MINNEAPOLIS – When David Kahn first introduced Rick Adelman to the Timberwolves last fall, he told the young team that it was time to start winning. That's the kind of introduction a coach like Adelman deserves, his 945 wins and .605 winning percentage at the time enough to hint at a new era in Minneapolis.
For his first season, though, Adelman worked with a limited influence. He could coach to the fullest of his abilities, but with just two weeks to sign free agents and the summer's draft long past, the coach's influence didn't extend much further than the court.
That's one part of the game, the pacing and yelling, the (limited) practices and game plans scrawled hastily on whiteboards. But in April and May – June for the luckiest teams – the strategy shifts. It moves from courtside to meeting room, to phone calls and handshakes and, perhaps most of all, money. And as valuable as Adelman was on the court and in the locker room for the Timberwolves this season, his presence might make more of an impact between now and next October than it has since he joined the team.
If there's one consensus going forward after the Timberwolves' 26-40 season, it's that the team has potential, but it needs to focus on managing what it can. Minnesota got a painful lesson in control in March and April, a landslide of injuries that illustrated in the cruelest way how easy it is to upend hard work and momentum. Control in the offseason is an easier beast, and if the team makes good on its claim that it plans to acquire veteran talent – which it should – having Adelman, Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio on board will do a lot to overshadow that subpar record.
Adelman said recently that when he signed on with the Timberwolves, part of the agreement was that he'd be involved in offseason moves. Kahn said that he and Adelman will have total collaboration throughout the process and that the coach will be by his side during the draft period and when the team meets with prominent free agents. It's not so much generous as it is practical: after two decades as a coach, Adelman is among the league's most respected, and in many ways his presence is Kahn's best pitch.
"When I signed on here, it was pretty well understood that between David and Glen (Taylor, owner) and myself, we were going to talk things through and decide what's the best for this," Adelman said. "I think that's going to be what's going to happen. I didn't come here just to say, ‘Here, give me these guys. I'll coach them.' I think I have a pretty good understanding."
Not only does Adelman have years of experience – he debuted as a head coach in 1989 – but he's also coached a good number of elite players, including Vlade Divac, Chris Webber, Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady. He knows how to cultivate talent and make playoff runs, and that's exactly what free agents are looking for in a coach.
But perhaps some of the most exciting young talent that Adelman has coached is in Minnesota, and both Love and Rubio will go a long way toward making the Timberwolves more of a destination team for free agents. It's happened before – look no further than the Kevin Garnett era – and Adelman said that after the team's success in the late 1990s and early 2000s, players know that they can be happy and succeed in a city that's not exactly an NBA destination. With one of 2011-12's best shooters and rebounders and a first-year player whose bid for rookie of the year was sidelined only by an ACL tear, the Timberwolves already have a bright future. Love is a force in the league, and Rubio adds the mystery and excitement factor. It's a pretty good sales pitch.
"Ricky's fun to play with, and Kevin's one of the top 10 players in the league, so I think there are some very positives here," Adelman said.
Rubio might look the part of a bashful teen, but Love has an air of maturity about him and long-standing relationships with some of the league's best players. He's likely to spend his offseason lobbying free agents to come to Minnesota, and he's been adamant that the team needs a veteran presence to succeed in the future. Any inroads that Love makes will help him and his team, and Timberwolves ownership must like the active role he's taking; with the opt-out clause in Love's contract after three years, they have a limited time to win at a level that will convince him to stay.
Love knows he can't make the decisions, but he can do his part to link players he thinks might fit with the team to the people who can make the phone calls and draw up the contracts. He believes in what his team can do, and that endorsement should mean something around the league.
"I feel like people know that we have something that's for the making of something special," Love said. "I really feel like we have the money to spend. We have valuable assets on this team, so you never know what could happen."
Kahn said that the team can have cap space available if it wants to and that it's being flexible in its approach to this offseason. It can trade players without retaining salaries if it wants to put more toward free agents, or it can just trade salary-for-salary if it's not as interested in the free agent market. But with players like Jason Terry, O.J. Mayo and Eric Gordon available (and Deron Williams, but that goes beyond dreaming big), it seems likely the team will at least explore that avenue.
Even when the Timberwolves were playing well earlier this season, there was chatter that they'd make a move at the trade deadline. There was never a question that a veteran presence would make an impact, and the team's offseason needs after its late-season struggles don't differ much from what one might have imagined it would need when it had a winning record. But with Adelman, Love and Rubio, the Timberwolves' shot at attracting a high-level free agent hasn't suffered to an extent commensurate with their fall. That alone is a testament to how much a team benefits from surrounding itself with well-respected figures who will in turn promote and enhance the status of top players. Love and Rubio would have been talented without Adelman, but having such a players-first coach no doubt contributed to both of their standout seasons.
In a way, building the team the Timberwolves hope to be is a complicated cycle. Before Adelman, they had Love. They had the rights to Rubio and the hope that he'd be as good as they were betting he'd be, but without the right coach, there was no catalyst toward the kind of run the team hopes to make.
Bring in Adelman, and there's a winning history. Let him fight through one season, and talented players become stars. Give him an offseason, and with everything he's already built, it's unlikely he'll underperform.
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