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As the Minnesota Timberwolves plunge into the 2006-07 regular season this week at Target Center, fans' enthusiasm for the team is at its lowest point in over a decade. And small wonder. Over the past two years, the Wolves have plummeted from a playoff berth in the Western Conference finals to the second-worst record in the conference, a span that saw their win total drop from 58 to 44 to 33. During this freefall, there have been numerous calls for the firing of the Wolves' personnel director Kevin McHale, and even some talk of unloading the franchise superstar Kevin Garnett in order to rebuild the team from scratch.

The tenures of both McHale and Garnett coincide almost exactly with the period during which Mankato businessman Glen Taylor has owned the franchise. Whatever one thinks of the job Taylor has done, he has always been forthright with the fans and the media, and he has been willing to put his money where his mouth is when it comes to improving the ballclub.

Two weeks ago, I went down to the headquarters of the Taylor Corporation in Mankato and spoke with Taylor for nearly two hours. It was a remarkably candid conversation even by Glen Taylor's standards.

City Pages: How is owning the Timberwolves different from your other businesses, and how is it the same?

Glen Taylor: What I think is different—in my experience owning the Timberwolves, I see it as being like the time that I spent in the Legislature, though that wasn't "business" in one sense. It's so very public. And everything that you do is known by everyone. I think in politics I did a pretty good job of being realistic and saying, well, this is really what happened, this is why I did this and that. I have found in politics that just telling the truth, even if the people don't like to hear it, has always been the best.

The other businesses that I'm in are all private businesses, which allow us to make decisions and then have time to [watch them] play out. And internally we have to recognize doing good or making a mistake, but it's an internal thing and it's much easier to do. It's among friends, and it's just much more comfortable. When I got involved in basketball, the part that is like politics is that you're running a business and though it's a private business in one sense, the public, your fans, kind of see it as their company or their team. In that sense, I think—I'm not saying it was a shocker, I understand it, but my experience in politics has prepared me for how open you have to be. The Timberwolves are not near as big as a lot of my other businesses. But in the eyes of the public, it's one of the main companies out of Minnesota.

 

CP: Is there a corporate culture that's the same for the Timberwolves as in your other businesses?

Taylor: The corporate culture in the basketball part, I would say, is different. Because first of all, I deal with a lot of contracts, even with my coaches and the management people. In our [other] businesses, I really don't have contracts. We hire people, we sort of assume they're going to stay with us and work with us. If they get a better job, we understand why they would leave. In the basketball part, there's a couple of things. There's number one, the players and the agents. And on some issues you can't talk to your employees, you gotta talk to their agents. And it's interesting how different players use that. Some players feel very comfortable in talking to Glen Taylor directly. Some players do not feel comfortable. So they talk to their agent who doesn't talk to me, who would talk to the coach or talk to McHale or somebody else even first.

And so, by the time I get the information on a situation, it's probably at least third-hand. And for me that's always difficult. Am I making the right decision based on the right information? Because I'm not even sure I got the right information. The other thing in basketball that's definitely different is that you commit to salaries and you're gonna pay the salary over five years or three years no matter what the performance is. All the other businesses that I have been in, you give a salary to do a basic job and if the person is in the position to make more profits, you bonus them. But it's only based upon what they do.

 

CP: I think a lot of people were surprised—I was surprised—that you didn't fire Kevin McHale this year. Did it ever enter your mind? What kind of conversation did you have with him at the end of the year?

Taylor: But if I fired Kevin, that would have to be [because] I had a plan to end up with something better. If I knew of changes that I could make, that would make us better, would I hesitate to [fire McHale]? I wouldn't, because I have fairly compensated Kevin and all that, and Kevin would not make an issue of leaving, I don't think. That's not the problem. I guess I would just say to the public, at the time last year, I didn't know of a person—and we have had different people that have asked for that job—I didn't see a person that I thought would do the job better than Kevin.

We're addressing that issue a little bit by bringing back some people and picking up the staff. Now let me just say, let's talk about Kevin a little bit. You have to remember it isn't like Kevin came and begged me for the job. I took over a franchise very quickly, and we had a problem with the team. I knew Kevin's name, didn't really know him personally. I came down and asked Kevin, could he help me in the basketball things? He said to me, Glen, that's not what I do. I don't even know if I could do that. And I said, well, but you do know how to play basketball, you've seen how to win, you knew those things. I know the business part, so let me try to help you with the business part.

But Kevin was very realistic up front in saying, "Okay, I'm growing a family. I earned my money already. I have some priorities, this isn't like I'm doing this for money now." So you understand, and he says, "You know, I love to hunt. I love to fish. I love some other things." I mean, he was always up front with all of those things. He didn't want to do basketball and give up those other things in his life. So it's not like he said, "I'm going to work 80 hours a week, or 70, or 45 hours a week."

In turn, I didn't give him two years to train him or anything. It was on-the-job training. Quite frankly, things went pretty well. But we started with a team that had been run poorly. We took a big risk—which I have always let McHale make—on drafting Garnett. That paid off. We took a risk on Stephon [Marbury]. I can't be critical of Kevin [McHale] for that. It didn't work out, but I absolutely don't know what he could have done to change that environment. I personally met with Stephon, I personally met with his agent, and was just told it didn't have anything to do with Kevin. Stephon was going to go to New York no matter what we did. It forced us into a number of trades that have not worked out well for us.

So one might say, with [Terrell] Brandon, for example, "Well, geez, Kevin, that sure didn't work out very well. But that trade was done in a short period of time, kind of based upon, "oh, cripes, everything else is falling out, this is the only thing on the market." And I'm not sure that would go down as a bad trade, except that [Brandon] got injured and the guy just didn't seem to know how to handle the injury.

There are certain individuals—like, you know, we lost Rasho [Nestoveric]. Had not planned that. I guess I have never said this before, but I will be very blunt about that—Rasho only left because of [former coach] Flip [Saunders]. He liked Kevin, he liked me, he personally met with me. If we would have traded the coach, he would have stayed. But he did not like how he was treated by Flip. Rasho said number one he, he wanted somebody with more discipline, he wanted somebody with more consistency, he didn't see this coach was doing that. He was told that if he went down to San Antonio, he would get that. Now I don't think it's worked out so well down there. But I was talking about Kevin [McHale]. I don't know what I can say about Kevin on that particular trade—we lost a center that Kevin went out and helped recruit, brought here, helped train, all that stuff.

I can tell you that Chauncey [Billups] left not because of Kevin but because of Flip. Now, have we said that? We didn't want to say that about Flip because he was here at the time. But I think since then it's been stated that Kevin asked me if I would pay for Chauncey. I said I would. Kevin said he would, went to Chauncey, Chauncey said he would stay, because we were going to offer him the same [money] as Detroit. But then Chauncey went to Flip and said, would you play me, and Flip—I'm not saying that Flip said the wrong answer, but he said, "I'm not sure that I think that you're our starting guard." Chauncey then went back to Kevin, and Kevin says, basically, we're going to be truthful. Kevin could have said to Chauncey, "oh, we're gonna start you." And I know some GMs do that stuff. Then they get the player but they have an unhappy player. But Kevin doesn't do that.

So, you know, we've lost some good people, but Kevin's kind of taking the fall on these things, and personally I know that that hasn't been the case.

 

CP: But more recently, you've had a situation where you have more contracts tied up through 2009-10 outside of Garnett, than almost every other team in the NBA. And a lot of those deals—Mark Blount, Marko Jarich, Trenton Hassell, Troy Hudson—are ones where you have extended the time and money commitment without improving the team.

Taylor: Should we walk through some?

 

CP: Sure.

Taylor: Okay. So we went out and brought in Sam [Cassell] and Latrell [Sprewell]. Big decision on our parts because it was big bucks. But I paid it. That was a big gamble. But Kevin gave me the information—well, let's just say he sold me on it. Whatever. I went along with it.

 

CP: And with good reason.

Taylor: But there is a story. Here's two guys, they're characters, but for one of the first times in the history of our business, we are bringing some guys on the team who are a little inconsistent with the way that Kevin would bring them in. His feeling after talking to them was, they're getting toward the end of their careers, and maybe they will do more "we" than "me" just because they have the chance to win. They had told him, yes, we're changing, this will [work].

 

And quite frankly, it worked out for one year. I mean, it fit exactly with Kevin's plan. The second year was just a disaster, because Sam started out saying I want a contract. And I wanted a contract. I said, Sam you got two more years [on your current deal]—play one more year, and we'll do that. And he says, I want the contract now. And I said basically, no, no, play another year. I don't mind giving you a contract with one year to go. But, you know, play it. And he eventually came down, after talking to his agent and Kevin, and personally met with me. We went away with a deal—talked to his agent about it and everything—so he says, do I have your word that next year you will talk about a contract after the year?

I said, you have my word. I'm not putting anything in writing, but you have my word that that's what I'm going to do. Well, he didn't show up for camp the very next day. He went back on his word. Now, Latrell sort of did the same thing. Kevin did offer him a contract. Quite frankly, it was fortunate he didn't take it. [laughs] But I mean, he said, Kevin actually gave him probably a million dollars in an offer each year more than he should have offered. Maybe three million more than he should have. But Latrell said he wanted $12 million or $11 million [a year], something like that. We were [offering] $6 or $7 million.

His comment about "feeding my family" wasn't really the issue with me. That was just—that was a bad thing. What was worse was that he said, "Well, then, maybe I shouldn't play so hard" or something like that.

 

CP: I think it was, "Why would I want to help this team win?"

Taylor: Yeah. That I took issue with. And I would add, so you know, that he got a letter from me personally saying that, if that's the thing, you and I got big trouble because I'm not paying you. I basically said that. Now, in fact, he probably showed me up, because he didn't play three-quarters speed. [He played full-speed.] But he never said that again.

Okay. Troy Hudson. Again, I would just say the negotiations did not go well. We should have gotten them done sooner. We could have got it done at less money.

 

CP: Why did you give in and leave out any injury clause on that Hudson contract? That was the final sticking point in your negotiations, and it turned out to be crucial.

Taylor: Because the NBA wouldn't let us.

 

CP: Wouldn't let you do a clause that said we will pay you only if you don't get injured?

Taylor: Yeah.

 

CP: Why? Because it was against the collective bargaining agreement?

Taylor: Yeah. And our problem was that we had promised him some [incentive] money, and that was the condition when we sent it to the league. We tried every way we could to get around it. Nobody has ever asked me that before about that contract, but it was one of those things where we offered him more than we would have offered him because of the [injury] conditions we'd put in there. And then, as it ended up, we lost [the injury clause] when we sent it to the league.

But let's be honest here. You could say, "Glen, maybe you should have checked it out earlier." And I would say, yes, I didn't check earlier because I thought they wouldn't have proposed it unless they thought that this was a legitimate [provision]. It certainly sounded reasonable to me. I didn't see why the league wouldn't do it. But I'll say again that maybe we should have checked that out before we go out and make an offer.

 

CP: Did you ever have the option of bailing on the offer?

Taylor: I suppose at the end, we could have walked away and backed out on our word. We haven't done that to players. When the league said "you can do it this way, but you can't do it that way," I guess we could have said at that time, we are withdrawing our offer.

So we ended up with the contract. And if he had been healthy, nobody would have noticed. Quite frankly, he has not worked out and we don't have insurance on him. It is the worst of all worlds. We have to pay him even though he has been hurt.

 

CP: Let's talk about Marko Jaric.

Taylor: Yeah, that's a different deal. So Sam has got to go at that point. I would have gotten rid of him no matter what. But I think we had other players [we could have acquired for Cassell]. But [McHale] really wanted this guy Jaric. Kevin and the staff, and, as it ended up, the coach.

 

CP: If I remember right, Casey thought Jaric would help build the defensive identity he wanted for the team.

Taylor: Yeah. And I would just say that they sold me. I had seen him play before and I didn't see quite what they saw. But they were saying, "Gee, the guy is 6-7 and he can play all these positions, and boy, wait until the fans see him." Here's what I would say to our fans on that: Let us see what happens this year and judge that. Because whatever we did last year, we really messed up.

And actually [he] is a player who comes and talks to me, so I can tell you what I know about him. Number one, he was really eager to come here. He would do anything the coach asked of him. I don't know that he wanted to play point guard nor did he think he should be playing there. But this is just a guy who won't back off, and if he is told to do that, he does that. I think, as we all saw, he got exposed. The opponents realized that, "If we put a little fast guy in there, it kills their whole defense."

Because we built a defense around pushing guys certain ways, and we put in a guard who couldn't do that. So all of a sudden Garnett's got to do it differently and Trenton's got to do it differently, and no one is doing their job anymore. It not only kills your defense, but there is a breakdown between the players because they aren't trusting each other on defense anymore. You lose a little trust in a guy, and pretty soon you start questioning the guy.

And all of a sudden, that whole thing started to break down. Now talking to Marko and kind of asking him after the fact, he said, "You know, I came in, I didn't say anything, I was willing to do it. I'm going to go back and look at it." He said, "I worked so hard that summer. I came here so enthused starting out. And it was just like I hit a wall." He said, "It had never happened to me before, but I just hit a wall. I am tearing after these guards and my mind was like just trying to keep up with it. I had never been there before."

And then he lost confidence in himself, and everyone lost confidence in him. And so then you say, "Gee, you gave a number one draft choice and Cassell for this guy?"

 

CP: What about the deal with Boston? Because I heard different things. I heard Banks was the key to it. Some people were saying the key was Ricky Davis because of his quickness and his ability to play defense and get up and down the floor on offense. But the one that really got to me is that you were trading a center who had an expiring contract, Michael Olowakandi, for a center who has a lot of money owed him for a lot of years down the road, Mark Blount. And Blount's skill set is such that it seems you are going to be asking Kevin Garnett to do a lot of the dirty work of rebounding and interior defense.

Taylor: Yeah, I would say that the trade with Boston was pretty complicated. Even the reasons for doing it.

 

CP: You mean the friction between Garnett and Szczerbiak?

Taylor: I'm just saying there was probably more to it that had to do with Wally that we have chosen not to talk about—that Kevin has never said and we have never said. I am just going to say that no matter what I say, people are going to deny it. But I would say some things came to a head that forced us to get into something we didn't necessarily want to do. I think it would have been pretty dangerous for Kevin McHale not to do the trade. That kind of thing. And that's all I'll say about that.

You also had Michael, and the Michael thing was festering on the team. It wasn't that Michael went up and down [in his on-court performance]. It was that Michael... Very seldom do you see someone with such poor relationships with the other players, and I am saying all of them. It was just that they could not feel he was a team player.

What we were dealing with, with a new coach, was probably some potential problems in the locker room. And I think we were forced to go out and get the deal we got. It is a little bit like, after you got that deal, you have to go out and manufacture the positives of the deal. So that's why you heard a number of things.

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