Karl-Anthony Towns cleared to play against Atlanta

While Silver tries to stay out of the fray, he does say that this saga has taught the league what not to do. “I think let’s wait to see how this one works out. But it’s certainly not ideal to have a stepped transaction like this,” Silver said. “It’s within our rules, from that standpoint, and it’s what Glen Taylor wanted and it’s what they were willing to agree to at the time. But I think once the dust clears on this deal, it may cause us to reassess what sort of transactions we should allow.” The team has the potential to play into June if everything breaks right. The fight for ownership could go on a lot longer. -via The Athletic / April 12, 2024

The final two home games of the Minnesota Timberwolves regular season should bring nothing but celebratory vibes. The Wolves still have an outside chance to be the No. 1-seeded team in the Western Conference, will host Game 1 of their first-round playoff series for the first time in 20 years and are getting All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns back on the floor sooner than initially anticipated. The players are completely locked in on the task at hand and the goal of advancing past the first round in the playoffs for just the second time in their 35-year history. The rest of their organization has been dealing with turmoil while a once-planned transfer of ownership from Glen Taylor to Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez has gone up in flames, leading to a startlingly public fight between the two sides that has fans and team employees caught in the middle. It is all expected to be in public view on Friday night when Lore and Rodriguez are expected to attend the game against the Atlanta Hawks, team sources told The Athletic. It will be the first time they have been back in the arena since the dispute began on March 28. -via The Athletic / April 12, 2024

Heated allegations have gone back and forth and on the record. This week, comments from NBA commissioner Adam Silver and a pair of sourced reports kept the issue front and center as the Timberwolves (55-25) chase the top seed in the West. Silver said the league will be staying out of the fight, viewing it as a dispute between a buyer and a seller that, per the purchase agreement, will go to mediation and arbitration to be resolved. But he did add some clarity to the situation when asked about Lore and Rodriguez saying that the only reason they did not close at the end of March was because they were awaiting league approval. “The dispute is precisely that, as to whether they had acted within the window of the option that Glen Taylor had sold them,” Silver said at the board of governors meeting in New York this week. “That’s the very basis of the dispute. So that dispute will be resolved independent of the league office.” -via The Athletic / April 12, 2024