The future of the Minnesota Timberwolves is decided this week

This same Monday begins the final stretch in the arbitration of the case for the ownership of the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Lynx. The still owner Glen Taylor and the minority owners Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez will sit down to defend their cases in a process that will surely occupy practically the entire week. Everything that happens these days will be studied by a panel of three arbitrators who will issue their verdict in December.

Taylor, Lore and Rodriguez will discuss the rejection of the offer that the first of them executed last March, alleging that the last payment had arrived after the deadline. It should be remembered that the operation was agreed in 2021 as a three-year process that would end in 2024 with the new ownership as the largest shareholders of Wolves and Lynx.

Now, there is an important nuance, and that is that this could not be the last chapter of the dispute. Since, if the arbitration agrees with Taylor, the NBA Board of Shareholders would have to re-approve the sale with 23 of the 30 votes. Knowing this, Lore and Rodriguez have been making moves in recent months. The most important of them, joining forces with various major investors in the United States to, according to Brian Windhorst in ESPNprepare a fund with 950 million dollars to execute the purchase of the remaining 64% of the franchise. Not just the agreed 40%.

In addition to an extra 200 million to demonstrate to the Board of Governors their solvency as future owners. Never before has the NBA ruled out a forced sale by third parties, but Taylor’s long-standing relationships with the majority of owners and Adam Silver himself present a scenario that is difficult to read in the medium term.

(Cover photo by David Berding/Getty Images)