--David Kahn, the Timberwolves' new president of basketball operations, said he intends to meet with Kevin McHale right after the Memorial Day holiday weekend to discuss the team's coaching job, then head to Chicago for the NBA's scouting combine to begin trade discussions with other league executives and continue work with the Wolves' existing front office on preparations for a draft that is only five weeks away.
"It'd be very easy for me to sit here today and say I'm going to fire Kevin," Kahn said. "That would show all of you out here that I have the authority -- which I do -- to do what I want to do. I won't make decisions, though, that are in my best interest. Every time we make a decision, it will be in the best interest of the Minnesota Timberwolves. That's it." He said he will not make any decisions on his new front office -- and whether general manager Jim Stack and assistant general managers Fred Hoiberg and Rob Babcock will be retained -- until work for the draft and free agency is over in July.
"These guys have the information, they're the ones providing for the draft," Kahn said. "They've been doing it all year. You can't let them go. That'd be terrible. We must keep the staff intact. They're just going to have to know it will be hard and they'll just have to be patient and then we'll get to that (to their potential future employment) later."
--In one of his first acts on the job, Kahn wrote a 12-paragraph letter introducing himself to "Wolves Fans Everywhere" and before he appeared at a news conference that introduced him asked that it be posted on the Minneapolis Star Tribune's "On the Wolves" blog, a forum where the team's most fervent remaining fans greeted his hiring with skepticism.
He opened it by saying "I love your passion" and then explained why he was the right man for the job.
"You want people to care passionately," he said. "You wish it wasn't so negative, but you'd rather have people caring than not caring at all. We have to understand that people want to be able to touch us and we have to be willing to let them touch us.
"Sports are about transparency, and we have to be much more transparent than we have been in the past. People deserve that."
QUOTE TO NOTE: "I had the over-under on that question at seven seconds, so you just got the under." -- Wolves new president of basketball operations David Kahn, after the first question he fielded from reported at his introductory news conference was about coach Kevin McHale's future.
