Minnesota Sports Forum

Any one of our key pieces (Andrew, KAT, Zach, Ingram) could develop a personality conflict with the coach and decide to leave. Having good communication and relationships between the coach and our players is extremely important. Problems could happen with just about any coach, but Thibs worries me more than the others.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Any one of our key pieces (Andrew, KAT, Zach, Ingram) could develop a personality conflict with the coach and decide to leave. Having good communication and relationships between the coach and our players is extremely important. Problems could happen with just about any coach, but Thibs worries me more than the others.

That's my main concern with Thibs. He's clearly a terrific head coach, but I don't know that he's a good fit for our young team or for the dual role he'd get here. There is obviously a lot I don't know about Thibs. He may be less abrasive and more collegial than he appears to be from what I've seen of him and heard about him. That's why you have to hope that Glen Taylor does his due diligence and gives this a lot of thought. This decision will be huge for the franchise.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:15271450

I guess this settles it then. After all, Steven A has spoken here

papalrep wrote:http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:15271450

I guess this settles it then. After all, Steven A has spoken here

Skip agrees with him too. Yikes.

Just as an aside, is it fair to say that Doc has been a failure in the dual role? I know he hasn't made any major moves, but most of his minor moves seem to have moved the needle in the wrong direction. I guess Reddick was a good pickup. Like has been mentioned here before, the jury is out on the dual role. Detroit seems to be headed in the right direction. The Clips it is more ambiguous.

Edit: the Reddick trade was for Bledsoe. I forgot that. Jury still out i guess even though Redick is playing great now.

thedoper wrote:Just as an aside, is it fair to say that Doc has been a failure in the dual role? I know he hasn't made any major moves, but most of his minor moves seem to have moved the needle in the wrong direction. I guess Reddick was a good pickup. Like has been mentioned here before, the jury is out on the dual role. Detroit seems to be headed in the right direction. The Clips it is more ambiguous.

Mixed bag for Doc. The Redick signing was great, not just good. Completely changed them as a team as far as I'm concerned. Trading for his son was weird, but you can understand it from a personal angle. Trading a first for Jeff Green was bad. Re-signing DeAndre Jordan was a huge win. I think he ended up dealing Bledsoe for Dudley and Redick, which wasn't a bad move at the time I thought, though Dudley stunk it up during his time in LA. I also liked the cheap move of getting Mbah a Moute and you have to admire how he was able to get something out of Cole Aldrich.

I don't like him, but there's good and bad with Doc in LA. I think he's done a pretty solid job overall.

Camden wrote:

thedoper wrote:Just as an aside, is it fair to say that Doc has been a failure in the dual role? I know he hasn't made any major moves, but most of his minor moves seem to have moved the needle in the wrong direction. I guess Reddick was a good pickup. Like has been mentioned here before, the jury is out on the dual role. Detroit seems to be headed in the right direction. The Clips it is more ambiguous.

Mixed bag for Doc. The Redick signing was great, not just good. Completely changed them as a team as far as I'm concerned. Trading for his son was weird, but you can understand it from a personal angle. Trading a first for Jeff Green was bad. Re-signing DeAndre Jordan was a huge win. I think he ended up dealing Bledsoe for Dudley and Redick, which wasn't a bad move at the time I thought, though Dudley stunk it up during his time in LA. I also liked the cheap move of getting Mbah a Moute and you have to admire how he was able to get something out of Cole Aldrich.

I don't like him, but there's good and bad with Doc in LA. I think he's done a pretty solid job overall.

We won't mention that Doc's best year came when Thibs ran the defense... ;-)

If the Wolves are serious about contending for a championship, I have a hard time believing they will go with anyone other than Thibs.

[Edit: I know, Cam. I am preaching to the choir! ]

Wow, so much discussion here on a head coach. I think we're overrating this process a bit, sometimes just a change of scenery for a coach can make a huge difference. We've got great young players, maybe just a small coaching improvement will do wonders. He doesn't have to be a perfect fit.

As long as we are throwing poop on the wall...

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/53677/the-book-on-tom-thibodeau

monsterpile wrote:Britt with his take on the search. Nothing earth shattering but he covers a lot of the considerations.

https://www.minnpost.com/sports/2016/04/wolves-have-some-great-coaching-candidates-hiring-right-one-still-crapshoot

Thx for attaching this, monster...good analysis by Brit. I found it interesting that he disclosed that KF is billing Glen $150K for their search work. If we assume an hourly billing rate of $500-1000, that means KF estimated they would be working 150-300 hours on this project. That seems to support my stance that the Sid Hartman rumor about this being completed by Friday is unlikely. While $150K would represent a rather small search for KF, 150-300 hours seems adequate for them to perform the due diligence I think is necessary here. I expect their interviews will be going far beyond just interviewing the candidates, but will include interviews with players and executives who worked with the candidates and can shed additional light on their suitability. It also seems that that number of hours will allow them to expand their search beyond the four candidates we have heard about, and hopefully will include some more out-of-the-box candidates like NBA assistants and college coaches.

We haven't discussed in this thread a very public and recent failed search in our community...the one that resulted in Norwood Teague being hired as U of M athletic director in 2012. Parker Executive Search (the best known search firm in college sports) conducted that search, and despite charging the U $125K and reportedly conducting extensive interviews of several candidates plus references that were both on and off the candidates' lists, the search still failed to unearth some very troubling issues in Teague's past. It was terribly embarrassing both for the university and for Parker Search when the oversight became public. (By the way, the U has hired a different search firm to help them hire the new AD, and the fee is also $150K). You can be sure that both Glen Taylor and Korn Ferry are quite aware of this failed search, and are going to do everything possible to ensure this doesn't become a similar failed search. I'm sure Glen has instructed KF to leave no stones unturned in evaluating the qualifications and character of the various candidates, and that simply can't be done in just a couple weeks. Korn Ferry is considered the gold standard in the search business and knows its reputation is at stake in this search...it's going to be more visible than 90% of the searches they are involved with. I'm certain they wouldn't have accepted the engagement unless they were allowed to conduct it in the thorough style they generally employ. And this search is considerably more complex than the U of M AD search, because it involves filling two positions rather than just one. I still think this is going to take awhile, and I think that is a good thing. Yes, it would have been better to have both POBO and new coach on board for the draft, but Milt Newton has a good basketball mind and knows the needs of this roster as well as anyone...I have confidence that he will make a suitable selection in the upcoming draft.