Written by Scott Cacciola in New York Times.com
Tom Thibodeau, who spent the past season on a basketball sabbatical, agreed Wednesday to become the coach and president of basketball operations of the Minnesota Timberwolves, a team with one of the N.B.A.’s more intriguing and precocious cores.
Thibodeau, who most recently coached the Chicago Bulls and has a reputation as one of the game’s best defensive tacticians, will be in charge of a roster led by young stars like Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine. But the team still has a lot of growing to do.
This season, the Timberwolves went 29-53 and failed to advance to the playoffs, but they improved over the course of the season and won four of their final five games. Sam Mitchell, who served as the team’s interim coach after Flip Saunders’s death in October, was passed over for the full-time job.
“Through this process, we quickly identified Tom as the best leader to shape our talented team and help them realize their full potential,” Glen Taylor, the Timberwolves’ owner, said in a statement. “Tom’s résumé speaks for itself. He is a proven winner, leader and one of the most well-respected N.B.A. coaches over the last decade.”
The Timberwolves did not disclose the terms of Thibodeau’s deal.
A former coach of the year, Thibodeau led the Bulls to a 255-139 record in his five seasons with the team, which reached the playoffs each year. But he appeared to clash with General Manager Gar Forman toward the end of his tenure and was fired in May 2015 after the Bulls lost in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
This season, under Coach Fred Hoiberg, the Bulls went 42-40 and fell short of a playoff berth.
Thibodeau spent much of the past season visiting with N.B.A. and college teams while also doing part-time television work as an analyst for ESPN.
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