Timberwolves president Flip Saunders has had a very busy summer, but he's finally at the point of the offseason where he's down to lower priorities. In fact, David Aldridge of NBA.com writes that he has gotten far enough down the checklist to start working on the player intros.
"I believe that whether it's your game introductions, or the music that's played, that it have a purpose. And you have to understand your fan base and what really makes them go," Saunders said. "We want them to have the kind of experience that when the fans do come in, they come back."
Here's more from Aldridge's chat with Saunders…
On his relationship with Kevin Love:
I've probably had as much communication with him as any player that I've had, over the course of the summer. I know there have been a lot of things said about him. But he's been extremely committed to the organization. We've asked him to do things from a business standpoint, meeting with different sponsors and different things, and he's been readily available to do that. I communicate with him, I'd say, three times a week, just to see how things are going..I don't know if there's fence-mending. I just kind of came in with myself, and I knew Kevin a little bit from before. I was just very point blank with him about expectations I have for him within the organization. He was very receptive and very open to that.
On predecessor David Kahn's front office setup:
They had — not saying it's wrong — but they had, he had made a decision that they were going to go more like baseball, where they had a lot of satellite scouts, and the scouts were pretty much scattered pretty much around the country..Talking with [owner] Glen [Taylor], I believe there was more organization in the places where I'd been, like with Detroit and Joe [Dumars], and other places that I'd been. I'd already been looking at Chicago back through their heyday. They had people that were there. And they had contact every day with the management, and also with the team. So going out scouting and looking at players, they had a better understanding of what the team needed.
On Milt Newton's role as GM:
He's going to have a lot of responsibility. Where he was at, he was ready to make the step to have more responsibility, maybe have more influence in what happened, both with the day-to-day and also with the vision of the team. I believe in him and [director of basketball operations] Rob [Babcock] we cover a lot of areas with the management team going forward.
On former No. 2 overall pick Derrick Williams:
He's made a big push this summer to lose weight and be quicker, and hopefully be able to play some three. We'll see over the next three weeks, and into training camp, that month, what this offseason has done with him, and what losing weight and being a little quicker has done for him. His biggest thing is, can he guard threes? The way Coach [Rick] Adelman plays, he'll be able to fit him in offensively.
Will Saunders return to coaching?
I'm extremely happy where I'm at. I never get into hypotheticals or what ifs, or what coulds, because you never really know. But I'd say when I'm just talking to people, I don't think I've been any more relaxed, happier. I'm in a perfect situation. I can really mold the team. I have a lot of input on how a team can be formed. And I don't think about coaching because Coach Adelman has been very open to me.