Minnesota Timberwolves: Is Flip Saunders The Right Choice To Replace David Kahn?

The Minnesota Timberwolves have gone back to a familiar face in Flip Saunders. Photo Credit: Keith Allison, Flickr.com

The Minnesota Timberwolves have brought back a familiar face as their new President of Basketball Operations. Flip Saunders has returned to the Timberwolves and will look to relive some of the glory days of the organization, where he is still the leader in coaching victories, with a 411-326 record.

Owner Glen Taylor didn’t waste much time in hiring Saunders, due to his comfort level with him. Working at a high level in the NBA requires a lot of trust and communication, and Saunders will be able to instantly provide that level of familiarity.

Saunders walks into a very promising situation, with a great nucleus of Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio and Nikola Pekovic in place. They’ve got an excellent supporting cast as well and if it weren’t for injuries, the Wolves would have been one of the surprise teams in the Western Conference in 2012-13.

The biggest question is whether Saunders can fix some of the errors that David Kahn committed. The most glaring error was declining to sign Love to a max extension. Instead of the five-year extension that most felt he deserved, he was given a four-year extension with an opt-out clause in year four.

Although that was damaging from a personal standpoint, those kind of relationships can be fixed. What can’t be fixed are draft mistakes. Sure, missing on a guy here or there can happen. What a team can’t afford is to miss badly with consecutive picks.

Don’t forget, it was Kahn who drafted Jonny Flynn over Stephen Curry. It was Kahn who traded away a pick used on Ty Lawson. He chose Wesley Johnson No. 4 in 2010. In fact, the Wolves have retained only two of the 10 picks that Kahn made during his four years.

The combination of Saunders in the front office and Rick Adelman as coach brings a lot of quality talent to the basketball operations department. They have over 45 years of professional basketball experience between the two of them, with most of it being positive (except the Joe Smith fiasco).

So, the Wolves have management and coaching in place, a talented roster and some maneuverability with the salary cap. Things are looking up in Minnesota again. Saunders won’t be able to ride on the coattails of Kevin Garnett this time, but be certain that he’ll do a lot better job than the previous regime did.