LA JOLLA, CALIF. – The Timberwolves have taken their show on the road for training camp to San Diego, and what a show it is: Add up players, coaches, trainers, scouts and other front-office personnel, an army approaching 60 people has taken up quarters in gymnasiums at both the University of California-San Diego and San Diego State.
Has it been everything Tom Thibodeau hoped it would be?
"And then some," he said. "It has been invaluable to us."
The Wolves coach and president of basketball operations decided to move training camp at substantial cost from the team's Minneapolis facility to California for eight days for several reasons. It breaks up their long trip to China, where they will play two preseason games with Golden State next week. It solved practice scheduling with the Lynx, who share the practice facility with the Wolves and are playing Los Angeles in the WNBA Finals. And it provides time at nightly dinners and away from the court for a team with eight new faces at training camp to get to know each other.
Two years ago, after he was fired from the Chicago Bulls, Thibodeau visited Warriors training camp for three days in San Diego. "I saw then what a great setup it was," he said.
When he was an assistant in Boston, the Celtics held training camp in Newport, R.I. When he was in New York, the Knicks went to Charleston, S.C., When he coached in Houston, the Rockets trained in Austin, Texas.
"I felt like the team with a lot of new guys and with the travel to China, it made a lot of sense," Thibodeau said.
The Wolves are staying a three-point shot away from the Pacific Ocean during a week that has been nothing but wonderfully sunny and warm, but it has been no vacation.
