Howlin' T-Wolf

…to the bench. The Star Tribune is reporting that former Detroit Piston and coach of the WNBA’s Detroit Shock Bill Laimbeer along with former Sacramento Kings player and coach Reggie Theus will be joining Kurt Rambis’ staff as assistant coaches. Also joining the staff is Boston assistant general manager Dave Wohl who is said to be Rambis’ #1 assistant.

I’m excited about the signings here as I wasn’t expecting so much experience to be added to Rambis’ staff but Laimbeer was talked about as a legitimate head coaching candidate in the NBA and Theus and Wohl both bring previous experience so this looks to me to be a great staff to lead the Timberwolves. Kahn has said numerous times that he wants to build an organization that leads the league in player development and this staff sure looks like it could lead the way. Laimbeer and Theus both with their good playing resumes should help considerably to achieve Kahn’s goal. (Did you know Theus is the only player besides Magic that is taller than 6′6″ to tally over 750 assists in a season?)

***Also be sure to check out the great ESPN piece on Laimbeer on the video player to the right. Currently it’s the third one on the menu but scroll to page 2 if it gets bumped down.

At the request of the editors at the TrueHoop Network all the network bloggers are giving you our second favorite teams:

The Miami Heat are my second favorite team and allow me to tell you why in just two words. Dwyane Wade. Yes I spelled his name correctly and yes that is all I really need to tell you as to why the Heat are my second favorite team, but allow me to expand. If you have not had the chance to see Dwyane Wade in person you really need to make it happen. Along with Lebron he is both on the “must see in person” players lists, the first being the extremely and out of this world talented with a basketball (joined by Kobe, Durant, Chris Paul and most likely soon Blake Griffin) and the second being the freak physical athletes (joined by Shaq, Dwight Howard, Anthony Randolph and hopefully soon Jonny Flynn). Only Wade, I’d argue, could make Joel Anthony look like a servicable center, Mario Chalmers a starting point guard as a rookie, and completely carried a team with only one other player (Beasley) playing above average basketball according to John Hollinger’s PER ratings. Whether its waeving through 3 players to get to the rack, coming down and hitting a step-back 3, or waiting to be triple teamed to find the open man on the weak-side, Wade is my favorite player to watch in the NBA and the reason the Heat are my second favorite team.

Do you have a second favorite team? If so who is it and why? Post yours in the comment section below.

As was forecasted by Jerry Zgoda earlier this week, David Kahn has traded recently acquired Quentin Richardson to the Miami Heat in exchange for former Timberwolf Mark Blount. All signs point to this being a move to shave off more money from the Wolves cap this year, as Blount makes about $1.4 million less than Q with both of them in the final year of their deals, rather than for any roster or talent reasons. It is yet to be seen if Kahn will move Blount or waive him but that seems to be what the next move will be according to Zgoda.

Also I should have more up over the weekend with some more personal analysis on new coach Kurt Rambis as well as some good links as well. In the meantime be sure to check out TrueHoop’s great look at the Wolves here.

From Jonah Ballow of Timberwolves.com (click the link for the full interview):

Ballow: What were some of the attractive points for Kurt Rambis? Obviously (he had) a long playing career with the Los Angeles Lakers and then as an assistant coach for the very same team. What was attractive about making this hire especially with his prior experience with a championship caliber squad?

Kahn: Well I think that was a big part of it. He’s won at a very high level both as a player and a coach. I was a big fan of the way his Lakers teams played in the ‘80s. And he knows that’s kind of the way – a running up-tempo style – we want to employ. So I’m confident he can do that.I also felt from a player development standpoint, he really has a reputation for working with players and helping them improve as a teacher. I think he can manage our players, meaning he’s going to have to manage playing time and expectations as we grow this young team. I felt that he could do all these things.Let me say this, we had two other terrific finalists – Mark Jackson and Elston Turner. Both of them were fully capable of doing this job. That’s partly what made it so hard. I really felt we had three people who had the ability to do this for us and it was a very close call. I believe we’ve made the right call.But I also wanted to say that, out of respect for Mark and Elston and there were even a couple of people in the first round that I felt could have done this too, but we couldn’t have too many finalists or this would have taken forever. But I’m thrilled to have Kurt here.

Ballow: Filling the head coaching position, does that help with Ricky Rubio? Is that any further along than we last talked to you?

Kahn: I don’t think that it’s a huge factor. I think that the paramount factor from the moment we drafted him has been the buyout and how to solve what is a very difficult issue. We’ve been doing what we can, which isn’t much, but we’ve been doing what we can to help solve it alongside his representatives. I’m sure it’s helpful to have a coach and I’m sure that it fills in a little bit of a gap. But I truly believe that the buyout has been the paramount issue in this process.

As was rumored earlier in the week and first reported by the Los Angeles Times and now is being confirmed by Marc Stein at ESPN, the Timberwolves have hammered out a 4-year, $8+ million deal with Kurt Rambis to be their new head coach.

Personally I didn’t really have a preference between Mark Jackson and Rambis. Jackson having no coaching experience was more of a roll of the dice to see what you might get and I would have been happily on board as I think he will be a good coach when he does get the call.

However Kahn went with Rambis as his choice for the Timberwolves head coach so let’s take a look at what he brings to the bench. What I like about Rambis right off the bat is that he has always been surrounded by success in the NBA and owns seven championship rings, 4 as a player and 3 as a coach. He has played for Pat Riley alongside Magic and Kareem and has been an assistant under arguably the best coach in the NBA in Phil Jackson with whom he’s coached Kobe and Shaq. The fact that sucess breeds success in the NBA is something I think that goes underrated. Sam Presti is doing a bang-up job in Oklahoma City because he learned it first in San Antonio. So is Kevin Pritchard in Portland. When you are around successful teams you learn how to emulate them and bring with you a blue-print for success. Rambis also brings actual coaching experience as an assistant for the Lakers for 10 years as well as experience from a short stint as head coach of the Lakers in 1999 during the lock-out shortened season where he went 24-13 before being swept by the NBA champions Spurs in the second round that year.  Something I also really like on his resume: he’s been a coach with Kobe and Shaq on the team where he has seen the best at their best but more importantly at their worst, which is invaluable experience in the league in my opinion. Perhaps his best endorsement comes from Mark Madsen who thinks that Rambis will make a great Wolves coach:

Given that I’ve known Kurt Rambis for over 9 years and given that I played for the Timberwolves, I can say that Rambis would be an unbelievable fit in Minnesota.  Obviously there are other candidates as well, including Mark Jackson who would be a phenomenal selection too.

Rambis bring [sic] with him the coaching pedigree which includes playing for Pat Riley and coaching alongside Phil Jackson.  I think that he would be able to meld the Pat Riley “culture” of strict discipline and crisp execution with the “read and react” philosophy of Phil Jackson who drills the Triangle every day in practice and then let’s the players govern themselves in some degree once the game starts.

The other intangible that Rambis would bring to the table is a scrappy style of play that would reflect his own playing days.  I remember Kurt told me that one year when he was playing for the Lakers, some so-called experts were saying that the Lakers “could not win a championship with Kurt Rambis at the power forward.”  He ended up proving them wrong and even scored close to 20 points in one of the championship games under the pressure of such a large stage.  He has a great knowledge of playing the post position and would be that much more attuned to giving feedback to key players like Kevin Love and Al Jefferson.

I do think that Kurt would coach an up-tempo and hard-nosed style of play which would be well appreciated by the Minnesota Fans.  I saw reports months ago that Rambis turned down the Sacramento King head coaching job due to a variety of factors.  Kurt Rambis is a complete family man, and a man whose knowledge of the game is huge.  If David Kahn names Kurt Rambis as the head coach, I think both the players and the fans are going to like the decision.

Overall I think the Wolves did well to get arguably the #1 free agent coach and am excited to see how Rambis fills out the rest of his staff.

One last positive from this news: Glen Taylor again shows his commitment to the team by giving Rambis the deal that supposedly Sacramento would not.

The Timberwolves schedule is out! I’ll have the schedule posted on this page here, which you can also find on the tabs up on the right.

Notable so far as I go through… (And more via twitter on the right until I can put a post together)

LeBron comes to town for the Wolves 2nd game on October 30th and K.G. is right behind on November 4th.

The first national television. game won’t be until Novemeber 27th against the Phoenix Suns on ESPN. After that it’s another month until they take on the Washington Wizards at Target Center on December 26th which will be on NBATV. And that does it for Wolves games on national television.

Bassy and Mad Dog make their return to Target Center on December 16th.

The Wolves will play New Year’s day against the defending Eastern Conference Champions Orlando Magic at home.

Watch out for the Wolves to be able to go on a similar stretch as they did last year in January this season in January and February:

Of their 28 games during the two months only 8 are against teams with a record of over .500 last year.

March on the other hand should be tough as of the 14 games they have 7 against Western Conference Playoff Teams from last year, 1 against Eastern Conference Champs Orlando, and 2 against should be back in the playoffs this year Phoenix.

As for April the Wolves have 2 home games to mark down on your calendars (and to buy tickets for) as both Dwyane Wade (April 3rd) and Kobe Bryant (April 9th) make their solo appearences at Target Center.

The Timberwolves have annouced that they signed Dallas Mavericks restricted free agent center Ryan Hollins to an offer sheet. The Mavs will have 7 days to match the Wolves offer. (Terms not yet disclosed)

Kahn had this to say:

We are excited about the opportunity to have Ryan Hollins on our team… He is a lengthy, athletic center, with a lot of upside, who should complement Al and Kevin really well. We’ve had our eye on him the past several weeks and we are optimistic we can acquire him through this process.

I had heard that Hollins was going to resign in Dallas but I guess after the Mavs signed both Drew Gooden and Tim Thomas Kahn is confident they won’t match. We’ll see just how much Kahn spent on his first free-agent acquisition as Wolves President of Basketball Operations, but based on his recent trades I can’t expect it to be too much.

I personally can’t recall seeing Hollins play, however his per 36 numbers at Basketball Reference look pretty good to me. I guess we’ll find out if he can produce that with more extended minutes. Based on the small sample size of games he played over 15 minutes it looks like he might just be able to produce enough for the Wolves to be an athletic defensive center for them off the bench.

Update: Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo reports this deal is $7 million over 3 years. Meanwhile Mark Cuban tweeted a goodbye/well-wishes to Hollins with the Wolves so all signs point to the Mavericks not finding a way to match the Wolves offer. (The Mavs currently have 15 players signed and would have had to cut, waive, or trade one to do so.)

At this price I have to say this is a great deal for the Wolves and a very savvy late-summer-bargain-bin-free-agent-signing by Kahn. Centers, even backups, are usually expensive (see Gortat, Marcin) and/or a complete long shot to make an impact. With this deal the Wolves have seemingly avoided both with a low risk, high reward pickup.  Hollins seems to have the potential to be a solid, Chris Andersen type player for the Wolves, an athletic and defensive minded big off the bench, which I wrote earlier this summer is exactly what we need to go with Big Al and Senor Amor.

And for a sneak peak of what we have to look forward to on occasion next season:

A source within the Timberwolves organization tells Howlin’ T-Wolf that the Minnesota Timberwolves will hire Mark Jackson as their new coach, as soon as this week. This news is supported as well by Marc Spears report from Thursday for Yahoo! Sports:

The team is expected to hire a coach as early as Friday or as late as Monday, a source has told Yahoo! Sports. Jackson is being viewed as the front-runner for the position.

Of course Sid Hartman is reporting the opposite and that it will be Kurt Rambis. I guess we’ll see who is right.