MINNEAPOLIS -- Any chance he gets, Sam Mitchell recounts the tale of his first practice alongside Kevin Garnett.
"I turned to Doug West, we were walking off the court, and I said 'One day, we're going to all say we played with Kevin Garnett,'" Mitchell told FOXSportsNorth.com. "I remember that day, because you could just tell from the very first day. He just had a special talent about him. He just knew."
That was in the fall of 1995 -- Mitchell's seventh year in the league and first back with the Timberwolves after three seasons in Indiana. What followed, of course, was the most prosperous -- the only prosperous, really -- run in franchise history that culminated with a trip to the 2004 Western Conference Finals.
Mitchell, now the club's top assistant, was a George Karl aide in Milwaukee by then. But he'd seen the potential up close, then its fulfillment from afar.
Two decades later, Mitchell and a hodgepodge coaching staff of young and old, on-job experience and hoops IQ have set out to help something similar come about.
They come from different backgrounds. Mitchell and Sidney Lowe both played here, including during the organization's inaugural season in 1989-90. They each spent five different seasons as an NBA head coach.
Then there are David Adelman and Ryan Saunders, the sons of successful coaches whose fathers helped them break into the business, and a shooting guru in Mike Penberthy, who works extensively with Minnesota's young players outside of normally-scheduled practices, shootarounds and walk-throughs.
But there's a common fire boiling below the desire to get the Wolves back near their peak. The team's current seven-win record and last-place spot in the Western Conference isn't indicative of progress, but what's going on behind the scenes -- between coach and president of basketball operations Flip Saunders' assemblage and the building blocks he's acquired -- is hoped to be the start of something special again.
The past can't be recreated. But it can be a primary point of reference.
Especially when some of its main cast is back.
"I was here with Flip when we were at the top of our game," said Lowe, an assistant under Flip Saunders here from 1999-2000 and 2003-05, and in Detroit from 2005-06. "I know what it took for us to get there. I knew what type of players we had, not just talent-wise, but character-wise. We knew what kind of guy Garnett was; we knew his leadership. We knew (Sam) Cassell, (Latrell) Sprewell and these guys, and they were going to bring it every single day. Being that I was there seeing that, I know exactly what to tell our guys in terms of what those guys did and how they approached it."
Head games
Surrounded by a FOX Sports North television crew inside Glen Taylor's suite on the Target Center's club level, Mitchell goes over how, despite his propensity for taking younger players like Garnett under his wing during 13 NBA seasons, he never thought he'd get into coaching. The front office would've been his first choice, but Bucks general manager Ernie Grunfeld explained to Mitchell during his first post-playing-career job interview that's not always how it works.
"He said, 'Sometimes, your career chooses you,'" Mitchell says. "I just feel like coaching chose me."
After 10 years in the league, the Georgia native and Mercer product cracked the coaching ranks under Karl. He got his first and only head gig in Toronto in 2004, and five years, two playoff appearances, a 156-189 overall record and a 2006-07 NBA coach of the year award later, he was fired -- 17 games into the 2008-09 campaign.
Mitchell sandwiched TV and radio work around a season on the New Jersey Nets bench as an assistant. When Saunders called him away from Sirius XM's NBA Radio, Mitchell jumped at the chance to come back to the Twin Cities.
Lowe can relate. He's been here four different times.
After a short-lived NBA career that concluded on the first-ever Wolves team alongside Mitchell, Lowe -- of North Carolina State-coach Jim Valvano fame -- stuck around as the Wolves' color commentator, assistant and head coach from 1992-94. Between stints under Saunders, he served as the Grizzlies' head man for three years, which included their move from Vancouver to Memphis.
Lowe, too, didn't exactly have his future mapped out this way.
He wanted to coach. But he had no idea where.
"Obviously the opportunity to coach in the NBA, I can't even say it's a dream," said Lowe, who also coached N.C. State from 2006-11 and served as a Jazz assistant from 2011-14,"because I couldn't even dream that big."
Both men bring a visible and audible passion to the practice court. Lowe works primarily with the guards and the Wolves defensive tactics.
It's not uncommon to hear him screaming "get up!" while standing over a perimeter defender and his charge during a scrimmage. It's even more common to see Lowe icing his 55-year-old knees after practice.
Mitchell has become Saunders' right-hand man, even filling in for him against Denver earlier this year when Saunders was ill. He's also worked closely with rookie sensation Andrew Wiggins -- not unlike his connection with Garnett.
Lowe and Mitchell both spent time in the Continental Basketball Association, which gave them an appreciation for the plaudits that come with NBA life, Lowe said. Their head coaching experience is also invaluable, according to Flip Saunders.
In the meeting room and during film breakdown, there's dissent. But it's healthy.
"It would be (difficult) if you've never been an assistant before. I've been an assistant coach before, so I learned how to be a good assistant coach," Mitchell said when asked about moving from head coach to an assistant's role. "It's not 'my way.' I'm going to give you my opinion and that, but at the end of the day, when the head coach says, 'OK, I've got all of the options on the table, I'm choosing Option B,' that's what we do. When you're a head coach, it's your vision. When you're an assistant coach, it's the head coach's vision, and it's your job as an assistant coach to help bring that vision to fruition.
"Sometimes, you need positive feedback, reinforcement that you're doing the right thing. Sometimes, you need that conflict."
Said veteran shooting guard Kevin Martin: "They're more intense. They hold guys accountable, which is good for a really young team to mold them into the players that they need to be."
Native sons
Timberwolves assistant coach Sam Mitchell played in the NBA for 13 seasons.
At the end of a recent practice, Ryan Saunders sits on a folding chair along the Target Center baseline. Wiggins is to his right, Zach LaVine to his left. Together, the trio breaks down film on Saunders' MacBook and goes over specific tendencies two 19-year-old rookies need to avoid.
Underneath the near basket, David Adelman rebounds for second-year forward Robbie Hummel, working with him on different spot-up moves.
Adelman grew up watching his dad, Rick Adelman, amass 1,000 wins during stops in Portland, Sacramento, Houston and Minnesota. Ryan Saunders toddled around these same stands in downtown Minneapolis, picking up pointers from Garnett, Mitchell and the rest of Wolves royalty during the team's heyday.
Some might cry nepotism, but these two haven't worked solely for their dads. Flip Saunders kept Adelman as the lone holdover from last year when Rick retired, and Ryan Saunders spent the past five seasons as a Wizards assistant (three under his pops).
But both men know working with dad is . . . different.
"I feel like we're pretty much always on the clock," Ryan Saunders said. "In this business, you pretty much immerse yourself in the improvement part of it all."
Saunders is by far the least outgoing of the group, a shy listener who played point guard for the Gophers just like his father. But in more individual settings, he's been an instrumental part of the club's player development efforts.
He's also somewhat of an analytics nut. His iPad application Gametime Concepts, which provides on-the-fly analysis and statistical probabilities during games, is used by several NBA and NCAA teams.
Originally a player development coach under Rick Adelman, David Adelman wears many different hats in his fourth season in Minnesota. "Responsibility's higher in certain ways, lower in others," he said. "It's one of those things you just have to feel out, see what they need from you on a day-to-day basis, whether it's player development or game-time stuff or whatever. You just blend in. That's your job."
As is the case with most NBA staffs, each assistant has certain teams for which he drafts pregame scouting reports. Other than that, Flip Saunders tries to divide tasks somewhat evenly.
Lowe and Mitchell have the big-time experience. "They know what it's like to play here in good situations and bad situations, winning situations or rebuilding situations," Adelman said.
But having a road map to follow in this business is its own type of advantage.
"The losing part of it has been something that's been unexpected, but we understand the process of it all," Ryan Saunders said, referencing injuries to starters Ricky Rubio, Nikola Pekovic and Martin that further derailed what was going to be a developmental season anyway following the Kevin Love trade. "We've had to deal with some things that we didn't expect coming into this season, but every day, preparing with a staff, if it's your father, it makes it all the better.
"Him and I have great conversations. Sometimes we agree, and sometimes we disagree."
The shot doctor
Penberthy, hired this offseason as the Wolves' shooting coach, tends to fade into the background. He stands behind the huddle during timeouts of games, looking dapper in a suit and bowtie while yucking it up with Minnesota's injured players.
But the former Lakers sharpshooter is a workhorse. He stays after practice with any player who wants to hone his shot. He comes back well after dark to work with LaVine, Wiggins, Glenn Robinson III, Shabazz Muhammad (when healthy) and anyone else hoping to get some extra work in.
"I look up to Mike," said Robinson, drafted in the second round last year. "He's given me a lot of mentoring, a lot of advice. He's just said, 'Go and do your thing.'"
Penberthy's thing is shooting. Before Saunders hired him, he worked as a private shooting coach, improving the form and mentality of Paul George, Reggie Jackson, Jrue Holiday and Andre Iguodala. He spent a week last summer trying to harness Rubio's inconsistent shot.
"I think he understands," Rubio said. "He feels the player. When I say that, I mean he (teaches) you not how to change, but how to feel the shot."
Said Penberthy: "You could change your life if you're a better shooter."
The Wolves need some of those. Coming into the year, they ranked 26th in the league in field-goal percentage (44.6) and second-to-last in 3-point percentage (34.3) since 2005. This season, Minnesota's 43.4-percent shooting clip ranks 26th in the league, and its 33.4-percent 3-point mark is 22nd.
Culture creation
Lowe grabs LaVine as he's walking off the practice floor, ready to impart one more lesson for the day.
"Do you know what excuses are like?" Lowe asks the UCLA product. The profane adage about a person's backside and the fact that "everyone has them" comes next.
As evidenced by the Wolves' record and lack of offensive efficiency noted above, the results aren't there yet. Their league-worst defense allows almost half the shots taken against it to fall through the basket. Wiggins is their only healthy, consistent, bona fide scorer at this point, and the No. 1 overall pick's only skimming the surface of what he might be able to do.
They've been rocked by an absurd amount of injuries, too. But this is about establishing a no-bull culture, the kind that vaulted Minnesota to its only respectable heights during the Garnett era, that's been missing for more than a decade since then.
"There was a lot of people who put in a lot of work to try to make us successful," Mitchell said of his playing days here, "and if you didn't want to be a part of it -- what'd (Nets owner Mikhail) Prokorov say (about departed Brooklyn coach Jason Kidd)? 'Let the door not hit where the good lord split you.' So if you don't want to be here, then excuse yourself."
How long Mitchell, Lowe and company are allowed to re-instill that mindset in Minneapolis is up in the air. Saunders replaced the retired Adelman only after the former couldn't find a suitable replacement. Saunders and owner Glen Taylor have made this sound like a short-term solution, and any successor would surely want some say in his own staff.
But assistant coaches learn not to worry about longevity. Just the task at hand. And this one's a mountainous one.
"The No. 1 thing is that we had a vision of what we want to do from the beginning," Saunders said. "The vision changed a little bit with some of the injuries, but it didn't change how we went about doing things. It's like we've got that big rock, and we've got to keep on pounding. Sometimes it's frustrating; you don't think you're ever going to break it, but you start getting some cracks eventually and getting some breakthroughs."
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