Timberwolves GM Rumblings

Hey everybody! This is my first post on what I hope becomes a blog that can provide some fresh and quality opinions regarding the Minnesota sports scene. If you love, hate, or have contrasting opinions on an entry, just comment and let me know what you think.

It appears that the Timberwolves' long search for a general manager could come to a close soon. It seems like the guy to lead the T-Wolves' FO is going to be Tom Penn, who is currently an assistant GM for the Trailblazers. Although he isn't the NBA's best talent evaluator, he is a guy that knows the insides and outs of contracts, negotiations, trades, etc...a real numbers guy. He is a lawyer, so he knows how to negotiate contracts very well.

This quote from Penn is what I really like about him:
"The number one driving thing is talent acquisition.What we've tried to do here is to acquire as much young talent as we could and then simultaneously create as much flexibility cap wise as we could."
The Timberwolves, for the last seven-to-eight years, have dug themselves very deep holes with bad contracts and trades. Giving Troy Hudson that ridiculous six year contract in 2004 was just one of the bad moves. When the Timberwolves signed Marko Jaric to a six-year $38 million contract, they put themselves further in the hole. Moves such as these have run this organization into the ground. And as we all know, they have made some really good moves for young players (ala Brandon Roy and Rudy Fernandez). The only move that I didn't like was the Darius Miles move.

In Penn's time at Portland, some really smart moves were made. They traded for Brandon Roy, signed Rudy Fernandez, and traded an All-Star caliber player in Zach Randolph to the Knicks. The money that Portland threw at him was huge (6 years $84 million). The Blazers were lucky they were able to trade Randolph to the Knicks. This brought Randolph's contract off the books and allowed the Blazers to go after other talents.

This is why I'm such a big fan of Tom Penn: he knows that in order for an NBA team to be competetive in the short and long term, the placement of contracts is huge. If Penn is paired with a good talent evaluator (I think Hoiberg could be the guy), then some improvements can be made. He would definitely give the organization a fresh look. He isn't a washed up NBA FO guy, and he can think outside the box.