Speaker 1: Welcome to This League Uncut in the rule of twenty
Speaker 1: four hour NBA News. This is you, Chris Haynes. It's time,
Speaker 1: work's time, It's so time. This League Uncut is underway
Speaker 1: in on fire. This should be a good one.
Speaker 2: Everybody.
Speaker 3: Welcome in to a live edition of the This League
Speaker 3: Uncut Podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm Mark Stein on the end of course Turner Sports.
Speaker 2: Chris Haynes.
Speaker 3: We host the This League Uncut Podcast twice.
Speaker 2: A week, but we don't get to do it like
Speaker 2: this too often.
Speaker 3: Live at All Star Weekend here in Indianapolis on the
Speaker 3: NBA Crossover Stage, and we have a guest of honor
Speaker 3: in about seven eight hours. He'll be coaching the Western
Speaker 3: Conference All Stars from the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Speaker 2: Coach Chris Finch. Good morning, sir.
Speaker 4: Good morning, Thanks for having me on Wells Standing Ovation
Speaker 4: right there.
Speaker 3: Minnesota, thirty nine and sixteen, number one seed in the West.
Speaker 3: You were an eighth seed last season. You're coaching the
Speaker 3: Western Conference All Stars. I'm guessing this is just how
Speaker 3: you drew it up back in October when you guys
Speaker 3: were well in training camp and planning this season out.
Speaker 5: Well, not exactly. We thought we'd be a lot better
Speaker 5: than last year. We figured we could really make a
Speaker 5: push to have a home court playoff spot, and you know,
Speaker 5: at the end of the day, hopefully that's where it
Speaker 5: continues to shake out. But we had a really really
Speaker 5: good start of the season. I think we've jumped out
Speaker 5: seventeen and four, played pretty good basketball since then too,
Speaker 5: to keep our nose in front. But the guys have
Speaker 5: been been great. We've been locked in. Defense has been
Speaker 5: the key. They really enjoy playing with each other. We've
Speaker 5: got good depth, great flaxibility, you know, a lot. We
Speaker 5: have been relatively healthy, you know last year we were not.
Speaker 5: So all the things point in the right direction. And
Speaker 5: then most importantly, you know, when you make the type
Speaker 5: of deal we made last year to bring in Rudy,
Speaker 5: like these things just take time. They just do. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's just set it time and again, you know, Lebron
Speaker 5: goes to Miami, takes them a year, you know, to
Speaker 5: figure it out. There's a lot of things that you've
Speaker 5: got to learn about each other, a lot of roles
Speaker 5: have to adjust, and our guys have done that and
Speaker 5: we've seen that kind of coming slowly. And then, like
Speaker 5: anything else, kind of all comes together at one time.
Speaker 3: When and where in your career was the last time
Speaker 3: you coached an All Star game.
Speaker 5: I G League coached the G League All Star team
Speaker 5: my first year. I think they would have been two
Speaker 5: thousand and ten. Maybe it was in Dallas, Remember they
Speaker 5: had the snowstorm. By the way, the G League All
Speaker 5: Star Game might be the best game here all weekend
Speaker 5: because they all play, because they're all being scouted by
Speaker 5: the front offices who were do stop by, and it
Speaker 5: might be the most competitive game of the entire weekend.
Speaker 3: And we only had one day of snow here in Indianapolis,
Speaker 3: but Dallas was NonStop snow and hard, hard for people
Speaker 3: to get to.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I kind of messed up the whole weekend after
Speaker 5: the well I coached in the game, but I don't
Speaker 5: think I left the hotel bar the rest of the weekend.
Speaker 4: So now we're having a good time here in Indianapolis.
Speaker 4: This is not quite the worst All Star weekend for me.
Speaker 4: Was Toronto two thousand. What year was that star sixteen?
Speaker 4: Twenty sixteen? What did the temperature get?
Speaker 2: I don't know what the number was, but it was
Speaker 2: way colder than that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we didn't step outside, not once. Fitch I have
Speaker 4: to hit you with the hard hitting question right now.
Speaker 5: I just say I was at that All Star Game too,
Speaker 5: worked on behalf the NBA with basketball down borders, and
Speaker 5: I can remember the lake freezing. You could see the
Speaker 5: lake freezing like in one hundred yard segments almost in
Speaker 5: front of our eyes.
Speaker 4: Usually All Star weekend myself, I like to hit up
Speaker 4: all the shoe events, all the parties and what else.
Speaker 4: You know, just all the brunches that's going on. Didn't
Speaker 4: hit not one of them up that that weekend. It
Speaker 4: was that serious offense. You're not getting it out of
Speaker 4: this question, hard hitting question right here. With Lebron James
Speaker 4: not showing up the practice yesterday, are you bringing him
Speaker 4: off the bench tonight?
Speaker 5: Heck? Now, I'm trying to keep my job, So I was.
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 4: We were talking a little bit before before we start recording.
Speaker 4: Like I would think for most coaches, like once you
Speaker 4: get that NBA head coaching job that you know on
Speaker 4: the bucket list is to you know, coach an All
Speaker 4: Star Game at one point because that major team is
Speaker 4: having success and has the best record leading up to
Speaker 4: the All Star break. But I would imagine like after
Speaker 4: you get one, as you've seen with the commitments you
Speaker 4: probably have after you get one, you probably want, you know,
Speaker 4: your all star break to yourself after that, Like, what's
Speaker 4: what's been the experience like for you?
Speaker 5: It's been a great experience. I mean it's a lot
Speaker 5: of really kind of cool individual experiences come up and
Speaker 5: just being able to bring you know, friends, family, you know,
Speaker 5: close ones into the event and they all get a
Speaker 5: special experience too. It's and then there's a lot of
Speaker 5: waiting in between, you know, the next, the next things
Speaker 5: that happen. But it it I've enjoyed the downtime. You know,
Speaker 5: I took a nap yesterday. I never do that, sleep
Speaker 5: in for a while today. I never do that. The
Speaker 5: mental break is from the grind of the season is
Speaker 5: just as important as the physical. You know, a lot
Speaker 5: of people would like to get get away, go to
Speaker 5: the beach, wherever they go. You know, I think we
Speaker 5: get in trouble and these if we take these things
Speaker 5: for granted, you know, and I think we get in
Speaker 5: trouble if we you know, if we don't really try
Speaker 5: to enjoy them. So yeah, next year we're assured that
Speaker 5: we can't be here regardless. But you know, as long
Speaker 5: as the great thing about being here is it means
Speaker 5: your team's playing really, really well, and that's the most important.
Speaker 3: You made a bit of a Twitter splash yesterday with
Speaker 3: your reaction to Anthony Edwards leftfty three's. In practice, they
Speaker 3: did not go well in the skills competition. What are
Speaker 3: the chances that you're gonna let him hoist a lefty
Speaker 3: three tonight in this game?
Speaker 2: Can you stop him if.
Speaker 4: He said he's shooting lefty all game.
Speaker 5: Yeah, We're gonna have a conversation about that, I think,
Speaker 5: in the spirit of heightening the competition around the game,
Speaker 5: which I know the league is really pushing everyone to do.
Speaker 5: We we need to get him to shoot right handed.
Speaker 5: But he has a he's a left handed player. He
Speaker 5: likes to attack left handed, he likes to finish left handed.
Speaker 5: He might be and you know, even unbeknownst to him
Speaker 5: left handed, he shoots a pretty well left handed. And
Speaker 5: he's been pushing me to want to shoot one in
Speaker 5: a game, a real game. Yeah, And so I said, okay,
Speaker 5: if you make if you make three out of five,
Speaker 5: you know you can do that. And he made four
Speaker 5: out of five. So, but do you know, Anthony's has
Speaker 5: got got an incredible amount of confidence. Thinks he can
Speaker 5: do whatever he puts his mind to, and most of
Speaker 5: the times he can't.
Speaker 4: Well, when you think about Anthony Edward, we were talking
Speaker 4: about him potential super left handed jump shots. Let's talk
Speaker 4: about the competition level of the All Star Game, Like,
Speaker 4: do you feel as an obligation to get the guys
Speaker 4: to play harder? What has been the message for you
Speaker 4: with the team going into this game.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I do feel an obligation that we put on
Speaker 5: the most the most competitive show we can. I know
Speaker 5: the league is really pushing the players, and uh, you know,
Speaker 5: we had a meeting with the league a week or
Speaker 5: so ago where they went through some of the points
Speaker 5: of emphasis of the weekend, and that was certainly one
Speaker 5: is they kind of bringing the competition back. I think
Speaker 5: one of the reasons they went back to East West
Speaker 5: is to hopefully it would infuse some natural rivalry between
Speaker 5: the game, within the game, between the players. But at
Speaker 5: the end of the day, it's going to come down
Speaker 5: to the players willingness to do it. Traditionally, and when
Speaker 5: we were growing up, you know, these games would kind
Speaker 5: of grow into a competitive, uh you know, competition. The
Speaker 5: fourth quarters would probably be you know, more like a
Speaker 5: regular NBA game. So yeah, I think there's a little
Speaker 5: bit of anxiety about how this is going to go tonight.
Speaker 5: I think if people will be honest with themselves, but
Speaker 5: I'm hopeful that the guys, you know, bring it and compete.
Speaker 3: What realistically, as a coach, can you say to these
Speaker 3: guys in terms of defense, what kind of defensive messaging
Speaker 3: will there be pregame or during a timeout?
Speaker 2: What do you think you can really I.
Speaker 5: Mean, I mean, you just you're gonna you can tell
Speaker 5: them to try to play some defense.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: It's I mean, it's we're not going to be scheme based.
Speaker 5: You know, we're not going to be out there with
Speaker 5: any kind of great philosophy. Just comes down to their
Speaker 5: level of individual competitiveness. You know, you don't want it
Speaker 5: to get to the point where it's too cool to
Speaker 5: play defense, you know, where everything's too cool you don't
Speaker 5: want to try. People would feel like it's you know,
Speaker 5: it's not cool to try hard, and I don't think
Speaker 5: that looks good or feels good for anybody. I'm sure
Speaker 5: in the beginning there'll be a lot of like feeling
Speaker 5: it out, and then somebody's gonna have to set the tone,
Speaker 5: you know, So the player are gonna have to go
Speaker 5: out set the tone offensively and defensively, and that'll wake
Speaker 5: up the rest of the troops.
Speaker 3: I'm sure defense has been such a big part of
Speaker 3: your success with the Wolves this season. I'm sure you're
Speaker 3: thrilled to have two of your own players on the
Speaker 3: Western Conference All Stars, but Rudy Gobert is not here.
Speaker 2: I thought Rudy Gobert should have been an All Star.
Speaker 3: How hard do you think he's taking it that he
Speaker 3: did not get selected, because you guys have the number
Speaker 3: one d in the league, top ranked defense, and he's
Speaker 3: obviously a huge part.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we thought he was deserving him an All Star nomination.
Speaker 5: For sure. He was disappointed. We were disappointed for him,
Speaker 5: but in true Rudy style, you know, he's used it
Speaker 5: as great motivation and he's played some of his best
Speaker 5: basketball ever in the last several weeks since being snubbed,
Speaker 5: so to speak. So for us, you know, we're kind
Speaker 5: of happy that he's on a beach somewhere, just.
Speaker 2: Relaxing and seething somewhere, seething and.
Speaker 5: Relaxing, fueling up for what's going to be a heck
Speaker 5: of a stretch run. I know he's got his his
Speaker 5: you know, his site set on bigger and better things
Speaker 5: for him and us, and that's what's most important.
Speaker 4: Coach I've heard in other years prior. I don't know
Speaker 4: if it's happened to you, but I'll ask, But there
Speaker 4: have been times where other coaches where they have their
Speaker 4: players participate in the All Star Games, they'll actually contact
Speaker 4: the coach that's coaching that game and tell them, hey,
Speaker 4: don't play my guy to like leave Malone. Has any
Speaker 4: coaches contacted you about playing time?
Speaker 5: That has not happened, you know, but the players have
Speaker 5: been pretty you know, pretty open and about what they
Speaker 5: want to do. You know, we kind of checked in
Speaker 5: where you know, how you're feeling, you know, what's your
Speaker 5: body like, where you're at, you know, And so they've
Speaker 5: given us a gauge where they think that they'd like
Speaker 5: to play. Who wants to play the most? Oh, no,
Speaker 5: I guess this is these are private conversations. You'll know
Speaker 5: in a few hours. Yeah, you'll know in a few hours.
Speaker 4: If he played Lebron like forty minutes today. How with
Speaker 4: Darth Ham.
Speaker 5: I think I think Lebron's going to tell me, but
Speaker 5: how much you wanted to play? Yeah, probably right there.
Speaker 3: I'd like to go back many, many years because I
Speaker 3: was fortunate to meet you. I think it's almost twenty
Speaker 3: five years ago now. You were coaching the Sheffield Sharks
Speaker 3: in England. After playing for the Sheffield Sharks, Nick Nurse
Speaker 3: was coaching the Manchester Giants. I love to tell people
Speaker 3: that I discovered the both of you, but.
Speaker 2: That's really kind of an exaggeration.
Speaker 3: Our mutual friend Ian Whittle a journalist in England at
Speaker 3: the time. He was really the only journalist in England,
Speaker 3: or pretty much the only journalist who was covering basketball,
Speaker 3: and he introduced me to both you guys now and
Speaker 3: I didn't ask too many questions because I was just
Speaker 3: getting to meet the both of you. But had I
Speaker 3: really put the full court press on you back in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine, what would you have said was your
Speaker 3: vision for your career? What were you hoping to accomplish
Speaker 3: at that point?
Speaker 5: Well, I think you know my I just thought I'd
Speaker 5: come back and be coaching in college, probably in small colleges.
Speaker 5: You know, that's always been my background. We grew up
Speaker 5: in a small college environment. I didn't have a big network,
Speaker 5: certainly in Division one. I didn't have any real network
Speaker 5: into the NBA at that point in time. I mean,
Speaker 5: I was just focused. I was so young then, probably
Speaker 5: around you know, around about thirty the beginning of my career,
Speaker 5: just trying to you know, win the British Basketball League
Speaker 5: every every single season and then go from there. And
Speaker 5: that's really it. I did have a few kind of
Speaker 5: things happened in my career, like things that didn't happen. Actually,
Speaker 5: I had a high school job back in Reading, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5: Is that I didn't get I was offered the job
Speaker 5: and then the kind of get away from me for
Speaker 5: political reasons at the last moment before I was even
Speaker 5: allowed to start. It's a long story, but it's not important.
Speaker 5: And then I had another really tiny job offer finalists
Speaker 5: for a job a small school in upstate New York,
Speaker 5: and I would have had to take a massive pay
Speaker 5: cut to do it, but I just an effort to
Speaker 5: get home. I just wanted to get home. And neither
Speaker 5: of those things happened for me, And had they happened,
Speaker 5: I wouldn't be sitting here, you know, I would be
Speaker 5: either high school coach teaching in Pennsylvania or I'd be,
Speaker 5: you know, on some small college career path right now
Speaker 5: or whatever. But when those things didn't turn out for me,
Speaker 5: I thought, what am I doing? Like, I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 5: on a good path here in Europe. I need to
Speaker 5: like maximize this opportunity, and I switched gears. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 5: I want to get to I want to get out
Speaker 5: to the bigger and better leagues. And when I went
Speaker 5: to Germany, I want to eventually get to Spain. I
Speaker 5: want to get to these top level countries. So that's
Speaker 5: why I set my sights on and when I did that,
Speaker 5: everything changed for me. Went to Germany but got fine.
Speaker 5: That had to rebuild my career in Belgium, and that
Speaker 5: was actually kind of the blessing in disguise because the
Speaker 5: team there had a lot of money. We were able
Speaker 5: to play in the European leagues. We did well in
Speaker 5: European leagues, and then it started to snowball from there.
Speaker 2: And what do you think got you on the NBA radar?
Speaker 5: Well, I know sam Hinkey got me on the NBA radar.
Speaker 5: They were when they launched their their D League in
Speaker 5: the initiative of Rio Grand they were taking over basketball operations,
Speaker 5: basically implementing the baseball model, and they just wanted somebody
Speaker 5: that had a totally different profile from what they were
Speaker 5: looking for. And unbeknownst to me at the time, they
Speaker 5: wanted somebody who played fast, inefficient basketball, which we were
Speaker 5: doing in Europe, not because we were more smart or
Speaker 5: ahead of the curve, just because these were the types
Speaker 5: of players I could afford, you know, guys who could
Speaker 5: shoot threes, undersized centers that we played fast. You know,
Speaker 5: I couldn't afford to compete in the European leagues against
Speaker 5: these big centers and his more rugged teams because we
Speaker 5: didn't have that type of money. So we built these
Speaker 5: fast teams that shoot shot a lot of threes. And
Speaker 5: they started looking for somebody, and my name kept coming up.
Speaker 5: And Sam Hinkey has a philosophy that he here's something
Speaker 5: from more than one person, he investigates it and whether
Speaker 5: it be a book, a movie, some sort of Ted talk,
Speaker 5: whatever it might be. You know, he's like, Okay, what's
Speaker 5: going on here? So he reached out to me after
Speaker 5: summer league. I was guest coach. Donnie Nelson was kind
Speaker 5: enough with one of a few contacts because he's so
Speaker 5: prevalent in Europe, and his scouting had invited me to
Speaker 5: be a guest coach with the Dallas Mavericks and at
Speaker 5: Summer League that year, Sam reached out and explained what
Speaker 5: they were looking for and asked if I would be interested,
Speaker 5: and I said sure. So that's that's kind of how
Speaker 5: it all happened. And so Sam, Darryl mory Gerson rosis
Speaker 5: you know those that triumpherent was really kind of the
Speaker 5: crew that brought me to the league.
Speaker 3: And now almost twenty years later, you're coaching the West
Speaker 3: All Stars and you're a tipsy and defense first coach.
Speaker 2: What happened to?
Speaker 5: What happened? I've always liked defense, just you know, somehow
Speaker 5: along the way, I got tabbed to being an offensive guy.
Speaker 5: That's what they wanted me to do in Houston. When
Speaker 5: I went there, they said, Okay, we're gonna go to
Speaker 5: the G League. We're gonna tinker around with this stuff,
Speaker 5: and we're gonna see what we can do and how
Speaker 5: far we can push the envelope offensively down there. And
Speaker 5: it was one of the things that kind of like
Speaker 5: gave me pause before I took the job, because I
Speaker 5: thought it was like, it's still gonna be a circus act.
Speaker 5: You know, it's what kind of I want to play
Speaker 5: basketball coach, and I don't want to just do crazy things?
Speaker 5: So now are in yeah, crazy things? I mean, look out,
Speaker 5: the game's revolutionized, and you know everybody kind of plays
Speaker 5: that way. But when we first made it to the league,
Speaker 5: probably only eight ten teams were playing with pace, you know,
Speaker 5: valuing shot selection. And then you know, once Golden State
Speaker 5: kind of hit their stride, everything just exploded from there.
Speaker 4: So You've been around a bunch of head coaches and
Speaker 4: I'm curious your perspective on this. You know, you have
Speaker 4: coaches that are great at x's and o's, You've got
Speaker 4: coaches that are great at communicating. You've got great coaches
Speaker 4: that aren't great at communicating. But when you're coaching the
Speaker 4: NBA level, what is the balance that you think that
Speaker 4: you have to have in order to be successful in
Speaker 4: like commanding the respect of the locker room, not losing guys,
Speaker 4: and being efficient? Like, what are what are the features
Speaker 4: you need to have?
Speaker 5: I would say for me, it's seventy thirty. You have
Speaker 5: the seventy thirty seventy in the man management, you know,
Speaker 5: just the relationship with the players, controlling the environment, managing
Speaker 5: the staff, holding everybody accountable. You know, the x'es and
Speaker 5: o's part is probably thirty percent for me. Staffs are
Speaker 5: so big now that we can have so many guys
Speaker 5: specialized in all the x's and o's. You know, we
Speaker 5: have offensive defensive guys, we have special teams guys, we
Speaker 5: have player development guys. I have a staff broken down
Speaker 5: into transition coach, a pick and roll coach, almost like
Speaker 5: football model, right, And I like that because it gives
Speaker 5: those guys like overview, accountability, ownership over something, empowers them
Speaker 5: in that space. Then it's easy for me to hold
Speaker 5: them accountable. Hey, you're supposed to be in charge of this,
Speaker 5: we're not good enough at that. And then I just
Speaker 5: can kind of like check in with the players and
Speaker 5: make sure that the mood is right and you know,
Speaker 5: manage the roster and deal with the front office and
Speaker 5: all that stuff. And then come meeting time, we sit
Speaker 5: down and we all lay it out on the table,
Speaker 5: and of course it's my job to make the final decisions.
Speaker 5: But I got a great staff. Trust them implicitly, but yeah,
Speaker 5: if they're not really good at the ex'es and o's part,
Speaker 5: I can't be really good at all the other things.
Speaker 5: And these jobs right now are so big. They're way
Speaker 5: more about leadership than they are about basketball.
Speaker 4: Is that something you learn.
Speaker 5: One of my first encounters with Greg Popovich, I was
Speaker 5: coaching one of his young kind of draft picks for
Speaker 5: the national team in Great Britain, Ryan Richards. Yeah, and
Speaker 5: he could. He had come over and had to watch
Speaker 5: a tournament in London. You might have actually been there.
Speaker 5: France was there in Spain. It was twenty eleven, summer
Speaker 5: before the Olympics, and I had a tiny little interaction
Speaker 5: with him talking about Ryan and when we were talking
Speaker 5: about the jobs, and he said that to me, he said,
Speaker 5: the job is way more about leadership than it's about basketball.
Speaker 5: And it always stuck with me and then just being
Speaker 5: on you know, being in it. He's one hundred percent right.
Speaker 3: Wow, I'm glad you brought up the Olympics because just
Speaker 3: what was that like? Obviously you were an American. Nick
Speaker 3: Nurse was on your staff. You guys are Americans, but
Speaker 3: you had been in England for so long to coach
Speaker 3: Great Britain in the Olympics in London, lou All, Dang,
Speaker 3: just what are your thoughts when you just think back
Speaker 3: on that whole experience.
Speaker 5: Well, it's not too dissimilar to this weekend, this experience.
Speaker 5: You know, I've never in my wildest dreams thought it
Speaker 5: would have happen. You know, with our history, Nick and
Speaker 5: I are, our history of the England is a huge
Speaker 5: affinity for basketball there and obviously, you know, our most
Speaker 5: formative years were there. We feel kind of almost like citizens,
Speaker 5: you know, with such a special place in our heart
Speaker 5: for the country and the people in the basketball game there.
Speaker 5: But it was one again surreal experience after another. I mean,
Speaker 5: met the Prime Minister, met the Queen. Really yeah, and
Speaker 5: how is that? What was meeting the queen like that?
Speaker 5: It was incredible and Nick and I it was so
Speaker 5: the Olympics open on Friday night, the opening ceremonies Saturday morning,
Speaker 5: we were like in our apartment and we got a
Speaker 5: knock on the door and guy's sense like, hey, the
Speaker 5: Queen's coming through to view her you know, basically dormitory
Speaker 5: block where all the British athletes were living, and she
Speaker 5: wants to meet half a dozen coaches and half a
Speaker 5: dozen athletes, and most of the people were out like
Speaker 5: they're out training they're out wherever, and so Nick and
Speaker 5: I were able to do a little receiving line comes
Speaker 5: down super gracious, you know, somebody with her, with her presence.
Speaker 2: I don't even know.
Speaker 5: You don't bow, no, you just kind of put your
Speaker 5: hands behind your back and wait for her to talk
Speaker 5: to you. And there's all these photocols. You know, I
Speaker 5: tell the story a lot.
Speaker 2: So coaching Lebron is nothing.
Speaker 5: You've met the queen, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, but like
Speaker 5: she makes you. She made you feel incredibly at ease,
Speaker 5: which is quite you know, quite a quite a quite
Speaker 5: the talent when you're you know, dealing with somebody like
Speaker 5: the Queen. But the best part was Prince She said, oh,
Speaker 5: and what do you do? I said, I coach basketball.
Speaker 5: She said, all that makes sense, you're very tall. Yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, all the usual things that some grandmother would
Speaker 5: say too. Yeah, she did there with me. Well, Nick
Speaker 5: Nurse was there and Prince Philip, her husband, was right behind,
Speaker 5: and she said, on what do you Oh, you must
Speaker 5: be the wrestling coach. At the time. The time, Nick
Speaker 5: was carrying about twenty five extra pounds than he is
Speaker 5: right now. So we always laugh about that. But in
Speaker 5: my office, I have that picture of Nick and I
Speaker 5: both with the with the Queen. So and then just
Speaker 5: to get to the games and that you know, growing
Speaker 5: up like the Olympics were like this. I mean, we
Speaker 5: didn't miss them when we were growing up with just
Speaker 5: they thought this is an incredible sporting event. And then
Speaker 5: as you get into professional sports you become so cynical
Speaker 5: about everything, right, and then when it all changed when
Speaker 5: I was able to be in the Olympics, it's an
Speaker 5: incredibly pure sporting event and we know it's not pure,
Speaker 5: but as athletes in the village, it was an incredible,
Speaker 5: incredible time. So and then to be able to step
Speaker 5: out on the floor and what it meant to those
Speaker 5: players to hear the you know, God save the Queen
Speaker 5: before the games in the arenas you know, playing basketball,
Speaker 5: which is not a marquee sport in England, but it
Speaker 5: become a pretty big event, team event in the run
Speaker 5: up to the Olympics.
Speaker 3: So especially because the Olympic field it's only twelve teams,
Speaker 3: it's so much smaller than the World World Cup.
Speaker 5: So huge. Yeah. So it's just again I can't you know,
Speaker 5: just lucky think about my career, things that.
Speaker 4: Have happened to me, coach, I want to get a
Speaker 4: get a question from the audience real quick.
Speaker 5: And I see a young.
Speaker 4: Lady right here, been raising her hand all night. Young lady,
Speaker 4: come come here police.
Speaker 2: What is your name, Charlotte?
Speaker 5: Charlotte?
Speaker 4: What's your last name? Kane's?
Speaker 2: This is my wife, coach.
Speaker 6: Yes, well, Coach, I definitely am intrigued with your story.
Speaker 6: And I just feel like what you've gone through is
Speaker 6: inspirational and.
Speaker 2: Required a lot of endurance.
Speaker 6: And I want to know how you really use your
Speaker 6: your life lessons to you know, help your not only
Speaker 6: the players, but your staff, because it is about leadership
Speaker 6: and you've had doors open and doors closed, and you know,
Speaker 6: with players there, you know they could be traded, they
Speaker 6: could you know, get hurt, or staff they're not getting
Speaker 6: opportunities that they think that they deserve or they would
Speaker 6: be next in line. How do you use your life
Speaker 6: lessons to like lead them and guide them?
Speaker 5: Great question? Thank you. A couple of things. First of all,
Speaker 5: you know, I I consider myself kind of an NBA outsider,
Speaker 5: just you know my I think what my path is
Speaker 5: taught is a lot of humility. I loved everywhere I
Speaker 5: was at I mean, I really did, and so you know,
Speaker 5: it kind of bothers me if we go to a
Speaker 5: hotel and people complain about these five star hotels that
Speaker 5: we stay in. You know, I'm just like, you know,
Speaker 5: kind of it's a reality check. Hey, come on, Like
Speaker 5: if you were kind of berthed right into the NBA opportunity,
Speaker 5: you get spoiled quickly. And I think like having to
Speaker 5: kind of coach, you know, around the edges or take
Speaker 5: a different path, keeps you, keeps you grounded a little
Speaker 5: bit more. Sometimes I have to remind our staff of that.
Speaker 5: You know, hey, let's reduce our footprint. Let's let's be
Speaker 5: super grateful for the things that we're able to have here.
Speaker 5: And then the other thing is it's like you just
Speaker 5: got to put the work in and it take it
Speaker 5: takes time. Like you know, everybody wants it so fast,
Speaker 5: you know, whether it's players or coaches, everybody wants it
Speaker 5: so fast. And that comes from a good place, it
Speaker 5: really does. And and but sometimes you know, it just
Speaker 5: doesn't come. And if it doesn't come where you're at,
Speaker 5: this is what I've learned. It like you keep trying
Speaker 5: and keep trying and keep trying, it's probably not going
Speaker 5: to come. There, and then it's not until you leave
Speaker 5: that environment you really realize maybe it was dysfunctional, maybe
Speaker 5: it wasn't for me. And you always land like we live,
Speaker 5: We work in a volatile environment and getting fired or
Speaker 5: they were moving on is just part of it. But
Speaker 5: I've always landed in a better place, but I couldn't
Speaker 5: see it until I got there. And and when you
Speaker 5: get there, you get the chance to kind of like
Speaker 5: reinvent yourself or go back to what you do best.
Speaker 5: And then a whole other people, whole nother you know,
Speaker 5: group of people that can then appreciate working with you
Speaker 5: and you with them. So those are some of the things.
Speaker 5: I think. A person that bodies that on my team
Speaker 5: is Nikhil Alexander Walker. I was with him as a
Speaker 5: young player, just kept stubbing his toe, stubbing his toe,
Speaker 5: wanted it so bad, wanted so bad, and just had
Speaker 5: to go through these processes. And now he's like one
Speaker 5: of our most important players, you know, and it's really
Speaker 5: been incredible to like watch him kind of develop that way.
Speaker 3: I'm glad you brought it back to the Timberwolves because
Speaker 3: our boss Scott Shapiro, who I want to thank for
Speaker 3: helping us make this show happen. He is a Minnesota native,
Speaker 3: massive Timberwolves fan, and he's going to be playing this
Speaker 3: on Loop in his car driving work probably all week
Speaker 3: till you guys play another game.
Speaker 4: So producer Tim as well.
Speaker 3: Our producer Tim, who's working on this show, another Minneapolis.
Speaker 5: Well, we appreciate the sport you. One thing that's been
Speaker 5: great about our current success is we see a ton
Speaker 5: of Timberwolves fans in visiting arenas right now, and that's
Speaker 5: pretty cool.
Speaker 3: So you guys are thirty nine and sixteen atop the
Speaker 3: West here at the break. If my math is right,
Speaker 3: I think this is the thirty fifth season of Timberwolves basketball.
Speaker 3: But this is a franchise that has not won a
Speaker 3: playoff series for twenty years, and that run to the
Speaker 3: West Finals and four it's the only two playoff series
Speaker 3: that the franchise has ever won. So how much as
Speaker 3: a staff, your team, how much do you guys feel
Speaker 3: that weight of expectation because obviously in the regular season
Speaker 3: you're building up to this playoff run.
Speaker 5: Now, really, really, I've never heard that before, Like most
Speaker 5: things that you know have happened previously to us. Arriving
Speaker 5: in Minnesota. We don't pay a ton of attention to it.
Speaker 5: The history's there, but it doesn't really relate to us.
Speaker 5: We're trying to forge our own path. We believe what
Speaker 5: we're doing is real and repeatable. You know, we got
Speaker 5: some guys that I know are super hungry. They don't
Speaker 5: care about individual accolades right now. They're focused on one
Speaker 5: thing that as pushing this team through the playoffs as
Speaker 5: far as I can go.
Speaker 3: Maybe you can answer this one, because you guys were
Speaker 3: in Dallas recently and I had a chance to visit
Speaker 3: with Tim Conley and I said, you know, you took
Speaker 3: so much, so much grief from all of us media.
Speaker 2: Know it all is last season. Don't you want to.
Speaker 3: Throw it back in our face? How well the trade
Speaker 3: is working out now? And of course he was very
Speaker 3: humble and he wouldn't do it. But how good is
Speaker 3: he feeling right now after last season and all the
Speaker 3: heat you guys took, and like you said, a year later,
Speaker 3: with you time to get everybody acclimated, and we see
Speaker 3: Rudy bouncing back with such a strong season.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think Tim feels extremely proud of this
Speaker 5: team and its efforts. I think it's the vision he
Speaker 5: always had. We always knew it took take time. We
Speaker 5: thought last season it would take at least fifty games
Speaker 5: to figure it out. We never really got that chance, right.
Speaker 5: He's an incredible valuator of talent and how that talent
Speaker 5: fits together. We have a continual dialogue about it all.
Speaker 5: I really love working with him. He's never going to
Speaker 5: be the type of guy who's going to throw it
Speaker 5: in anyone's face, know, because he knows how quickly these
Speaker 5: things can change. And that's the that's the league we
Speaker 5: work in. You got to stay humble through your success.
Speaker 5: You know. We all sat in that room and we
Speaker 5: made this the Ruty deal, and we just we were
Speaker 5: committed to making it work. And even last year we
Speaker 5: didn't feel like it didn't work. We probably win twenty
Speaker 5: five games, we don't have Rudy. We're not in the
Speaker 5: playoffs last year if we don't have Rudy, and then
Speaker 5: you know, being able to continually add to the roster,
Speaker 5: you know, Mike, the emergence of Ni Kiel now Monte
Speaker 5: Kyle Anderson as a signing. I mean, there's been a
Speaker 5: lot of home runs that Tim Connley's hit, and it's
Speaker 5: not just the Ruty deal. But it's really the totality
Speaker 5: of it all.
Speaker 3: And size is back, right. I mean, you're not gonna
Speaker 3: win in the NBA without size.
Speaker 2: In the West.
Speaker 3: You got to get through Denver and you can't do
Speaker 3: that with outsize.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know they're not going to take their
Speaker 5: best player off the floor to go small, you know.
Speaker 5: And and I think also at the height of small ball,
Speaker 5: and the best team to ever do it was Golden State,
Speaker 5: and you're just not going to do it better than them.
Speaker 5: So I think one of the things coming into it
Speaker 5: all was like can we be different? And can that
Speaker 5: be good enough?
Speaker 4: We had a none of somebody from audience one ask
Speaker 4: the question.
Speaker 3: I go for it, We're good, go for it, and
Speaker 3: then go for it and then we're gonna all right.
Speaker 5: Where are you from?
Speaker 7: I had done David Warshowski, Chris as a fellow f
Speaker 7: and m Alum you had me by a couple of years.
Speaker 7: One not so serious question. When we used to play
Speaker 7: pickup ball, you used to make me look the fool
Speaker 7: by busting me with threes from the outside.
Speaker 5: Why'd you have to do that then?
Speaker 7: But the more serious question is you took an untraditional
Speaker 7: route and playing for a legendary coach like Coach Robinson,
Speaker 7: and being from Franklin and Marshall. Were there positives for
Speaker 7: you compared to coaches who don't come through that kind
Speaker 7: of background that have made you the coach that you
Speaker 7: are today.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I appreciate that, and so we need
Speaker 5: to see some footage.
Speaker 2: I need some footage of you playing.
Speaker 5: And three, you appreciate people from Franklin Marshall are known
Speaker 5: as Fummers, so it's a fellow fumber here. I was
Speaker 5: fortunate in my career to have great coaches at high
Speaker 5: school and college level. In particular, Coach Robinson will be
Speaker 5: in the Hall of Fame one day. I'm sure there's one,
Speaker 5: just shy of a thousand game. It's the only job
Speaker 5: he ever had. He held it for fifty years he went.
Speaker 5: When I was there, we were ranked number one in
Speaker 5: the nation for three out of the four years in
Speaker 5: my entire career. We lost fourteen games in college, three
Speaker 5: of them to Princeton and the other four in the tournament.
Speaker 5: So we lost basically seven regular season games to Division
Speaker 5: three opponents. What I learned from Coach was situational basketball.
Speaker 5: It was outstanding at like, you know, how do you
Speaker 5: manage through end of games? In fact, I should probably
Speaker 5: bring them in and have them talked to our team
Speaker 5: a little bit here, as we have blown a lot
Speaker 5: of fourth quarter leeds late resily. But I also learned
Speaker 5: that it's simple. We had three plays. That's it. We
Speaker 5: had three plays. He never changed him. It was the
Speaker 5: same four three plays for all four years, probably the
Speaker 5: same three plays for thirty of his fifty years coaching there.
Speaker 5: And it wasn't about the x's and o's. It was
Speaker 5: just about how well you choose to do what you
Speaker 5: choose to do. So, you know, when I look back
Speaker 5: sometimes I have compared my career to my brother, which
Speaker 5: who didn't have good coaching. You know, he didn't have
Speaker 5: the same experience with and he was five years ahead
Speaker 5: of me. And the only reason I'm in basketball is
Speaker 5: because I followed him and he just didn't have the
Speaker 5: enjoyment and the coaching that I was lucky to have.
Speaker 5: So there's a ton of things I take from Coach
Speaker 5: Robinson to this day, from the fluidity of the offense,
Speaker 5: to the simplicity of things to managing the small pieces
Speaker 5: of the game. You know, so.
Speaker 2: Well, look without your star power.
Speaker 3: We would not have been granted this stage, so to
Speaker 3: do this on seriously, to do to come in here
Speaker 3: and join us on the day you've got to coach
Speaker 3: the All Star Game on the morning of the game,
Speaker 3: we are really appreciative. Congratulations to you on a tremendous
Speaker 3: first two thirds of the season and wishing you and
Speaker 3: the Timberwolves great luck here in the playoffs to come. Everybody,
Speaker 3: thanks so much for joining us, Thanks to Chris Finch,
Speaker 3: coach of the Wolves, and please, as always remember keep
Speaker 3: listening to This League Uncut. Please follow us, rate review,
Speaker 3: subscribe to the podcast via Apple, Spotify, wherever you get
Speaker 3: your podcasts, and a lot of fun for Chris and
Speaker 3: I were not in the same room too often. So
Speaker 3: great to have a live episode of This League Uncut
Speaker 3: and so honored to have Chris Finch the Timberwolves here
Speaker 3: with us.
Speaker 2: Thanks again for being with us.
Speaker 5: Everybody, Thank you, thank you, and that'll do it for us.
Speaker 1: See you next time. This League uncuta is and iHeartRadio production.
Speaker 1: The suck a locket Chris Haines and Mark Stein
Speaker 5: M HM