What’s NEXT for Anthony Edwards & Timberwolves? | Alex Rodriguez & Mark Lore

What’s NEXT for Anthony Edwards & Timberwolves? | Alex Rodriguez & Mark Lore

[Music] Welcome back to the Kevin Oconor show. Joining me are the new owners of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Links, Mark Lori and Alex Rodriguez. Congratulations, guys. How you doing? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I got to make an admission first. Arod. Oh gosh. I grew up a Boston Red Sox fan. I knew that. I I I you know, I used to hate you. I’ve gotten to a point where I can smell you guys. Um I mean, you broke my heart when you almost became a Red Sox. Almost. By the way, my signature was on. Uh we we only needed one signature. We had Bud Celig, we had Tom Warner and John Henry, myself, and we needed Don Fear. But Don Fear, the head of the union, wouldn’t let me concede all that money going back. So, hey, I mean, look, the rest is history. It worked out. Red Sox won titles. You won a title with the Yankees. And here you are, owner of the Minnesota Timber. Aaron, when when did the thought of becoming a team owner first enter your mind when you were playing? You know, I was telling Mark sometime when I was an 18 18 years old or so, I was playing instruction league and I remember picking up a magazine Forbes and I remember kind of looking at all the team owners and about twothirds of them at that time were real estate and I said, “Man, they must be selling to this real estate thing.” So, I just, you know, a couple years later, I was like 21, 22, I made my first investment. I bought a duplex multifamily apartment and then I bought a forplex and an aplex. And over the last 17 years or so, we’ve got we’ve acquired almost 20,000 keys, meaning 20,000 multif family apartments. And we buy them, we fix them, and we refy them. We buy them, we fix them, and we sell them. And I’ve been doing that over and over again. And uh it was around that time that I started at least thinking about it. But, you know, once I connected with Mark, we took a run at the Mets. Uh thank god we lost. Uh Steve Cohen’s doing a great job with the New York Mets today. And then this opportunity came to us and Mark and I jumped all over it. How about you, Mark? Was this ever something at a younger age that you dream of? No. I I grew up in Staten Island, New York, you know, playing playing hoops in in in the, you know, playground. And uh it was very clear that I wasn’t going to be a professional athlete unlike Alex here. We realized that early. Yeah. Very very early. This is I’m I’m you know, and uh it’s at that time that, you know, you switch from okay, if I’m never going to be a professional athlete, then maybe I can own a team one day. But this is like coming from nothing. I you know uh it was just nothing but a crazy wild childhood dream and I never really thought about it you know it wasn’t something that just carried with me. It really wasn’t until Alex you know um you know introduced me to his group uh buying the New York Mets that I started to get excited about the possibility because I had no idea you know I thought you had to buy a team you had to come up with two billion cash and write a check. I’m like well I can’t do that. But um I think you know after after the Mets situation um you know I kind of had the bug and Alex and I became great friends. We had this opportunity with the walls and we you know we jumped on it. Now can you guys paint a picture for me because you’ve talked about how things can change in Minnesota building a new arena and everything there like some of the changes you’ve made already in 10 years from now in 2035. How does the Minnesota Timberwolves brand change? How does it evolve in these 10 years? Kevin I’m going to take a page out of your book. I mean, look what happened in 2002 when you had those great owners come in in Boston, right? And you saw the same thing in Chicago. So, Chicago went over 100 years without winning a title. Red Sox went almost almost 90 years without winning a title. Now, you’ve won four over the last 20 years. And it starts with grow great ownership with a big vision with this is a new era. Like, I don’t care what happened. And you saw the way you guys used to talk. We don’t care about history. We we’re going to win. So, you got to put that northstar out there first. Then you have to deploy the capital. Then you have to bring in the best people. All the things. And then you had a great architect in Theo Epstein. So the same architect went to Chicago and broke that curse. We have Tim Conley. So And you guys targeted Tim, right? Yes. Big time. Big time. Mark came up with the idea that we should go get Tim Conley. I had to go Google who Tim Connley was cuz I’m a baseball guy. The guy who drafted Jokic first thing. There you go. There you go. And then we’re off to the races. But the one thing that doesn’t change is the vision, the core values, bringing in the best people in the world and then getting out of the way and letting great people do their work. Absolutely. And and and sorry to go. No, I was just going to say, you know, we would love to win a championship, hopefully multiple in the next 10 years, but you know, a lot of things have to go your way and it’s still a bit a bit of luck involved, but I think uh either way you look at it in 2035, hopefully people will um admire the Timberwolves and links as organizations for the values that we live, the way we treat people, u the kind of people we bring into the organization, the culture we create. like those are the kinds of inputs that are controllable and that we’re going to be the best in class at. And sure, and I think, you know, you’re hitting on something when it comes to like hiring Tim Conley. To me, like growing up a Boston sports fan, the number one thing I thought about when it comes to the success of those teams is ownership that empowered the front office to make tough decisions. It happened with the Celtics with with Wick Rose and Danny Ames. He trades Antoine Walker as soon as he’s hired. Pretty much a fan favorite. He always made tough moves. It happened with the Red Sox. They trade Nomar, a fan favorite. A tough move for, you know, lesserk known names. It helps them win their first championship in ‘ 04. That happened with the Patriots. Always trading star players to bring in younger guys sometimes who they had had ready. Sometimes the fan base isn’t going to like that, but the front office knows this is for the best. With you guys, how do you expect your relationship with Tim Conley to develop? I mean, because you’re more of a baseball guy. Okay. Admittedly, you said during your presser today, is it about empowering Tim to do what he does best in supporting him or do you guys want some input when it comes to the decisions being made? Yeah. No, it’s 100% the philosophy is to build the right culture, the right vision strategy, get the right structure, and bring the very best people in and go and empower them. Um, but I think it’s important that that Tim, the other executives all understand the nuances of the vision and strategy. I think that’s where things sometimes break down and understand that we’ve got a real long-term orientation and making sure that the incentives that the executives have align with that long-term orientation. And if we have that, then it’s magic and we just let Tim go do his do his thing. One of the things you mentioned today during your press that I was really interested by was jump. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like like a a cool way to to move up with your seat in like a legal way, you know, not Alex always talks about that. I love that. not having to to go around the bounc try to me and my dad used to do that all the time growing up, you know, look over there. I’ll tell you, it was always frustrating. He’ll give you more of the technical, but from my fan experience, I could never afford really good seats. My mom worked two jobs, the whole thing, right? So, our job was how do we get into the arena for the lowest price possible and then we got to work our way down to by the seventh inning, we’ll be behind home plate. And uh it was always so frustrating when we would look down and all these seats were empty. Just drove me crazy. like where’s Uber and Airbnb inside the arena inside the building. So this has brought a modern technology. We have incredible engineers and I think the our goal Kevin is to get the experience and the relationship from the fan base to us with no second or third party. Right. Direct to consumer. The more information we have about our fans, the more we can serve as a 30-year fan versus a brand new fan. And that’s really important. Yeah. And so basically, you’re going to be able to go into an app or maybe you get a notification seat to row H has opened up and and it’s reverse auction. Just keep coming down till somebody hits it. So like in 6 minutes left in the fourth quarter, it might be an eight-point game. Someone’s going to leave their kids, you know, at school in the morning, you can buy those three tickets and they’re going to be cheap, too, because Yeah. Imagine Kevin, you sitting at a Celtics game and you know if the seats are a few thousand dollar on the floor that you can buy them for, you know, 80 bucks and you might only get 5 minutes, but at least you get the experience of what it feels to the floor and you get your selfie with your kid or your family and your office. See how fast it moves. Oh boy. I mean it’s like what a difference being it’s fully integrated. The exchange is primary market, secondary market sale, merchandising, food. It’s a fully integrated fan experience and less fees better. Everything we’re trying to do, Kevin is fan friendly. Like we’re obsessed with including keeping the team in Minneapolis. That’s a no-brainer. That’s is other suburbs a possibility. I think a lot of things it’s too early to realize we’re in Minnesota, but we’re not moving the team from the state of Minnesota. For sure. That’s that’s good news. And I mean, I think with you guys, it’s interesting. Go Bear, that trade was meant to accelerate things and help put a better winning team around Anthony Edwards. Edwards at this point, he’s been to two West Finals. Obviously, you guys lost both, but still young, still getting better. He’s 23, right? You look at players recently that have won the NBA finals. SGA was 26. Tatum was 26. Giannis was 26. LeBron Steph, they were 27 when they won their first. Jokic was 28. Durant was 28. So when you think about like where Ant is Mark right now, having the success he’s had, making the improvements as he h that he has. How do you balance between like patience with him knowing that he’s not quite at his prime yet versus aggression with wanting to build around him and winning now? Yeah, I mean just we’re just looking to make smart decisions, right? And uh you know, we have made it to the Western Conference Finals two years in a row. I think you know it we have a situation where we’ve got a very um uh healthy roster and and I think if you look at all the contracts, they’re all on on good contracts you would say at or in the money. We don’t have any contracts that are bad contracts. It’s really hard to recover from a bad contract. But if you’ve got a lot of good contracts and a lot some people would argue go bear is I would not I I got to go I love Go Bear. I love Rudy. Definitely not. Definitely. Just looking at his impact on winning, I mean, no, he’s one of the best defenders in the world. Kevin, if you look at his career, I I bet he’s in the top five winningest players. So, all he does win. He goes to the playoff. Every year he’s been to the playoffs. He’s a floor raiser. 100%. And he’s completely converted the whole franchise when he came before and after. Rudy’s a monster and we love him. I totally agree with you. I mean, I’m a Rudy guy and a great a lot. Lebert’s got a lot of haters as you guys have known, but I’ve always been a big Rudy Goar guy. We are and you guys drafted Yawan Baron uh in the first round, another international guy in the second round. So now he has some support behind him as well. Gives you some flexibility as well. Now I am curious, A-Rod, like you talked during your presser today about, you know, you’re a baseball guy and you said you’re kind of rounding first right now and your basketball knowledge. What what are some specific things you’ve learned about team building in the NBA in your years now as you’ve pursued Minnesota to rules ownership? Well, Kev, like I said in the press conference, I mean, sports are sports and winning is kind of um evergreen for for any sport. Uh there’s probably 70% that doesn’t apply, but there’s about 30 or more that does apply. And that’s, you know, how you treat people, how you recruit people, how you enhance the experience when when when people come in the building. Uh I I’m a big believer that you either, you know, bring energy to the room or you take energy out of the room. And we’re very fortunate that we have a lot of people in our in our ecosystem that bring a lot of energy and everyone’s aligned. And you know, even like Anthony Edwards, our young players being here, Finch, uh it’s all support and it feels really good. But I’ve been a world champion. I understand what it what it looks like and what it feels like and uh I think that that could be helpful. Last thing I want to ask, Mark, I first heard of you prior to all of this with Minnesota. It was with Tlosa wanting to build a new city. And since we’re here in Vegas, founded in 1905, and you see what it became in 100 years, there haven’t been a lot of new cities built. Hasn’t been any new cities being built. Irvine, California, but not a city like this. Uh Colombia, Maryland was built, but it’s not quite a city like this. Is Tossa still in the works? Is that the possibility? I mean, it’s still in the works, but really it wasn’t about building a city. It was about testing a new model for society. And that’s really what it’s about. And uh yeah, I still have a lot of passion for that and uh it’s someday it’ll it’ll happen. Now Kevin, let’s tell you the difference about our partnership. I mean Mark in his off time is building cities. I can’t build a deck. I mean I’m like and with what time are you building a freaking city? He’s like, “Yeah, I was going to be so passionate about it. Mark, I’m dizzy. I can’t build a deck, dude.” So is that how you spend your off time when you’re not thinking about Minnesota? You’re thinking about that’s where your meetings are? Yeah. I mean I also have a startup wonder. So yeah. How do you balance your time? Like how do how do you like some like it’s amazing. Yeah. I mean I I try to make things as efficient as possible and and streamline everything else. No waste of time. And also also, you know, make fast decisions, you know, don’t waste time dwelling on stuff. Don’t think about things that went wrong in the past. Don’t worry about things in the future. Every minute of thought needs to be focused on moving the ball forward on one of the things that you’re that you’re working on with with making fast decisions. I mean like sometimes when you deliberate like within yourself and you debate within yourself, you just go back to what you initially thought in the first place. Is that kind of what you’ve learned sticking with your first gut instinct? I think gut instinct I mean even Rudy goar right five minutes we made that decision you know after negotiation with that deal after Tim brought it up to us and the Tim decision with it once Mark brought the name Tim Connley to me I went to work and did diligence. I talked to Jerry West. I spoke to Pat Riley. Everybody had raving reviews as you know Kevin. and he’s got he’s just such a great guy and uh he’s the coolest guy he is and and that’s he’s a normal dude and that took probably 10 minutes. I mean what we align very very quickly on like 99% of the things we deal with but every small decision adds into some big ripple effect in the future. So the key is like Mark said you have decisions every day making them fast making them sharp and being able to put them behind you. Yeah. If you can’t make a decision fast is not the right decision if you need to think about it. It’s a good point. It’s a good way to play. True in life, true in business as well. Absolutely. Mark, Alex, thank you guys for joining me. I really appreciate honor you guys. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Congrats.

New Timberwolves owners Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore join The Kevin O’Connor Show to discuss their bold vision for Minnesota basketball. From empowering Tim Connelly to innovating fan experiences with “Jump,” they’re laying the groundwork for a championship culture.

They open up about their long-term goals, Anthony Edwards’ development, their admiration for Rudy Gobert, and how fast, decisive leadership shapes winning franchises.

👉 Can Anthony Edwards lead the Timberwolves to a title in this new era?
👉 What do you think of their fan-first innovations like Jump?

Let us know in the comments ⬇️

0:00 – Intro: A-Rod & Lore join the show
1:48 – Marc Lore’s wild childhood dream to own a team
2:46 – Their vision for the Timberwolves in 2035
4:00 – Empowering Tim Connelly like Boston sports dynasties
5:22 – How they structure front office trust and alignment
8:17 – On Anthony Edwards’ timeline vs. winning now
9:24 – Defending Rudy Gobert’s value
10:43 – What A-Rod’s learned about NBA team building
11:57 – Marc Lore on city-building & personal efficiency

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