fingers crossed people! Would be a fantastic day for the organization!! But, as always, let's not get our hopes up. 

As it sounds from Jerry Z, Don Nelson would be the fall back option. Not a bad scenario at all. If either were hired, the only thing we could blame for lack of success would be our players.

More on this soon, but one of the last warm Saturdays awaits. Enjoy it.

From Jerry Z

Timberwolves assistant general manager Tony Ronzone has left the organization.

Known for his international-scouting connections, he was hired in spring 2010 just about the time Fred Hoiberg was headed for Iowa State's head-coaching job and had a voice in personnel moves that included drafting Wes Johnson and Derrick Williams as well as trading away Al Jefferson, acquiring Michael Beasley and re-signing center Darko Milicic.

The Wolves, through a spokesman, said they and Ronzone mutually have agreed to part ways and wished him good luck.

This is interesting. However, it is nearly the weekend, so I'm not sure the time is right to bemoan the masses with an overdramatic conspiracy theory on how this is related to Adelman, his wife, Kahn's mole, or Kevin Love's uncle's 4th cousin's mistress. As of now, maybe the Wolves were not a good fit for him and he moved on. This happens in the NBA often. I'm thinking this should be thought of as mutually exclusive of the coaching search and any subsequent speculation theirein.

I will say this, though, to those who call this devastating. Ronzone, to me, appeared as a guy who liked international players almost to a fault. As of now Tony (who was often tabbed as "the 2nd Round Guy") made no draft pick (or perhaps trade) that netted the Wolves anyone that played a single minute for the team. He selected Paulo Prestes, Bjelica, and a 27 year old guy from God-knows-where. This is creative, but I ask those reading, where did Tony get his sterling reputation? By picking guys who will never, ever play for us, and if they do it will be in 2016? If this article were not written about him and posted on all Wolves websites all around when we hired him, would this even be a blip on the radar? What has Tony done other than visit Yao Ming's apartment in Shanghai and draft Jonas Jerebko while with Detroit? Draft Darko Milicic over Carmelo Anthony. That'd be about it. And allegedly push for Kanter over DWilliams. 

With that said, he seemed competent, so to that end he will be missed. Best of luck Tony! But to the fans, meh, this will impact nothing.

Have a great weekend.

EXHIBIT 1:

EXHIBIT 2: Michael Beasley May Have Broken His Wrist

Luckily for us, he may just end up being OK. But seriously, could anything else go wrong for him this off-season?  Wait... don't answer that.

But really David $tern, what are you doing you greedy tyrant?  The NBA is (was?) at the peak of it's popularity, and yourself and the other crotchety old owners are holding out, in a not-so-blatant attempt to absolutely crush the Players Union? This "cash grab" by the Owners is really just sickening to me.  Yes, I realize the CBA is flawed and needs to be fixed, but the demands by the Owners are unreasonable and insulting.  I mean, really asking for billions of dollars from the players over the next decade?  NBA players are probably overpaid as a whole, but that is the CBA that was AGREED upon during the last negotiating sessions.  The players are asking for NOTHING more than the status quo, again, which was agreed upon by both parties. 

Dear readers can google articles to form their own opinions, or just go read everything in this thread.  Either way, it's pretty apparent what's going on here.

David $tern, this nonsense needs to end now.

Hahahahaha there is just an infinite wealth of captioning possibilities here!  Have at it in the comments, everyone!

P.S. For all your T-Wolves/NBA/Lockout discussion needs, make sure to check out the TWB Forums, which are alive and kicking.

Zgoda reports

Great news! Report indicates Taylor will be in the interview as well. This basically all but implies he is willing to front the money needed to hire this superb coaching candidate.

This seems to explain the holdup, as Kahn is doing what it takes to convince Mr. Adelman to come to town. Would be a hard sell, but a worthwhile one. Hopefully more on this as it comes. 

(Actual evidence of Mitchell showing good rapport with players, even of Spanish heritage)

Per the always humorous Jim Souhan, Sam Mitchell has emerged as the front runner for the Wolves head caoching position.

I'm hearing that Sam Mitchell has emerged as the frontrunner for the Timberwolves' head coaching position.

To me, this is a sign that Glen Taylor has exerted his influence on the hiring process. Mitchell is an old favorite of Taylor's, and in the absence of a sure-thing candidate like Rick Adelman (who appears to be ready to sit out next season), Mitchell, with his local ties and tough-guy persona, makes a lot of sense.

I completely concur with Souhan that this is Glen Taylor influenced. Maybe not a bad thing.

Per the update from Pants below, the list of candidates overall was none too impressive. Of the 'lower tier' candidates, Mitchell would probably be my #1 choice. This hire wouldn't have me jumping through the roofs, but Sam has had a decent history and did have a solid run in Toronto. Hiring a recent coach of the year winner certainly isn't a bad thing.

Question arise though, of a rough falling out in Toronto, along with his style of play as being a fit. His hard-nosed attitude may not mesh well with a group clearly in need of coddling. Lot's of question marks. But the Minnesota ties are there and the fans would believe in him for awhile. However Minnesota people are not loyalists. That only lasts so long (just look at McHale).

Sam was a massive veteran prescence for the Wolves during the glory years. He has had measured, recent success as a coach of a young team. Of the 'cheap' hires, this is the one to buy into. He isn't Don Nelson, but he is a familiar face to look into coaching this team long term. And anything is better than Rhombus.

I also bagged his groceries a few times... long ago.

Per Jerry Zgoda the Wolves talked to Sam Mitchell on Monday and today's interview of Larry Brown will be the end of the road. 

At this point it seems likes ages ago that the first round of interviews happened but here is the list of names supposedly in the mix:

Larry Brown

Sam Mitchell

Rick Adelman (though it seems like he's removed himself)

Mike Woodson

Terry Porter

Bernie Bickerstaff

Don Nelson

The Vegas odds on Kahn and Taylor finishing interviews and making a decisive decision on who the next coach will be are 300-1 right now. If you want to give them money take that action.

Lynx Addendum:

Box Score

The Lynx's 9 game win streak ended last night. It was a close game to the end but the Lynx couldn't get a bucket to fall in the last minute.  The bench (i.e. Wiggins) had a grand total of ZERO points for the game. Weak. Maya Moore and Augustus where fantasic. Given that it wasn't on TV that is about all I can extrapolate from the box score. 

I normally wouldn't dream of paying attention to the Lynx but a number of external factors have come into play.

1.  NBA - Dead right now

2. Twins - Not much better

3. Vikings - Destroying lives, business as usual

4. No Olympics/World Cup or other remotely interesting sport that happens on an interval. 

Then you add a very very odd phenomenon of the Lynx some how ending up with the all time best college basketball player on their team.  I'm as confused as you are.  It'd be great if some folks would join me in following this team (atleast passively, boxscore style) because here are the facts as I know them

1. This team traded a very good pick for Lindsey Whalen. 

2. Simone Augustus is good but always hurt, this year she finally isn't

3. Maya Moore is apparently very very good.

4. Candice Wiggins is our Jason Terry off the bench. It isn't clear to me if she has the 2011 WNBA championship trophy tatooed on her bicep but I wouldn't be surprised, plus she is the hottest player in the WNBA. Between Ricky and Candice the MN basketball teams need a section in the next SI Swimsuit issue. 

5. The team is 15-4 on a 8 game winning streak and they just managed to win a game that involved Maya Moore missing very shot she took 

If you know more please enlighten me. 

As part of our summer Roundtable series, College Wolf and myself took the liberty of answering four questions that.....we developed ourselves.  You can check out Part 1 about the NBA Lockout HERE.

1.Why do you think Kahn waited so long to fire Rambis? Was the backlash he received deserved?  

College Wolf: I think that might remain one of life's great unsolved mysteries; the true answer of which will probably never be known to the masses.  The backlash our organization received from the national mainstream media was most definitely deserved, as we were basically a laughingstock, being that everyone already knew Darrell Rambis was as good as gone.  Kahn more or less spelled it out during the press conference a day before the season ended, and no one could figure out why he waited as long as he did to actually fire him.  I get that there was no real rush since Rambis had a 4 year guaranteed contract, but it just made Kahn and Organization look inept and incompetent.  That's understandable and probably deserved, being as how the past half-decade has gone.  But what was Kahn really waiting for?  Perhaps he was hoping Rambis would just quit, or get an offer to go coach somewhere else?  That way at least Taylor wouldn't have had to pay the remaining 2 years of his contract.  That's really the only guess I can come up with that makes any sense to me.  He should have been fired months ago because it was the normal and logical thing to do. It is one thing if Kahn still had faith in Rambis and intended on keeping him. But he didn't.  The entire situation was really just incredibly bizarre. 

Mike: As CW said,  It is truly one of life's great mysteries along the lines of runners now running in that weird velociraptor-like arm pose you see around the lakes these days (look for it, it's weird and also fail to boot).  Whether or not all of this was "on Kahn" or not though remains to be seen. The fact remains that Kahn could hire Rick Adelman, solve the oil crisis, and end all major worldwide terrorist cells and the mainstream media (along with certain sister blog columnists) would still complain that he didn't end world hunger. It is insane. Kahn has actually and laughably been ridiculed for scoring interviews with Larry Brown, Don Nelson, and Rick Adelman. I mean, what the hell is the problem here?

To be fair, though, I have been very anti-Kahn the past 12 months, even going as far as to argue extensively earlier this year that he is worse than McHale was. But thus far this offseason he has done well, bringing in Rubio, drafting Williams, and doing the best he could with pick #20. With that said, he has a very real opportunity to curry favor with Wolves fans who sport a more radical opinion. As for what happened with Rambis... who cares? He is gone now. Whatever happened behind the scenes probably had reason or justification beyond the scope of our understanding. The backlash may be partially deserved but I have a hard time believing Rambis was completely left out to dry. This is a situation involving $4 million in sunk cost for a business seeing heavy reds for the past half decade. Life freaking goes on. Oh CRAP we missed out on Coaching Great Lawrence Frank! 12/21/12 come early!

Please click "Read More" for the remaining questions and discussion...

From Jerry Zgoda

The Timberwolves' coaching search just got very interesting.

According to league sources, former Houston coach Rick Adelman will be the fourth candidate to interview with the Wolves when he comes to town tomorrow to see David Kahn and owner Glen Taylor.

Adelman all along has looked like the dream hire who'd solve a lot of the Wolves' problems, if he's interested.

Well, it looks like he is now, at least enough to listen.

So with two very high-profile coaches coming into town this week, could expectations be any higher? Will hiring anyone other than Don or Rick be anything but an abject disaster? I mean, these two come in and we will probably end up with Sidney Lowe. I guess it is bound to happen.

Enjoy your weekend and stay cool.