Wolves seek more assistants to build basketball, life skills

David Kahn credits an epiphany for setting his franchise on a determined player-development course that brought former Timberwolves guard Chris Carr to practice Tuesday for an audition.

Kahn's revelation last summer was that the Wolves can become league leaders in making their own players better. They already have interviewed several candidates for a sixth assistant coaching position, devoted solely to working with players on their skills.

Former Timberwolves players Darrick Martin and Tony Campbell came to town before the team left for training camp in Mankato. Carr arrived Tuesday after a short crosstown trip from Hopkins, where he operates a basketball training academy for schoolchildren of all ages.

The hire is another step in Kahn's effort to remake a franchise that hasn't made the playoffs since 2004. Now that he has completely reconfigured the roster, hired head coach Kurt Rambis and five assistants, Kahn has the team aimed at hiring a player-development specialist and another person who will work with players and their off-court concerns as well as upgrading the team's weight and film rooms and players lounge before the Oct. 28 opener.

"We've told the players we want be a first-class organization, do things in a first-class way," Rambis said. "We've told them we want to give them the optimum situation for them to develop their skills. That's what David and I are trying to establish here."

So they will hire one of seven or eight candidates to assist J.B. Bickerstaff, an assistant coach and the team's player-development director.

The new guy's job: Execute a skills-improvement plan Rambis and his staff will formulate for each player. The Wolves' training-camp roster has 12 players under contract. Nine of those players -- Brian Cardinal (32), Damien Wilkins (29) and Ryan Gomes (27) are the exceptions -- are 25 years old or younger.

"With a team this young, it's important for us not to sell ourselves short," said Kahn, hired in May as the team's first president of basketball operations. "We have to make sure we support these kids whenever they want to work on their games. The person we're adding is somebody who will be willing and able to work with these kids literally any time they want to work.

"If somebody wants to come here [the team's Target Center practice facility] at 2 a.m. on a Thursday night and work, then you better have somebody available to come over at 2 a.m. on Thursday night."

Kahn has asked his basketball staff to submit written ideas on how each thinks the team can become the NBA's best team at player development.

"I'm not looking for a long memo," Kahn said. "It could be a sentence."

Kahn also is looking to hire on a retainer someone who can gain players' trust and help them with any off-the-field issues they might have. He said it won't necessarily be a former player.

"It could be a former somebody," he said. "It could be somebody with a political background. We all would hope that players would be comfortable coming to the coach or management when they have problems off the court with their lives, but I'm not so naïve as to think that can't be a barrier. I'd like them to have somebody they feel comfortable with talking about these things."

Carr played with six teams, including the Wolves, in seven NBA seasons, the last in 2001. He now owns and operates the 43 Hoops (his uniform number) Basketball Academy.

"It's an opportunity to stay involved with something I'm already involved with," Carr said. "They're a young team that's going to need to grow. It'd be a great opportunity for me to further enhance what they do, and it'd help me gain more knowledge for myself. I've learned a few things -- how to grow as a man, how to handle adversity -- in my career that I could pass along."

The Wolves on Tuesday cut free-agent guards Alonzo Gee and Jack McClinton, trimming their roster to 16 players.