The Minnesota Timberwolves lost to the New York Knicks on Sunday, dropping to the bottom of the league 7-24 this season. This defeat ended up being the last straw for the administration, and the team announced shortly after the game that it had fired coach Ryan Saunders.
What’s more, they already have a replacement lined up. Toronto Raptors assistant Chris Finch is expected to be appointed as his new coach, according Athletic Shams Charania. The Wolves’ press release indicated that a formal announcement should arrive on Monday.
Son of the late Flip Saunders, Ryan started in the NBA as an assistant to the Washington Wizards and was on the bench in DC from 2009-2014. He then got an assistant job with the Timberwolves and ended up being appointed interim coach after Tom Thibodeau was fired in 2019. After that season, he signed a permanent contract to take over and, at the age of 33, was the main head coach young man in the league.
In just under two full game seasons, the Timberwolves went 43-94 under Saunders. They ended with the league’s third worst record last season – eventually winning the lottery and taking Anthony Edwards with the No. 1 overall choice in the 2020 NBA Draft – and had the worst record so far this season before his resignation.
On some level, Saunders was stuck in an impossible situation. There was an almost total upheaval in the squad during his tenure, and more games lost through injury than you can count. When Karl-Anthony Towns has played only 45 games in the past two combined seasons, there is not much you can do. Still, with results like this, it’s no surprise that the front line has decided to take a different direction.
They will now turn to Finch, the highly regarded Raptors’ assistant who pioneered several jobs this season. Finch started his coaching career abroad in 1997 and has been on the NBA reserve bench since 2011, when he was hired by the Houston Rockets. The president of basketball operations in Houston at that time was Gersson Rosas, who now runs the Wolves office.
Finch is highly regarded for his work on the offensive side of the ball, and Raptors coach Nick Nurse called him “one of the best offensive minds in the NBA”. In an interview with The Athletic last year, Finch highlighted his affinity for playing fast and trying to be unpredictable.
It will be interesting to see what he is capable of doing with a team of Wolves that has a lot of talent, but was not able to put things together. Obviously, injuries are an important warning here, but they are 28th in the attack this season, scoring just 105.7 points for 100 possessions.