A list of the 14 coaches in Timberwolves history should not be viewed before breakfast, lest the reader sully his or her appetite for the rest of the day.
Chris Finch is rapidly ascending an easily climbable list of all-time Timberwolves coaches
Timberwolves coach Chris Finch agreed to a well-deserved contract extension Monday that will keep him with the Wolves until 2028. A combination of competence and longevity is a rarity with the franchise.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
June 25, 2024 at 4:25PM
It is generally a reminder of the shortcomings of the Wolves and not as much the individual men who have tried to lead various iterations of a franchise that is an imperfectly perfect 500 games under .500 over the course of its 35 seasons.
But it is not pretty, nonetheless.
There are the coaches who tried in vain during the doomed early years. There are others who tried to revive the Wolves in the post-Kevin Garnett era. There are overmatched former assistants and name-brand veterans, almost all of whom failed to deliver on whatever optimism was sold at their initial news conferences.
There is also Flip Saunders. And now Chris Finch.
Flip presided over the longest stretch of success in franchise history and hoped to chart a second path before his tragic death in 2015 at age 60. For a long time, his tenure in Minnesota was the only decent thing on the franchise ledger.
But as I talked about on Tuesday’s Daily Delivery podcast, Finch has rapidly ascended the list of all-time Wolves coaches, a feat that is impressive even if it’s a fairly easy climb.
The occasion for this discussion is a contract extension agreed to Monday between the Wolves and Finch, one that will keep him here through the 2027-28 season.
Gazing confidently that far into the future has been a fraught proposition throughout Wolves history, and for good reason. Two of their former coaches posted winning percentages below .200 (Jimmy Rodgers and Kurt Rambis). Three others were below .300 (Sidney Lowe, Bill Blair and Randy Wittman) and two more didn’t fare much better (Bill Musselman and Ryan Saunders).
Dwane Casey was a good coach at the wrong time. Sam Mitchell and Kevin McHale succeeded Flip under much different circumstances, but neither particularly succeeded. Rick Adelman and Tom Thibodeau brought a level of competitiveness but came up short of expectations.
Only two coaches have won a playoff series (two apiece, in fact) in franchise history, with Flip and Finch combining for 29 of the Wolves’ 30 postseason wins. Only two have even won 100 regular season games with the Wolves.
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Finch has some work left to climb all the way to the top of the coaching list. But with a roster built to win and the coaching competence to match, Finch and the Wolves are in a spot to get there.
Here are four more things to know today:
*Also on the podcast, Star Tribune columnist Chip Scoggins and I talked about options for the Wolves and Wild in the draft as well as payroll questions surrounding several Minnesota teams.
*If the Florida Panthers can win a Stanley Cup, what’s stopping any Minnesota men’s pro sports team from winning it all?
*Well, maybe not the Vikings next year.
*Wednesday’s podcast will feature a deeper dive into the NBA draft with Star Tribune Timberwolves beat writer Chris Hine.
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