By Chad Courrier
MANKATO — The offseason was a blur of trades, signings and hirings, and after watching his basketball team go through the first practice of training camp Tuesday morning at Minnesota State, Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor said he was glad he grabbed a roster.
“I had to look at the faces and numbers,” Taylor said, laughing as he unfolded the roster he had stashed in his pants pocket. “I’ve always sat here, and there’s been one or two or three new faces. It seems like everybody’s new.”
Eighteen players were on the Bresnan Arena court Tuesday morning for the first practice of the Timberwolves’ training camp, which runs through Sunday, but only five were with the team at camp here one year ago. The team practices twice each day through Friday, then once on Saturday at Bethany Lutheran College, before hosting Milwaukee in the preseason opener at 5 p.m. Sunday at Bresnan Arena.
This has been the most hectic offseason since Taylor bought the Timberwolves in 1995, starting May 22 when he hired David Kahn to be the president of basketball operations to remake the roster.
Since then, the team has made seven trades that involved 17 players. Five players from last year’s roster were used in trades that brought back eight new faces, including six players — Quentin Richardson, Mark Blount, Darius Songaila, Chucky Atkins, Antonio Daniels and Etan Thomas — who were traded again, waived or had their contract bought out before the start of camp. There were three rookies drafted in June that aren’t here as No. 5 pick Ricky Rubio decided to stay in Spain and first-rounder Ty Lawson and Nick Calathes, who was taken in the second round, were traded on draft night.
“You wake up every morning, and you never knew what to expect,” second -year forward Kevin Love said. “It was uneasy; you didn’t know what to expect. At one point, I was talking to big Al (Jefferson), and we heard rumblings that we were going to be traded. There were guys coming in and leaving. I’m just glad I’m still here.”
Love and Jefferson are among the few players who were at training camp last season, joining Brian Cardinal, Ryan Gomes and Corey Brewer. However, Brewer and Jefferson, who has lost 30 pounds, are coming back from major knee surgeries.
“It’s hard to say after the first practice, but everybody was talking on defense like we’d been together for a while,” Love said. “We have enough veterans to help the young guys.”
Kurt Rambis was hired to coach the new-look team on Aug. 10, and he hired assistants Bill Laimbeer and Reggie Theus, who have more name recognition that the roster. A couple assistant coaches are the same, as are some of the front-office personnel, but the up-tempo style will be different.
“It’s going to take time to implement everything,” Rambis said. “We’ve got no holdovers. So much is new to everybody.”
Taylor hosted the team and staff for dinner at his Mankato home Tuesday, and he plans to get to know the new players as well as he can, while trying to understand how new schemes and philosophies will show up on the court.
“It’s exciting,” Taylor said. “Having watched (the team practice), I’m hopeful that with all the change, we have a really good foundation for the future.”
