Welcome to The Next: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX. 24/7/365 women’s basketball coverage, written, edited and photographed by our young, diverse staff, dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives and projections about the game we love.
Subscribe to make sure this vital work, creating a pipeline of young, diverse media professionals to write, edit and photograph the great game, continues and grows. Paid subscriptions include some exclusive content, but the reason for subscriptions is a simple one: making sure our writers and editors creating 24/7/365 women’s basketball coverage get paid to do it.
Glen Taylor has served as the Minnesota Lynx’s majority owner since 2002. Photo credit: NBA Central Twitter Page
Tuesday afternoon was rather momentous for Minnesota basketball fans.
Sportico’s Scott Soshnick reported at 1:17 p.m. that billionaire Glen Taylor had retained The Raine Group to sell the Minnesota Timberwolves franchise.
Soshnick’s article stated Taylor was seeking at least $1.2 billion for the NBA franchise but made no mention of Taylor’s majority ownership of the Minnesota Lynx and whether or not he intended to sell the Minneapolis-based WNBA franchise.
At 4:39 p.m., The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski tweeted Taylor’s intention to keep the Timberwolves and Lynx “under one house should a sale happen,” and Taylor’s official statement, which mentioned the Lynx, was shared on the Lynx’s official Twitter page at 6:27 p.m.
Taylor also told Krawczynski keeping the two franchises in Minnesota would be a requirement for interested buyers.
Taylor has consistently been under fire for his handling of the Timberwolves, a franchise that has only qualified for the playoffs once in the past 15 seasons. The Athletic’s reporting that soon-to-be NBA Hall of Famer and beloved, former Timberwolf Kevin Garnett has shown interest in exploring a bid to buy the Timberwolves from Taylor has only ignited the fanbase’s excitement to replace Taylor.
However, the Lynx have seen much more success under Taylor’s ownership.
According to the Lynx’s website, Taylor became the majority owner of the Lynx in 2002 after serving as the Lynx’s operating owner for the previous four seasons of the team’s existence.
Taylor went on to appoint longtime WNBA assistant coach Cheryl Reeve as the Lynx’s head coach during the 2009 offseason, and the Lynx went on to win four championships in the first eight seasons of Reeve’s head coaching career. The Lynx have also qualified for the WNBA playoffs for nine straight seasons.
This is a developing story, and The Next will provide updates to this article as they unfold.
