Gersson Rosas’s time with the Minnesota Timberwolves has come to an end. On Wednesday, the Wolves announced that they have parted ways with Rosas just prior to the start of the 2021-22 NBA season.
“Today, the Minnesota Timberwolves parted ways with President of Basketball Operations Gersson Rosas,” Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor said in a statement. “As an organization, we remain committed to building a winning team that our fans and city can be proud of.”
Following Rosas’s dismissal, the Timberwolves plan to promote EVP of Basketball Operations Sachin Gupta to the role of interim head of basketball operations, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. While this is an interim role, Gupta becomes the first person of Indian-origin to run a basketball organization. The team is planning to conduct a broader search to identify a permanent replacement for Rosas.
Rosas was hired by Minnesota in May of 2019 after spending the vast majority of the previous 16 seasons with the Houston Rockets. At the time of his hiring, Rosas replaced Tom Thibodeau as Minnesota’s President of Basketball Operations. The team is set to come under new ownership led by Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore in 2023, and it will now clearly be looking to go in a different direction with the front office.
The timing of the move is a bit odd, as the 2021 NBA Draft and free agency have already passed, and the start of the regular season is now just weeks away. One would think that if the Wolves were interested in making such a major move, they would have wanted to have done it prior to the draft and free agency so that the new front office would have control over personnel decisions.
At least one Timberwolves player was surprised by the move, as All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns took to Twitter shortly after the news was announced to post the following message:
Towns likely isn’t the only player on the Wolves roster that was blindsided by the decision. If the organization didn’t consult its All-Star center about the move, it likely didn’t inform any of the other players either. The move also came as a surprise to Rosas himself, as he was still holding meetings with team personnel on Wednesday morning, according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne.
The Timberwolves finished 14th and 13th in the Western Conference during Rosas’ two seasons in charge, so perhaps the team just felt like they would be better off moving forward under Gupta and whoever they ultimately name as Rosas’ permanent replacement.
