Plus, Glen’s unwillingness to build a winner now will be more disastrous than it originally appears. He’s going to be competing for attention, ticket sales, and advertising in a terrible economy, in a town with a short attention span (especially for below-average teams), against a college football team with a shiny new stadium and a young baseball team with a shinier newer stadium—plus, the Vikings, and an improving Gopher basketball team.

I wish him luck.

Someone from the league’s best franchise was willing to come to one of the league’s worst. The man has direct operational knowledge of SAS’s business and player-personnel structure. He could be asking for a clause in his contract that requires the team to provide him with weekly loads of fresh panda meat and I would still say give it to him. Unless he was asking for something crazy like getting Taylor to sign off on an attempt to bring in both Kobe and LeBron, there had better be a good explanation from PG when they end up with Hoiberg.

I like Hoiberg… and if it’s going to be an internal hire, I’d take him over anyone else. I know I just want to see someone with an outside, fresh perspective. Not saying Hoiberg can’t provide us with a new direction, it just seems less likely.

I think we’re all getting a little crazy with how long this is taking. The waiting (damn you, Tom Petty) is the hardest part, after all.

Though Morey was hired from the Celtics (not that they were great at the time). Also, I don’t consider Joe Dumars that good of a GM. But I do agree with the sentiment: personally, actions will speak the loudest. I’ve already decided on my fan incentive program where I go to a certain number of games based on how many moves they make that I like.

…wears off, I think I’ll agree on the Hoiberg front. He could be decent. I think the difference with some of those other guys are that they had external training….and I agree with PSR that I don’t consider Dumars to be that good.

Still hoping it might not be true, that Taylor will make un ultimate offer to change his mind … but I’m sucker for lost causes :(

massive amounts of luck combined with 51% or more competency from the GM.

I think the comparison with OKC is based on additional considerations beyond the current rosters.

I’m not the one to cite all the evidence but I think the conclusion reached by us folks excited about OKC
is that
1) they have a talented front office with a solid plan.

The conclusion that they have a talented front office is based partially on the fact that Presti is an SA alum, but also based on the great moves (not even considering Durant) that Presti has made as GM.

Granted the Wolves front office as somewhat emulated some of these these moves, like taking back salary for draft picks, etc. It’s just the accumulated f*ck ups over the past 13+ years that scream out for a big change. This is what OKC did, they swung for the fences as an organization by bringing in Presti. Keeping Hoiberg or Stack seems like a swinging for an opposite field single. It might be good baseball, but there’s little excitement and (given that no one’s on base) a limited chance to score a run. (OK, bad analogy).

There’s a lot of evidence that Lindsay would do a good job. This evidence includes his affiliation with SA and everything that implies (the success of Ferry, Pritchard, etc.). It also includes his experience with Houston and their success.

There’s much less evidence that Hoiberg will be effective.

Again, we are “guessing” will all of this evidence and there are no guarantees. But still, I’m a big fan of making educated guesses and that the more knowledge we have the more likely we guess correctly.

I’m also with s-n-p that although it’s important for Taylor to consider the costs of Lindsay (and all his proposed changes) $$$$ there are also monetary benefits to Lindsay. In the short term there would certainly be increased interest from the fans. Perhaps I’m overestimating this increased fan interest, but maybe Taylor is underestimating it. In the long run, there’s a vastly increased change of a winning and stable franchise and this market loves winners.

Glen may not think he can afford Lindsay, but can he afford three more sub 30 win seasons? Can he afford to turn this team into the Clippers?

There are also implications for free agents. Would FA be more likely to come here if we had Lindsay? Will they be scared off because Lindsay rejected the wolves because of a lack of commitment to winning?

Bottom line: Hopefully Taylor is not forgetting the costs of not hiring Lindsay. I’m hope he’s not underestimating those costs because I don’t want to lose basketball in MN and/or watch 3 or more additional seasons of completely awful basketball. There’s only so long you can be excited about the potential of this team.

Let’s assume that the Thunder still trade Allen to Boston for their #5 and still trade for Kurt Thomas and 2 Phoenix #1s. Best-case scenario, they now have Joakim Noah instead of Durant and still have Jeff Green. They’re still in a good future position but are missing a great scorer — a good comparison would be the difference between having Chris Kaman instead of Carmelo on the Nuggets.

For the Wolves, everything would’ve depended on whether they kept KG, how well the team had done, and whether he had opted out. I think they would’ve kept him because he would’ve been excited to play with Durant, but that might’ve also meant keeping Davis and Blount (as well as Hassell and T-Hud). Foye’s injury would’ve probably hurt their chances of making the playoffs. It would’ve still came down to whether Taylor wanted to extend his contract and whether KG would’ve had the fortitude to opt out and actually leave. Even with Durant, the team would’ve still needed to decide whether to keep on the same mindset (sacrifice the future for the present) or restructure with the idea that once Durant became a superstar, this team would have more of its ducks in a row.

All worthwhile points, except #3. Trader Jack was a washed up drunk who came cheap by the time he walked through the Wolves front door. My impression is that everyone in the league knew that move was a joke.

My recollection is that the Morey move was more of the Houston owner looking to really move in a new direction, as opposed to him thinking Lindsay was not qualified. But sure, if Lindsay was God’s gift to man, Houston probably keeps him.

But, yes, OKC is not perfect, I just find more reasons to be hopeful about their future. Very little about the wolves makes me hopeful. And I agree, OJ Mayo isn’t that good.

And how did Portland rebuild, by trading Randy Foye for Brandon Roy. Ouch! Maybe that’s luck, maybe that’s smarts.

I’m glad you are here, being optimistic. I actually really need in order to remain a dedicated fan. As others have said, it’s becoming more difficult to sit and watch all the games, to look for signs of progress. This past season, for the first time I found myself forgetting about games, not paying attention, and turning them off mid way through. Every year since 1989 I’ve listened to games on radio if I had too, but not this year. It’s not just the bad front office, we had that before, but the franchise was young and I guess so was I. But now, after 20 years, to just have no or limited accountability and to have a chance to be viewed as more legitimate around the league, and to blow it! ugh.

This franchise is, rightly or wrongly, a joke to most national sportswriters and apparently a joke to others in quality organizations. how sad. It doesn’t have to be this way. We’ve got at least two professional teams in town that are highly respected in their leagues.

…I’d say that you’re selling OKC short by a long way however. They went 7-7 in January, 3-9 in Feb, 7-8 in March, and 2-6 in April. They improved down the stretch with solid defense. They picked up Thabo and Krstic and their offense will continue to improve while their defense is already ahead of it. They have one of the dominant young players in the league, an amazing trio of perimeter defenders and a boat load of cap space.

OKC is one lotto ball away from being Portland squared (maybe cubed) in the next 2-3 years. God forbid they land Griffin.

There are those of us who keep thinking that there will be a nice linear progression of ten more wins every year for five years until the Wolves win every game, forgetting how many herky-jerky years almost every team goes through. Look at the much-discussed and sometimes-envied Trailblazers: they were just trounced in the playoffs by a flawed and short-handed Rockets team, an outcome that disappointed most of us when the Wolves did it how many ever times in a row, and not too long ago.

I still think they’re in better shape going forward, but they’ve got some questions to answer: 1) Can Westbrook be the PG on a good team? 2) Can Green guard bigger PFs? 3) Will Krstic stay healthy? 4) Can Durant become more of a force in an area besides scoring? 5) Will Sefolosha play better than he did with the Bulls? They’re further ahead due to roster balance and athleticism, but it’s debatable to me whether Durant is any better than a healthy Jefferson.

….they’ve scouted him a ton and the Wolves’ Euro scout actually runs the Euro camp that comes up in a few weeks.

….still trying to talk Splitter into giving it a go. If they get Splitter and sign a guy like Sheed they’re back in business for another 1 year run.

Maury Brown might be a decent guy but it’s hard to tell. The bizofsports websites he runs make him seem like a bit of a self promoter. He also seems to have a personal interest in Kahn being hired by the Wolves because of his various responses to online criticism, even in obscure fan posts. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had something to say right here. He has also worked with Kahn before, so maybe he would be hired by Kahn if Kahn should get the Wolves’ GM job. Of course, that’s terribly speculative on my part. I’m just trying to be wary of hidden agendas. I can’t say if they’re present.

Anyway, here is a bio
http://businessofsportsnetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6&Itemid=15