David Kahn out, Flip Saunders in as Minnesota Timberwolves’ GM

The vestiges of the David Kahn Era in Minnesota are apparently no longer safe. Flip Saunders officially assumed his role as President of Basketball Operations last Friday, and he has already started to reshuffle the scouting staff and re-organize the front office. Saunders recently fired five scouts, including international scouting director Pete Philo, in an effort to reshape the scouting staff and system set up by Kahn, according to Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

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The first order of business for the organization will be to convince Kevin Love that things are better without David Kahn, and that shouldn’t be too difficult to do. Kahn delivered some additional parting shots for Love in his exit interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, saying Love lost the respect of his teammates by not returning from injury sooner. Yikes.

Saunders will no doubt work to patch things up and brush the Kahn stuff under the rug so the franchise can move forward with its most important player. Timberwolves blog Canis Hoopus listened in on the introductory presser and came away with some thoughts on the new power structure of the front office:

In true Kahnian fashion, the ousted savant lit everything around him on fire in a long, glorious exit interview with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s ace beat writer Jerry Zgoda. It was published in four parts, and you simply have to read the whole thing: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

I picked out the four best passages for discussion. And by “best” I mean “most hilariously obtuse to the point I’m starting to believe the whole Kahn era was an elaborate practical joke.”

Kahn reasoned that the staff as a whole had Flynn ahead of Rubio on its draft board.

“Flynn was the No. 1 point guard in the staff’s eyes at that point,” Kahn said, adding that he personally had Rubio ahead of the former Syracuse Orangeman.

NBA.com’s Steve Aschburner reported six days ago that Minnesota was likely to move in this direction. Kahn leaves the team after four seasons and an 89-223 record.

The T-Wolves and owner Glen Taylor have been in talks with Saunders the last few weeks, according to Aschburner. Including options, his contract is expected to go through the 2017-18 season and could be worth upwards of $9 million in total

David Kahn is reportedly done as the personnel boss for the Minnesota Timberwolves. This was supposed to be the season that the Wolves broke the league’s longest active playoff drought; it did not happen for several reasons, the largest of which was a double-whammy of injuries to Kevin Love. Also, injuries to basically everyone else.

But that’s all in the details. In the aggregate, Kahn built a team that should have been good enough to at least compete for the final playoff seed in the West and a team that also should have been way, way better than it was. And frankly, there’s a lot of work to do for the next GM of the Wolves -- rumored to be Flip Saunders -- to reach the potential within the roster.

There are decisions to be made on Pekovic, who can be a restricted free agent, as well as Williams, who made incremental progress in his second season but has yet to fully grasp a defined role in the NBA. The Wolves will be right around the salary cap depending on whether Kirilenko exercises his opt out, and the roster is not quite finished.

As much as the Wolves need sharp drafting and canny free agent maneuvers, more than anything, they need a unifier. Adelman’s season ended with his 1,000th career victory and doubts about whether he’d be back because of his wife’s serious health issues. His input on personnel decisions and stabilizing influence is credited with helping restore Minnesota’s credibility. Whether he returns is every bit as important as whoever is running the front office.

David Kahn’s reign as general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves is about to end, according to a report by Steve Aschburner of NBA.com. Minnesota will decline Kahn’s 2013-14 team option and hire former head coach Flip Saunders to become the next president of basketball operations.

Minnesota owner Glen Taylor has been in talks with a group of investors interested in purchasing the franchise, and Saunders was involved in those talks. Now it appears he is primed to take a lead role in determining the construction of the roster.