Remember When KG Said The Timberwolves Glen Taylor Didn't Know Shit About Basketball? He Wasn't Lying

(Source) – On 1500ESPN‘s recent The Scoop Podcast, hosted by Darren Wolfson, Taylor was a recent guest. On the show, Taylor was asked when it becomes ownership’s role to step in and involve oneself in decision-making — not explicitly related to a Butler trade, but speaking more generally.

Taylor, the majority owner of the Timberwolves since 1994, said that ownership should become involved during decisions that are “financial” impact, “culture” and for those that require a “change in direction.”

If we go off that, Taylor, by not having facilitated a deal, must believe that the financial impact of Butler’s presence with the team is not harsh. He also must feel that the culture has not been shaken to the degree that many on the outside perceive it to be. And together, Taylor must believe the sum of those parts do not justify a change in direction.

Those are subjective lines to be drawn by Taylor and therefore are not naive. What is naive is the alternative to trading Butler that Taylor offered during his interview with Wolfson.

Here is the full quote:

“That’s the alternative,” said Taylor when asked if he could see the team keeping Butler beyond the trade deadline and into free agency next summer. “You say, ‘well if [an acceptable offer] never happens, I guess we’ll never get a deal and Jimmy will play out his contract with us and become a free agent at the end of the year.’

“And then, ‘what’s our alternatives?’ We’ll have a bunch of money in salary to go out and get a free agent ourselves. So, I mean, it isn’t like we don’t have alternatives. We do.”

Who wants to tell him? Do you? No? Ok I will. Listen up Glen, we all know you have quite the disaster on your hands and that it can be stressful. Your best player doesn’t want anything to do with you or your organization so you asked that he be traded, only your coach and GM refuse to do so. That’s quite the pickle. But here’s the thing, I’m not sure you realize the situation your own franchise is currently in, so I’m going to do my best to explain this to you.

You do not have a bunch of money in salary to go out and get a free agent. Do you want to know why? Because you gave all that money to Andrew Wiggins and KAT. Here are the specifics so it’s very clear. This is your cap situation next year

Now here’s the thing. You may not know you did this, but you agreed to pay KAT $32.7M if he makes an All NBA team this season. You stupidly gave Teague that player option which he damn sure is picking up, so all in all you’re going to have around $93M committed in salary even without Butler. In case you never figured out how to open the league’s email, the salary cap for next season is $109M. Now simple math would tell you that you have some money to play with right? Again, wrong. You need to have at least 12 players on your roster, and due to a collectively bargained rule called a roster charge, you will have the lowest possible salary for each spot on your roster up to 12 players. That’s a total of around 6 as of now.  Then you also have to worry about this year’s draft where you own your own pick. That could be anything from a low number like $1M, to a high number like $8M depending on how your season does. Even with a mid round pick and minimum deals you’re looking at over $100M in committed salary. That leaves you with what, $9M left to sign that big time free agent!

Things get even tighter if KAT makes that All NBA team. Maybe that’s why Thibs never gives him the ball? Who knows. But this idea that things are still peachy because even if Butler leaves you can just go out and get a big time free agent, simply isn’t true. That’s why everyone with a brain knows you have to trade Butler and just take whatever you can get. I can imagine you don’t want to be a luxury tax offender, but you probably will have to be because you’re going to need every mid level exception you can get given your salary situation. That can buy you up to $9M more, but you’re paying a price for every dollar you are over the ax. Not great for you!

I do this mostly so you understand what your situation is as you head into the summer. The fine people of Minnesota deserve an owner who knows what the fuck is actually going on with his team considering they are about to go into a dark place most likely for the foreseeable future. In my opinion, just give the team to Kevin Garnett and his group and let them figure all this out, because clearly you have no idea what is happening.