Wolves Hiring Gersson Rosas As President of Basketball Operations

The Timberwolves seem to have found their next man to lead their basketball operations.

According to Jon Kwaczynski and Shams Charania of The Athletic (link), with confirmation by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (link), the Wolves are planning to hire Rockets executive Gersson Rosas as their new President of Basketball Operations. With this move, it means that Rosas will assume control of Minnesota’s front office.

Rosas has spent the last two decades with the Rockets. He most recently served as their executive Vice President of basketball operations and was a close associate of general manager Daryl More. Rosas also had a brief stint as the Mavericks’ GM back in 2013 but returned to Houston when it didn’t work in Dallas.

Many teams had been exploring adding Rosas to their front office in some capacity. He was linked to top jobs in Charlotte, Detroit, and Philadelphia last season. This spring, he interviewed with the Pelicans and the Wizards, in addition to the Wolves. In a recent tweet by Wojnarowski, Rosas met with the Wolves with the second time that also included owner Glen Taylor.

Head coach Tom Thibodeau was the President of Basketball Operations title for the Wolves heading into the 2018-19 season, but was fired during the season. General manager Scott Layden assumed that control shortly thereafter.

Now that Rosas has been fired, his next task will be what role will this have in Layden’s future? And how will this also affect head coach Ryan Saunders. The Wolves are said to want to have both men back, but with Rosas in control, he’ll probably make his own decision regarding that.

Despite the sorting out of the front office Rosas will have to do, he will also have to deal with a challenging offseason ahead. They missed the playoffs this season and the big contracts that Andrew Wiggins, Jeff Teague, and Gorgui Dieng all have are still on the club’s books.

Gersson Rosas is a fine man, and I believe he fits into what the Timberwolves are looking for in a new President of Basketball Ops. It’ll be very interesting to see how this plays out with both Saunders and Layton. My guess is that Rosas will keep one or the other. I wouldn’t be so confident that both of them will be back in their capacity. Most of the time, a new President of Basketball Ops would really like to bring in their own guys to run things. That may happen here.

The Timberwolves have their man to lead their front office. Now, we just have to wait and see what kinds of moves he’ll make, not just with the front office, but perhaps with acquiring talent for this Timberwolves team, so they can get back to getting competitive.