Celtics Notes: Green, Rondo, Lee, Bass
Earlier in the month, Hoops Rumors’ own Chuck Myron broke down the Celtics’ offseason moves. While Boston added some nice pieces, no acquisition moved the needle in the win column as the team started the season with a 4-7 record. It hasn’t been all bad this season as the team owns the fourth best offense in the league, scoring 106.2 points per game.
Here’s more from Boston:
- Jeff Green‘s frustration with the Celtics’ losing is at an all-time high, writes A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com. “I’m tired of losing,” Green said. “[Friday] we let them get whatever they wanted, so we deserved to lose.” The forward can opt out of his current deal at season’s end and become a free agent. Blakely adds that the market for Green is as strong “if not stronger” than it is for fellow teammate Rajon Rondo, according to talks with a league executive. Green is averaging 18.4 points per game and is sporting a player efficiency rating of 16.5.
- Courtney Lee liked playing for the Celtics but understood why he was traded to the Grizzlies, writes Blakely in a separate piece. “I enjoyed my time in Boston,” Lee said. “The organization, my teammates, coaching staff; everybody was top-notch. It just didn’t work.” Lee signed in Boston while the team had title aspirations but a year later, the Celtics traded Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to the Nets to begin their rebuilding efforts. Lee, who most would describe as a complementary player, is thriving as a catch-and-shoot wing in the Grizzlies offense. “Just square up, lick my fingers and knock down shots,” Lee said. “It works for me.”
- Brandon Bass is still familiarizing himself with his new role of coming off the bench for the Celtics, writes Blakely in another piece. “I’m adjusting,” Bass told Comcast SportsNet’s Abby Chin. “I’ve been a starter and I’ve come off the bench in the past … I’m adjusting.” Although he would love to start, he understands the importance of making a positive impact when he gets in the game. “It’s important for the guys off the bench to lift the starters each and every night; try to contribute in a major way each and every night,” Bass said. The power forward has begun the season on a positive note, averaging 8.4 PPG and with a player efficiency rating of 16.35.
And-Ones: Mudiay, Gordon, Parsons
Emmanuel Mudiay, a surefire lottery pick in next year’s NBA draft, has denied reports that he’ll leave China prior to the end of the CBA season in order to boost his draft stock, Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv reports. Unnamed NBA sources were quoted as saying that Mudiay could opt to leave China early to keep his draft stock high if he’s playing well there, which would keep an aura of mystique around him similar to what surrounded Dante Exum last year, notes Zagoria. “This is all rumors, it’s completely false,” Mudiay said. “The media are the ones that like to come out with these things, but it’s not the reality.” Mudiay is currently projected as the No. 2 overall pick next year by Draft Express.
Here’s more from around the league:
- In his weekly mailbag column, Nakia Hogan of The Times-Picayune addressed the possibility of the Pelicans dealing Eric Gordon. New Orleans still views Gordon as a key piece of the team and value continuity as they try to build a contender around Anthony Davis, notes Hogan. But Hogan also adds the caveat that if a deal came about that would make the franchise immediately better and help their future cap situation, then moving Gordon would be considered.
- Hogan also believes that New Orleans should think twice about considering a deal for the Nets‘ Andrei Kirilenko, despite the Pelicans‘ need for depth at small forward. The Times-Picayune scribe cites Kirilenko’s possible off the court issues, as well as his ineffectiveness when he has played this season, as reasons New Orleans should pass on the Russian veteran.
- In advance of Chandler Parsons‘ first visit to Houston since signing with the Mavs, the Rockets James Harden went on record saying the team was better off with Trevor Ariza, who replaced Parsons in Houston, Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com reports. “His [Ariza’s] leadership, his defensive abilities, his shot-making — all three of those things are something that we were lacking last year,” said Harden. “[Ariza] brings that ability to the table this year.” The Rockets’ significant improvement on the defensive end certainly lends credence to Harden’s statement, notes MacMahon, with Houston lowering their points allowed per 100 possessions to 94.3, down from last season’s number of 103.1.
Nets, Sixers Discuss Andrei Kirilenko Deal
3:24pm: The Nets would likely receive a trade exception if the teams were to do a deal, Youngmisuk tweets, meaning that the Sixers would probably send some combination of draft compensation, draft-and-stash prospects and cash to Brooklyn. Trade exceptions are created as functions of trades and they are not technically assets that change hands in deals.
3:05pm: Brooklyn and Philadelphia have had preliminary talks about a deal that would send Andrei Kirilenko to the Sixers, who would likely waive him, reports Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPNNewYork.com (Twitter link). Sergey Karasev is also involved in those discussions, Youngmisuk adds. It’s unclear what the Sixers are talking about sending to Brooklyn. Kirilenko is away from the Nets for personal reasons.
A source told Tim Bontemps of the New York Post that Kirilenko’s absence wasn’t related to his lack of playing time, as we passed along earlier, but Bontemps wrote in the same piece that it appeared “inevitable” that if the Nets didn’t trade him, they would strike a buyout deal. Still, a trade would most likely happen after December 15th, Bontemps says, when most players who signed this offseason become eligible to be traded and trade talk usually picks up leaguewide.
Karasev, the 19th pick from the 2013 draft, has seen even fewer minutes than Kirilenko has this season for the Nets, who acquired Karasev over the summer from the Cavs. The 21-year-old swingman has scored only two points in 14 minutes of action so far in 2014/15, and he didn’t see much time as a rookie last year in Cleveland, either. The Sixers nonetheless may see value in Karasev, since he became a first-round pick just a year and a half ago. He and Kirilenko are both natives of Russia, like Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov.
The Nets and Sixers both have full 15-man rosters, but each team possesses multiple players without fully guaranteed salary, as our roster counts show. Kirilenko is making more than $3.3MM this season on his fully guaranteed contract, which expires this summer, while Karasev is due nearly $1.534MM this year and has one more guaranteed season on his rookie scale contract worth almost $1.6MM for 2015/16. Nets GM Billy King and Sixers GM Sam Hinkie swung a deal just last month in which the Nets gave up a protected 2019 second-round pick to entice the Sixers to absorb Marquis Teague‘s guaranteed salary, but Kirilenko is making about three times Teague’s pay, notes Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News (Twitter link).
Rift Developing Between Nets, Andrei Kirilenko?
12:42pm: No buyout negotiations have taken place between Kirilenko’s camp and the team, sources tell Bontemps, adding that if a trade were to happen, it would likely not take place until after December 15th. Still, it appears “inevitable” that if a trade doesn’t happen, a buyout will, Bontemps writes, even though the Post scribe hears that Kirilenko’s leave of absence from the team isn’t related to his lack of playing time.
12:28pm: The Nets say Andrei Kirilenko won’t be joining them on their three-game road trip, notes Tim Bontemps of the New York Post, while a source tells Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News that a resolution to the situation likely won’t happen until Kirilenko is on another team (Twitter links). The Nets cited personal reasons for Kirilenko’s absence, and coach Lionel Hollins told reporters today that he doesn’t know if the 33-year-old forward will be return to the team once it gets back from the trip.
Kirilenko has only seen a total of 36 minutes of action across seven of Brooklyn’s 12 games so far this season, a sharply reduced role even from last season’s career-low 19.0 minutes per game. He signed a two-year deal for about $6.5MM in the summer of 2013 that was so far beneath market value that it sparked concern that he and fellow Russian Mikhail Prokorov, the owner of the Nets, had worked out an under-the-table arrangement. An NBA investigation cleared them of any wrongdoing. The deal contained a player option for this season worth more than $3.3MM that Kirilenko chose to exercise to remain with the Nets, but it appears as though his relationship with the team has suffered since he made that decision in June.
The Nets have Joe Johnson and Kevin Garnett starting at the forward positions and Alan Anderson and Mirza Teletovic backing them up. Kirilenko, in his 13th NBA season, has played both small forward and power forward, but it appears as though Hollins prefers to play others. Kirilenko, a client of Marc Fleisher, is eligible to be traded immediately, unlike many players in the league whose teams must wait until at least December 15th. The Rockets are reportedly seeking trades at an unusual time for such activity, and they and the Cavs have apparently been in discussions of late with the Wolves about acquiring Corey Brewer, who like Kirilenko has established a reputation as a strong perimeter defender.
Nets Rumors: Kidd, King, Collins
Jason Kidd‘s controversial leap from the Nets to the Bucks this summer is a flashpoint for an issue that new union executive director Michele Roberts would like to resolve, as Ken Berger of CBSSports.com details. The union has a rule that bars player agents from representing coaches or executives so that no agent is ever representing people on both sides of the negotiating table, but it’s rarely enforced, as Roberts and agents who spoke with Berger contend. Kidd said that his player agent, Jeff Schwartz, had a role in negotiations for him this summer, as Berger points out. Sources tell Berger that Schwartz kept the Kidd talks separate from discussions surrounding Schwartz clients Shaun Livingston and Paul Pierce, who also left the Nets this summer, but the conflict of interest nonetheless troubles Roberts and others.
“We can’t allow the status quo to remain, i.e. people to act in defiance of the rule because the rule is the rule,” Roberts said. “But I also want to try to do it in a way that makes sense for everyone. If it appears that the rule is not something that we can work around, then it’s time to enforce it.”
There’s more on the Nets and their former coach in the wake of Milwaukee’s three-overtime win Wednesday in Brooklyn:
- Kidd cited rumors that the Nets thought about firing him during last season as reason for his distrust of the organization, but in reality the Nets were highly supportive of the first-year coach, writes Chris Mannix of SI.com.
- Mannix, writing in the same piece, hears from a Nets official who’s curious whether Kidd knew he would join the Bucks when the coach suggested during a meeting of Nets brass in June, while he was still working for Brooklyn, that the Nets trade Brook Lopez for Larry Sanders. In any case, Nets GM Billy King rejected the idea of such a swap.
- Kidd insisted Wednesday that he never tried to convince the Nets to promote him above King, despite reports to the contrary this summer, but the Bucks coach added that he didn’t have much of a relationship with King last year, Newsday’s Roderick Boone observes.
- Jason Collins admits that he knew this past summer that he wanted to retire but decided to wait to make an announcement until Wednesday’s meeting of Kidd’s Bucks and the Nets because of his respect for Kidd, a former teammate and coach, Boone notes.
Eastern Notes: Rondo, Kidd, Butler, Sixers
Executives from around the league tell Howard Beck of Bleacher Report that Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge has remained resolute with them that he won’t trade Rajon Rondo at this point. Still, many of those execs think the Celtics are in a position in which they simply must trade the point guard to avoid seeing him walk in free agency this coming summer. Ainge nonetheless continues to look for upgrades around Rondo, as he tells Beck. “Philosophically, we know who the players are, we know who the guys are that we would love to get,” Ainge said. “But we also know that certain players don’t make as much of a difference. We can’t sell our stockpile of assets just to appease one player. We’ve got to be smart in rebuilding. And we do have to remain patient. And yet at the same time, be ready to jump into the fray and pay a high price for special players, transcendent players.”
Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:
- The Bucks’ roster features two starters who are 19 years old, a stark contrast to head coach Jason Kidd‘s Nets team of a year ago, which featured seven players 32 or older, Sean Deveney of The Sporting News writes. Kidd says it’s still just basketball to him, adding, “It’s just the age difference. They’re basketball players. This is a younger team, the team I had last year was vets. They knew how to play, a couple of them won championships so they knew what it took to win. We won a Game 7 on the road, so experience, time and minutes are probably the only thing that’s different.” The other difference for Kidd in Milwaukee is that he’s now coaching a team on the upswing rather than one constructed to contend for a single year like Brooklyn was last season, notes Deveney.
- Jimmy Butler‘s decision to bypass a contract extension from the Bulls that would have netted him roughly $11MM per season could pay off handsomely if he continues his excellent play, Michael Lee of The Washington Post opines.
- Former Sixer Evan Turner believes he can speak for those players unfortunate enough to be stuck in the middle of GM Sam Hinkie‘s rebuilding plan, writes Mark Murphy of The Boston Herald. Turner said of Hinkie’s approach, “It’s different. It goes the right way, or not. That kind of trend can make or break certain situations. Hopefully they don’t get penalized for what they’re doing, but if they do put the right guys on the team they can be really successful thanks to the leadership of coach [Brett] Brown. The biggest thing is having the unity. That’s all you have and you have to stay focused on going to battle with who you have.”
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Eastern Notes: Kidd, Cavs, Early, Raptors
Bucks coach Jason Kidd didn’t have interest in heading to Milwaukee until the team came after him, as he makes clear to Michael Lee of The Washington Post. Kidd remains proud of the work he did in his lone season as coach of the Nets, who received a pair of second-rounders as compensation when the Bucks hired him this summer.
“We felt that we helped a lot of people get better. As coaches, that’s all you ask for,” Kidd said. “There was a lot of good stuff. Unfortunately, management, ownership didn’t [think so], so they got two second round picks.”
Kidd returns to Brooklyn on Wednesday, and while we wait to see that, here’s more from around the Eastern Conference:
- The relationship between LeBron James and coach David Blatt isn’t fully functional yet, and though Blatt is technically the boss, James perhaps wields greater leverage over him than he has with any of his previous coaches, as Joe Vardon of the Northeast Ohio Media Group examines.
- Knicks rookie small forward Cleanthony Early is set to miss about a month or more after undergoing surgery to remove a “loose body” in his knee, the team announced (Twitter link).
- The size of the role that James Johnson would play for the Raptors wasn’t clear when they signed him this summer, but he’s quickly become a key contributor who’ll be missed while he’s out indefinitely with a severely sprained ankle, as Eric Koreen of the National Post details.
And-Ones: Nene, Green, Cap, Johnson
We have nine games on the NBA slate for tonight, the best of which is undoubtedly the Southwest division showdown in Memphis between the 9-1 Rockets and the 9-1 Grizzlies. Some might say the Grizzlies’ impressive record should include an asterisk, as the Kings continue insist that last week’s game-winner by Courtney Lee be overturned. However, Memphis GM Chris Wallace is confident the league will uphold his team’s victory, he tells Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports.
With that settled, let’s take a look at what else is going on around the Association on Monday night:
- Nene and Gerald Green have joined the BDA Sports agency, as Liz Mullen of the SportsBusiness Journal reports in a subscription-only piece. Nene had been with Dan Fegan of Relativity Sports, while agent Kenton Edelin was Green’s representative. Green’s contract with the Suns is up after this season, while Nene’s deal with the Wizards runs through 2015/16.
- Almost all team executives believe the salary cap for 2015/16 will fall somewhere between $66MM and $68MM, according to Grantland’s Zach Lowe. Lowe includes this nugget in a longer analysis of yesterday’s Rudy Gay extension, which the Grantland scribe describes as “fair-ish” next season and as a potential steal come 2016/17. Lowe also believes that the Kings would like to add another piece after this season if they can free up some salary. He speculates that Jason Thompson and his $6.43MM 2015/16 salary could be a trade candidate.
- Now in his 14th season at age 33, Joe Johnson tells David Aldridge of NBA.com that he can’t imagine playing too much longer after his deal is up with the Nets. Johnson, who recently got into some hot water after saying his team was playing selfishly, is under contract through next season with Brooklyn and will hit free agency at age 35 in the summer of 2016.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Offseason In Review: Brooklyn Nets
Hoops Rumors is in the process of looking back at each team’s offseason, from the end of the playoffs in June right up until opening night. Trades, free agent signings, draft picks, contract extensions, option decisions, camp invitees, and more will be covered, as we examine the moves each franchise made over the last several months.
Signings
- Bojan Bogdanovic: Three years, $10.277MM. Signed via mid-level exception. Includes 15% trade kicker.
- Alan Anderson: Two years, $2.61MM. Signed via Non-Bird rights. Second year is player option
- Jerome Jordan: One year, $816K. Signed via minimum-salary exception. Partially guaranteed for $100K.
Extensions
- None
Trades
- Acquired 2014 pick No. 44 from the Timberwolves in exchange for cash.
- Acquired 2014 pick No. 59 from the Raptors in exchange for cash.
- Acquired 2014 pick No. 60 from the Sixers in exchange for cash.
- Acquired Jarrett Jack and Sergey Karasev in a three-way trade with the Cavaliers and Celtics for Marcus Thornton and the rights to Ilkan Karaman and Edin Bavcic.
- Acquired Casper Ware and the more favorable of Milwaukee’s and Sacramento’s 2019 second-round picks from the Sixers in exchange for Marquis Teague. Ware was subsequently waived.
Waiver Claims
- None
Draft Picks
- Markel Brown (Round 2, 44th overall). Signed via minimum-salary exception for two years. Second year is non-guaranteed.
- Xavier Thames (Round 2, 59th overall). Playing in Spain.
- Cory Jefferson (Round 2, 60th overall). Signed via minimum-salary exception for two years. First year is $75K guaranteed. Second year is non-guaranteed.
Camp Invitees
- Willie Reed
Departing Players
Rookie Contract Option Decisions
- Sergey Karasev (third year, $1,599,840) — Exercised
- Mason Plumlee (third year, $1,415,520) — Exercised
When the Nets hired Jason Kidd as head coach in the summer of 2013, many wondered how quickly he could make himself comfortable in his new role immediately after finishing his playing career. One year later, Kidd made a power play and when ownership wouldn’t give him control over basketball operations, he forced a trade to Milwaukee. His attempted coup came soon after he tried to convince Billy King & Co. to trade Brook Lopez and Mirza Teletovic to the Bucks for Larry Sanders and Ersan Ilyasova. It’s safe to say that he figured out this coaching thing pretty quickly.
Kidd has since been replaced with savvy veteran coach Lionel Hollins, and that was far from the only major change for Brooklyn this summer. The Kidd saga may have been the most shocking storyline of the offseason, but Brooklyn’s biggest loss on the court was the departure of Paul Pierce. Losing the 37-year-old stings not just because of the sticker price the Nets paid for him (and Kevin Garnett) in June of 2013, but because of what he brought to the court, even at his advanced age. The Nets, as you’ll recall, actually took off after Lopez’s unfortunate season-ending injury and that was thanks to their small-ball lineup with Pierce at the four. Pierce was in the midst of a wonderful second act to his career in black-and-white, but he was as surprised as the rest of us to see it all abruptly come to an end.
“It just happened so fast,” Pierce told reporters about a month ago. “I had a chance to talk to [Kidd] and he has his reasons, the way things went down. But like I said, the business — you’ve got to understand the business aspect of it. He moved on. The Nets moved on and people went their different directions. You see that a lot in this business.”
Pierce wound up signing with the Wizards on a two-year, $10.849MM contract and The Truth swears that the Nets let him go without a real fight or even an offer. Pierce says the Nets conveyed to him that they didn’t feel that they could contend in 2014/15 and wanted to cut costs. That’s a sad reality for Nets fans who expected that the money would never stop flowing from their free-spending, heli-skiing billionaire owner. Looking back on the way the rest of the offseason played out, it’s hard to doubt the veracity of Pierce’s claims.
Shaun Livingston was another wonderful revelation for the Nets in 2013/14. There’s simply no way the Nets could have survived missing Deron Williams for a quarter of the season (he really wasn’t all that sharp when he was on the floor, either) without the brilliant play of the former No. 4 overall pick. Teams circled the wagons around Livingston as he was poised to hit the open market and while the Nets considered the guard to be their No. 1 priority heading into the summer, they were too outmatched and fiscally handcuffed to retain him. Holding only Livingston’s Non-Bird rights, the Nets couldn’t do better than using their taxpayer’s mid-level exception, which would allow for a starting salary of $3.278MM and a total of nearly $10.3MM over the course of a three-year deal. Instead, Livingston returned to California by signing a three-year deal with a starting salary at the full $5.305MM mid-level exception with the Warriors. When considering the considerable pay difference, the Nets’ outlook for this season, and the blustery weather in Brooklyn, it’s hard to blame him.
Andray Blatche, who looked to be having a resurgence with the Nets not long ago, will also be out of the picture this season. Despite his size, athleticism, and metrics that still cast him as an eminently worthwhile reserve player, there was little interest from the Nets or the NBA’s other 29 teams. Blatche will take his talents (and his poor conditioning and his off-court issues) overseas this year to China. We can expect to see him back after the CBA season is finished, but it would be a surprise to see him pull a Colin Quinn and go back to Brooklyn.
So, who’s replacing these guys? This year, the Nets are finally welcoming draft-and-stash prospect Bojan Bogdanovic. Brooklyn inked the swingman to a three-year, $10.1MM pact a year after they failed to shake him loose from his Turkish team, Fenerbahce Ulker, for a similar deal. It’s (very) early in the season, but Bogdanovic has been one of the most impressive rookies so far in 2014/15, and that’s saying a lot given the hype surrounding this year’s class.
Meanwhile, to fill the void left by Livingston’s departure, the Nets completed a three-team deal with the Cavs and the Celtics to land guard Jarrett Jack. It wasn’t easy to give up Marcus Thornton, who had some strong performances for the Nets after his midseason arrival, but Livingston’s play from last season underscored the importance of having a strong backcourt option both alongside and in support of Williams. The swap also brought forward Sergey Karasev to the Nets’ second unit. Of course, the C’s picked up some nice assets from the deal and the trade gave the Cavs enough cap flexibility to bring LeBron James back home.
Andrei Kirilenko, who raised suspicions with his bargain signing last season, exercised his player option for $3.3MM this season. The Nets rounded out their roster with a few other moves, like re-signing Alan Anderson to a two-year, $2.61MM deal, adding big man Jerome Jordan on a minimum salary pact, and buying their way into the later part of the draft. The Nets had no picks heading into draft night, but they wound up acquiring three second-round choices that became Markel Brown (No. 44), Xavier Thames (No. 59), and Cory Jefferson (No. 60). Thames will get some seasoning in Europe, but both Brown and Jefferson are with the team for 2014/15.
Reporters spent a great deal of ink discussing whether Garnett would return to the Nets for the final season of his deal or retire, but the 38-year-old confirmed the general assumption that he would be back when he showed up at camp for his 20th NBA season. While KG’s best years are behind him, it always seemed as though KG was the key to retaining Pierce. As it turns out, the Nets let Pierce walk and wound up on the hook for Garnett’s $12MM this season. The Nets insist that Garnett can still be a contributor on limited minutes, but it remains to be seen how he’ll hold up between now and April, or possibly beyond.
Ultimately, much of the Nets’ success this season will come down to the health of stars Williams and Lopez. Williams spent a large chunk of the offseason recovering from double ankle surgery and Lopez had to bounce back from the fracture in his foot that cost him all but 17 games last year. The Nets played well despite Williams much of the time last season and as a whole were at their best without the services of Lopez, but the play of these two high-priced assets will dictate how far the Nets can go. They won’t be in the contender conversation this season, but there’s no reason why they can’t be in the playoff mix.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Kevin Garnett Admits Interest In Buying Wolves
Kevin Garnett is in rarefied air as one of just four players ever to have a 20-year NBA playing career, but he’d also like to join an even more exclusive club of players who’ve taken control of NBA franchises. Garnett told Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports that he wants to buy the Timberwolves, whom current owner Glen Taylor has said he’d eventually like to sell. It’s the first public admission of the desire from the 38-year-old, though the idea has been the subject of chatter around Minnesota for a while, notes Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities (Twitter link).
“I want to buy the Timberwolves. Put a group together and perhaps some day try to buy the team. That’s what I want,” Garnett said.
Garnett, 38, would have to retire as a player first, and he said before this season that he won’t rule out continuing his career into 2015/16. His contract with the Nets expires at season’s end, but he wouldn’t comment when Spears asked whether he’d like to play for the Wolves or for former coach Doc Rivers and the Clippers next season. Still, Garnett said to Spears that the Wolves are his target for ownership based on his ties to the franchise, for which he played his first 12 NBA seasons, and the presence of Flip Saunders, who is the team’s coach and president of basketball operations and also holds a minority ownership share.
NBA salaries have given Garnett more than $315MM over the course of his career, according to Basketball-Reference, though that doesn’t include the $12MM coming his way this season or any income he’s earned through endorsements. Forbes.com affixed a $430MM valutation to the franchise this spring, and that number has no doubt escalated after the $550MM sale of the Bucks and Steve Ballmer’s $2 billion purchase of the Clippers. Still, Garnett acknowledged that he would team with other investors, though it’s unknown whether he’d be willing to take a back seat to another partner who’d want to become the controlling owner.
Taylor has said he’s looking for someone to purchase a minority stake in the team who could eventually take over the majority interest from him, though he’s been resolute that any new owner commit to keeping the team in Minnesota, as Spears notes.