According to The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski and Shams Charania, the Minnesota Timberwolves are finalizing an agreement with former New Orleans Pelicans General Manager Dell Demps for a role in their front office.
Demps served as the Pelicans/Hornets general manager from 2010 to 2019, which included new Timberwolves President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly working under him as an assistant GM for three seasons. But Demps is best known for highly-criticized moves he made with the Pelicans.
In 2010, Demps attempted to trade Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers in return for Lamar Odom, Goran Dragic, Luis Scola, Kevin Martin and a 2012 first-round draft pick, but the deal was nixed by then-NBA commissioner David Stern.
Instead, Demps had to settle for a package from the Houston Rockets that included Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman, Al-Farouq Aminu and the Timberwolves’ unprotected first-round pick in the 2012 draft, which was used to draft Austin Rivers 10th overall.
Gordon and Rivers never transformed into impact players and the veterans Demps acquired couldn’t get the Pelicans off the ground during their rebuild.
Before taking Rivers 10th overall in 2012, the Pelicans used the No. 1 pick to take Anthony Davis. But even with Davis the Pelicans missed the playoffs four of his first five years in the league, until 2017 when Demps traded a boatload of young talent to Sacramento for DeMarcus Cousins.
They made the playoffs in 2017 but Cousins wound up tearing his Achilles in 2018. What could’ve been never had the chance to be realized, and by 2019 Davis wanted out of New Orleans and when Demps failed to trade him before the 2019 trade deadline, he was fired.
Demps’ stint as GM of the Pelicans is one of many criticisms, including one from SI’s Rob Mahoney who wrote after his firing that Demps was focused on winning right away rather than playing the long game.
“Demps proceeded to surround [Davis] with veterans and trade away first-round pick after first-round pick. Young players were cut loose before they ever had the chance to develop,” Mahoney wrote.
Demps spent the past two seasons as an assistant coach with the Utah Jazz.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Minnesota is also adding former Orlando Magic executive Matt Lloyd as their senior VP of basketball operations while Sachin Gupta, who was Minnesota’s interim president of basketball operations last season, will remain on the staff as an executive vice president.
