Northwest Notes: Wolves, Robinson, Gasol

Flip Saunders, the Wolves‘ president of basketball operations, said it was “unfortunate” the club released rookie Glenn Robinson III when Minnesota claimed Justin Hamilton off waivers, Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune writes. “We really like Glenn,” Saunders said. “It was unfortunate for him he never really had an opportunity, and we didn’t see that changing. When we drafted him, we didn’t have Andrew Wiggins, so the dynamics of that changed. It’s tough to develop three young players at the same position.”  More from the Northwest Division..

  • Thunder coach Scott Brooks and star guard Russell Westbrook were part of the team’s recruitment efforts for Pau Gasol over the summer, but neither one is sure how close they were to sealing the deal, Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman writes.  Brooks would only say that OKC was “one of a few teams” in the mix for Gasol while commending him on his play this season with the Bulls.
  • So far, the Enes Kanter trade is looking like a win-win for the Jazz and the Thunder, Doug Robinson of the Deseret News writes.  Since the February deal, the Jazz are 5-2 in what has easily been their best stretch of the season and OKC has been getting solid production out of the big man.  Utah hasn’t gotten much in the way of on-court impact for this season, of course, but they’re playing better basketball without Kanter and they added assets for the future.
  • Chauncey Billups joined Woody Paige and Les Shapiro of The Denver Post to address Kevin Garnett‘s comments about the Nuggets and the ouster of former coach Brian Shaw, as Nicki Jhabvala of The Denver Post writes.

Will Joseph contributed to this post.

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