Timberwolves coach and president of basketball operations Tom Thibodeau shook up his coaching staff Monday by cutting ties with three assistants, Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic reports. The most notable of the cuts is player development coach Vince Legarza, who worked closely with center Karl-Anthony Towns. Shooting coach Peter Patton and assistant video coordinator Wes Bohn are the other coaches who will not return. Towns was not given prior notice of Legarza’s departure, Krawczynski continues. Thibodeau may not replace all of those coaches since he has told some people that he’d like to downsize, Krawczynski adds.
In other notable developments around the Northwest Division:
- Jazz point guard Dante Exum has a strained left hamstring and his status for the remainder of the series against the Rockets is uncertain, Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports tweets. Exum underwent an MRI and further evaluation Monday after he suffered the injury in Game 4. Exum and Ricky Rubio, who also has a hamstring injury, will not play in Game 5 on Tuesday, the team tweets.
- There’s no chance guard Rodney Hood will return to the Jazz as a free agent, Tony Jones of the Salt Lake Tribune tweets. Hood will be a restricted free agent if he receives a $3.47MM qualifying offer from the Cavaliers. Otherwise, he’ll be unrestricted.
- The Thunder are willing to pay the steep cost of retaining free agent Paul George, according to Brett Dawson of The Oklahoman. George will likely sign a max contract in free agency this summer. The team wants to remain competitive, even if it means footing the bill for $260MM in salary and luxury-tax penalties, Dawson adds.
Where are these teams getting this extra luxury tax money? If every team is basically paying luxury tax to retain players, what is the point of the luxury tax?
Basketball team revenues are measured in hundreds of millions. Team salary is a fraction of the pie. The players union really screwed themselves by agreeing to any sort of salary cap.
Plus the NBA is by far the most “left wing” league. And that means central planning and regulations to achieve an outcome, not just to field a competitive group of teams.
Operating income is different than Revenue… Only 3 teams topped 100M per forbes. Cavs operated at a loss.
If the Thunder are going to pay all that money Melo has to go. He would make them favorites for next season if he played off the bench but he doesn’t want to so make him go elsewhere.
Ha they are nowhere near favorites
If Melo would play off the bench yes, it could be a lot like the 2012 team where Harden came off the bench and they went to the Finals.
Squirrelly Dionis saying squirrelly things again.