Wolves hire Chris Finch as coach after firing Ryan Saunders

MINNEAPOLIS – For the 10th time in the past 15 years, the Minnesota Timberwolves have a new head coach.

Toronto assistant Chris Finch was introduced Monday (Tuesday Manila time) as a replacement for Ryan Saunders, who was fired the night before with the team with the worst record in the NBA.

“We have great pieces in place, and I can’t wait to get to work,” Finch said in a statement distributed by the Timberwolves, before he was scheduled to meet the team in Milwaukee before playing there Tuesday.

President of basketball operations Gersson Rosas made the bench change to Finch, 51, who was in his first season with the Raptors. They worked together in Houston, where Finch was an assistant (2011-16) and Rosas was a basketball operations executive.

“He is one of the most creative basketball minds in the NBA, he succeeds in maximizing players and I am excited to see him take our team to the next level and beyond,” Rosas said.

Finch has 24 years of coaching experience, about half in Europe. The two-time NCAA Division III All-American at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania played for the Sheffield Sharks in the British Basketball League and then coached the same team from 1997 to 2003. Finch also coached the national team of Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics.

His domestic experience began in what is now called the G League, winning the 2010 Coach of the Year award for the Rio Grande Valley champion. After his six seasons with the Rockets, Finch spent a year as Denver’s assistant and three with New Orleans. Considered one of the best offensive strategists in the league, Finch has helped coach stars like Nikola Jokić, Zion Williamson and James Harden throughout his career.

Raptors coach Nick Nurse said Monday that the Finch deal was completed in about 36 hours. He knew Sunday’s game against Philadelphia would be Finch’s last after just three months with the club. Finch was hired to replace Nate Bjorkgren, who left the Nurse staff to become Indiana’s head coach this fall.

“I’ve always considered my job to try to get people to maximize their career ambitions,” Nurse said. “I don’t think they would be here in the first place if I didn’t really believe in them.”

The midseason change of staff from one team to another is rare, an obvious sign that Rosas had his former colleague in mind for a while. However, what is not uncommon is for the Timberwolves to change head coaches amid persistent struggles.

Saunders went 43-94 after taking office on an interim basis on January 6, 2019, when Tom Thibodeau was fired. When Rosas was hired to run the front office four months later, he kept Saunders as a full-time coach, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 34-year-old Saunders never had a full season.

The COVID-19 injuries, trades and protocols that shuffled and diluted the rosters appeared to be insurmountable impediments to Saunders’ success, but the loss of late-game lead was all too common. Even since star Karl-Anthony Towns recently returned, after recovering from COVID-19, the Timberwolves are 1-6. His last game with Saunders was a loss to Thibodeau and the New York Knicks on Sunday night.

Saunders is the son of the late Flip Saunders, by far the winning coach in team history and the only one alongside Thibodeau (2018) to lead a Timberwolves team to the playoffs. Ryan Saunders ranks seventh out of 13 on the all-time winning percentage list for the puzzled franchise, ahead of Bill Musselman, Randy Wittman, Bill Blair, Sidney Lowe, Kurt Rambis and Jimmy Rodgers.

Only Flip Saunders, who held the position between 1995 and 2005 and again in the 2014-15 season, has held this position for more than three years in the club’s 32 seasons of history.

After losing to the Knicks, before Saunders was fired, Towns told reporters that he seeks stability for the franchise that has had little of it for more than three decades in the league.

“I want to build my legacy here, so I want to win with the Wolves, and I’m going to do everything I can to keep it step by step, brick by brick, building something and a culture here that is going to be here for a long time,” Towns said.