Rick Adelman

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No Kevin Love. No Nikola Pekovic. No Kevin Martin.

Okay, so that probably wasn’t said before the April 11, 2014 game against the Houston Rockets at the Target Center. In fact, someone probably said 'uh-oh' instead.

Brewer wasn’t (and isn't) known as a scorer. He was (and is) known as the guy going 150 miles-per-hour, creating havoc and turnovers while leaking out for fast breaks. And of course his smile.

On that night at the Target Center, his smile was flowing throughout the entire game as he poured in 51 points.

“I think Pek and the two Kevins have been holding him back,” Wolves head coach Rick Adelman joked after the game.

It’s worth noting that Brewer has never averaged more than 13 points per game throughout his career.

On paper, it was a meaningless game for the Wolves. The team was 39-39 going into the game, but was well out of the playoff picture. But for the fans that night in the Target Center, it’s a night they’ll never forget.

“The energy was great tonight, you know, the fans were behind me,” Brewer said. “I could hear them saying get 50, get 50. When you get 50, you know, it’s kind of been a disappointing year for us. To give the fans something to cheer about means a lot.”

Brewer shot 19-for-30 from the field on the night, 2-for-6 from the 3-point line and 11-for-15 from the free-throw line. The former Gator isn’t known as a great jump shooter, and he wasn’t on this night, either. Sixteen of his made buckets came within three feet of the basket, which is pretty remarkable. His 19 made field goals matched the most in franchise history (tied with Kevin Garnett and Wally Szczerbiak. Mo Williams has since joined this list).

He also added six steals, becoming the fourth player in league history to score 50 or more points while snagging six or more steals. The other three? Allen Iverson, Michael Jordan and Ricky Barry.

“Everybody’s so happy (for him), you know?” Wolves guard Ricky Rubio said. “Running up and down, seems like he had energy forever and he never stops. It’s just, I don’t know how he was doing it, but (he was) getting to the rim every time and it was fun.”

It’s fitting that Brewer will be back in the house tonight as a member of the Rockets. The Wolves traded Brewer to Houston on Dec. 19, 2014. In his time with Houston, his highest point total is 26 points. In 136 games with the Rockets, Brewer is averaging 9.2 points and 2.9 rebounds per game.

Brewer and the Rockets are in the middle of a playoff battle right now. With just two games remaining, the Rockets are one game behind the Utah Jazz for the eighth seed.

There will be plenty of smiles tonight when the fan favorite enters the game. And for those who were in attendance two years ago, they’ll remember just how magical that night was for Brewer and the Wolves. 

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Corey Brewer Did Something Pretty Cool On This Day Two Years Ago

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Wolves coach Rick Adelman announced his retirement on Monday inside the LifeTime Fitness Training Center, ending his 23-year run as an NBA coach and his three-year stint with the Timberwolves. During those three years, Adelman won 97 games (good for second all-time on the Wolves’ franchise coaching list behind Flip Saunders) and added to the team’s win total each year.

When he took over, the Wolves won 17 games the year before and 15 the year before that. During Adelman’s run, he won 26 games in a 66-game shortened season, then 31 in 2012-13 before going 40-42 this season.

That’s five consecutive seasons where the team improved its win total, three of which coming under Adelman.

So as he sat next to Saunders, the team’s President of Basketball Operations, on Monday during his retirement press conference, he did so with mixed emotions about his time here in the Twin Cities. Adelman helped restore the team back to credibility, yet he wished that postseason berth would’ve come with it.

“It’s not that far away,” said Adelman, who will remain a consultant for the team. “Sometimes you want it to happen in a year…you want it to happen in two years. Sometimes it takes longer than that. What looks good on paper isn’t necessarily what the reality is. You know, I think that’s true, but I think there are a lot of great pieces on this team, and I have so much confidence in Flip and [general manager] Milt [Newton] and the entire staff that they’ll do the right thing and make the right steps to put this team in competition for the playoffs.

“I wish I could have done more, but I really enjoyed my time.”

Adelman left his mark on this organization—and the fruits of his labor are in position to flourish in the years to come. Only four players that were on the roster when he took over in 2011-12 are still on the team today: Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio, Nikola Pekovic and J.J. Barea. From December 2011 to today, 36 different players have been on the Wolves’ roster at one point or another. Of that, a collection was brought on due to the collection of injuries the team suffered in 2012-13—Mickael Gelabale, Chris Johnson, Lazar Hayward and Josh Howard all fit into that category.

But the biggest reason why there has been so much turnover over the past three years is Adelman, coupled with the front office, have worked together to find players that not only fit specific roles on the team but have the desire to win on a nightly basis. The culture in the locker room is now built to succeed—the one that Adelman adopted in 2011 was not necessarily built like that.

Today, the Wolves have a core that continue to develop thanks to the work Adelman and his assistant coaching staff did with the team over the past three years. In the same way Adelman’s staff helped Vlade Divac and Chris Webber become exceptional passing bigs in Sacramento, Kevin Love added passing in the half-court to his list of talents this season. Nikola Pekovic and Gorgui Dieng also noticeably benefitted from their work on the practice court.

The foundation he set both on the court and with the level of expectations this organization hopes to achieve moving forward will be lasting imprints of Adelman’s tenure as coach as the team moves into the next phase of finding his replacement.

Saunders said the Wolves will want to find someone who can follow in Adelman’s footsteps in that regard—especially in the way Adelman led the team offensively. Minnesota finished the 2013-14 season third in the league with 106.9 points per game, fifth in assists at 24.0 per game and sixth in rebounding at 44.7 boards per game.

“He took a team that won 15 and 17 games in three years won 40 games,” Saunders said. “I know a lot of people this year weren’t happy that we only won 40, but let me tell you something, it’s tough to make the jump and win that many games in two years….I respect what he’s been able to do. He’s at least put this organization right now in respectability where three years ago we didn’t have that.”

That coaching search will take time—Saunders said he’d like to have someone sooner rather than later considering the Draft Combine, workouts and Draft night are all around the corner. But if it takes until the Draft and beyond, they’ll adjust. They want to find the right person to fill Adelman’s position so they can build on the foundation set over the past three years.

As for Adelman’s consulting role, Saunders said the team will ask for Adelman’s advice on players in order to tap into his vast knowledge within the NBA. The Wolves hope Adelman can continue helping move the team in the right direction, even if it’s just through a phone call now and again.

“Rick’s been around the league a long time,” Saunders said. “He has a great understanding of the players in the league, and I think we’ll use him a lot as a sounding board. Whether you talk to him about players, whether you talk to him about when he’s watching games. Just little things he can do to help out our team, and so I think it’s one of those thing that’s going to evolve. Anyone that has the knowledge Rick has, we’re going to utilize him, there’s no question, as much as we can but still give him the freedom that he wants.”

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Leaving a Foundation

Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra spent his high school and college years in the Portland area, going to high school at Jesuit High School in Beaverton before staying near home to play for the University of Portland from 1988-1992. During that time, Rick Adelman transitioned from an assistant with the Blazers to their full-time head coach, and immediately he led Portland to two NBA Finals and was the catalyst for “Adelmania” in the Pacific Northwest.

Spoelstra, a young point guard at the University of Portland at the time, was close by taking notice. The innovation Adelman showed as a coach early on was admirable for young future coaches like Spoelstra, and as the next quarter-century unfolded Adelman would make his mark on up-and-comers as well as his peers within the business.

“He’s an absolute model of consistency, professionalism, integrity, and he’s a damn good basketball coach,” said Spoelstra, who is currently in the postseason chasing his third straight NBA championship ring. “He’s proven over the years as an innovator in so many different regards. Almost every single team in this league copies a portion of his offense.”

Adelman announced his retirement from coaching on Monday at the LifeTime Fitness Training Center inside Target Center. He coached for 23 seasons and compiled 1,042 wins—the 1,000th coming as the Wolves’ head coach last April, which catapulted him into a select group of eight men to achieve that milestone.

During his time coaching the Blazers, Warriors, Kings, Rockets and Wolves, Adelman became a revered and incredibly well-respected coach across the league. His offensive schemes became commonplace within other teams’ playbooks—in a league now dominated by the pick-and-roll, Adelman’s corner motion and facilitation at the elbows by his bigs became an envy across the league. It helped him take the Kings to the postseason in all eight seasons he coached there—Sacramento had gone to eight postseasons in the previous 31 years.

He won 50 games in 11 of his 23 seasons—including two 60-win campaigns—and went to the playoffs 16 times. He challenged opposing coaches to think differently on both sides of the ball, because not only did his opponents need to find ways defensively to stop Adelman’s clubs, but they needed to find ways to fight through his often stingy defensive squads and keep up offensively.

Along the way, teams started picking pieces of Adelman’s playbook. He began forming a reputation as one of the top offensive basketball minds of his time—earning high praise from another fellow offensive guru, George Karl, who said Adelman has always been ahead of the curve in his offensive innovation.

There was enough of an impact on the rest of the league that Adelman joked in his retirement press conference that it wasn’t always fun trying to stop opposing teams using those same sets his teams perfected.

“He plays a system that makes his players improve in the league,” Karl said. “The development of excellence year in and year out is a tremendous compliment.”

Clippers coach Doc Rivers is quick to admit he’s part of the Adelman following. While he was coaching the Celtics, he dug into Adelman’s playbook with favorable results. In one particular game, Rivers said he copied an Adelman play and won the game with it. From that point forward, they called it “Adelman.”

Dwane Casey, who coached under Karl as an assistant in Seattle before having head coaching positions with the Timberwolves and, currently, the Raptors, said there’s no doubt coaches around the league take from Adelman’s approach in their game plans. Adelman adapted with whichever personnel he might have on that particular roster, and he ensured his players had the best opportunity to succeed.

“[He]’s always ahead of the curve,” Casey said. “Even when he was in Portland, he plays a different style, and it’s always different than everyone else.”

The one thing Adelman did not achieve during his NBA coaching career was winning an NBA championship ring. That’s more of a product of his era than anything else. Adelman reached two finals, losing to Phil Jackson’s Bulls and Chuck Daly’s Pistons. During Adelman’s 23 years in the league, only nine NBA head coaches won rings. Jackson won 10 of them (Adelman didn’t coach in 1997-98 when the Bulls won their sixth) and Popovich won four. Adelman, like Karl and Sloan in the 1,000-win club, is ringless due in large part to the dynasties of their time.

And that, according to Popovich, sometimes alters outside the league just how important Adelman’s impact has been during his career.

“I’ve said many times over many years, he’s probably the most underrated basketball coach in the NBA,” Popovich said. “He’s done a great job every place he’s been. He runs good stuff, players enjoy playing for him, and he’s tenacious. He’s one hell of a coach.”

Flip Saunders coached against Adelman for several years—including that memorable seven-game series between the Wolves and Kings in 2004—and he got to work with Adelman this season as Minnesota’s President of Basketball Operations. He said the biggest reason for Adelman’s success is his competitive fire and his ability to help make his players better. He’s more of a teacher than a coach, Saunders said, which for him is the ultimate sign of respect in their profession.

Tom Thibodeau, currently in his fourth year coaching the Bulls, said you can tell when a coach impacts the game based on how vastly his sets are used around the league.

“He’s a Hall of Fame coach to me,” Thibodeau said. “I think everyone has taken some part of his offense with him. When you look at every team that plays in this league, there’s part of his offensive concepts that are incorporated into your offense. I think that says a lot, but for him to win at the level he’s won at for so long—to me, that’s the mark of greatness.”

Ty Corbin’s seen it first-hand for decades. When Corbin was coming out of DePaul in 1985, he said Adelman was his coach at the NBA Combine in Chicago. During his playing career that lasted until 2001, Corbin played against Adelman for much of his career and even played for him in Sacramento in 1999-2000. They’ve coached against each other for the past four seasons with Corbin currently being the Utah Jazz head coach.

And it was Corbin who was the final NBA coach to go head-to-head with Adelman—the Jazz beat the Wolves 136-130 in double-overtime on Wednesday night at Target Center. Corbin, who met Adelman as he entered the league nearly 30 years ago, was there the night Adelman presumably coached his final game.

“He’s just a guy we’ll miss,” Corbin said. “You’d like to be playing on—both of us. I’m sure he’d like to be playing on, too. But if it’s the end for him, I wish him well. I think he deserves the break. He’s a great guy. We want what’s best for him. And you know, it’d be bittersweet if it’s his last game.”

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Adelman's Coaching Made League-Wide Impact

Rick Adelman said a lot of things and answered a lot of questions during Monday’s press conference announcing his retirement from coaching after 23 seasons, but in the end two words had the most impact:

It’s time, because Rick Adelman has done the balancing act long enough. He’s a family man, first and foremost. You hear it in how he talks about his wife, Mary Kay, and his children—two of whom, R.J. and David, worked with him in the Timberwolves organization. You saw it in how he embraced his wife in April 2013 when he won his 1,000th NBA game. And you felt it when he took time away during Mary Kay’s health scare last year, and how he took much of the offseason last year contemplating if he wanted to return.

Now, the time is right. Behind the scenes, it’s never been Rick Adelman going through this alone. His family has supported him during his years of travel, of late nights and of moving across the country for the next coaching gig. This has been an Adelman family affair since the beginning, and you got the impression on Monday that there was a bit of relief and closure in his words as he said, “It’s time.”

“You get some time off in the summer, but it’s pretty much on your mind all the time,” Adelman said. “So there’s some sadness, but there’s also a relief. I’m ready, and my wife’s ready to move on to another phase. We’re looking forward to that.”

Adelman won 1,042 games in the NBA for five different organizations. His wife and family were with him every step of the way, encouraging him and giving him support. Some eventually bought in to the point of following in his footsteps into the NBA. With R.J. as Director of Player Personnel and David as an assistant coach here for the Wolves, he had an opportunity to have both of his sons on board for three seasons in Minnesota.

Even though he’s joked in the past that he thought they shouldn’t follow in his footsteps due to the stress and uncertainty of the job, Adelman enjoyed the chance to work with two of his six children within the organization.

“It was special, and I was glad I was able to do it and I appreciate the fact that they’re still going to be here for next year,” said Adelman, alluding to R.J. and David still being under contract and expected to stay for the 2014-15 season. “I don’t’ know why they want to be involved in it—I tried to discourage them, but it didn’t work. So I really enjoyed it. But like I said, my family has been part of it and we flew all the grandkids in January and they came to a game. That’s fun. That’s the fun part of it.”

Family was a reason why Adelman initially accepted the job with Minnesota prior to the 2011-12 season. With the Wolves interested, Adelman met with owner Glen Taylor and was impressed early on with the type of character and family-oriented focus he showcased. It’s a trait that, on Monday, Adelman said made Taylor one of the greatest owners he’s ever worked for.

During Mary Kay’s health concerns last year, Adelman said Taylor was steadfast in ensuring he take as much time as he needed to make sure his wife was OK. That went a long way with Adelman. He appreciated the support he received from his owner from Day 1 through his final day on the job.

 When Adelman won his 1,000th game last year, Taylor said the family involvement was something he could see was important to Adelman from the very beginning.

“Even when we interviewed, that was one of the things we talked about—the importance of not only the family for me but family for him,” Taylor said last April. “That’s one of the things that I think drew us together for this job, and so we talked about having his sons and how we might utilize their skills. And I think it worked out really well for us.”

That night, David talked about how important it was for the Adelman family to be there to see Adelman win that 1,000th game. They’d been with him since the beginning, and witnessing Adelman become part of the exclusive 1,000-win club was a cool moment.

“It’s just extremely special,” David said after that win. “You know, we’ve been around him the whole time, the whole career. And just for our family, he’s always been about family. So it was cool to see my mom down there. It’s just a great accomplishment.”

Now, there will be time for many more family memories—only away from the court. He and his wife like to play golf and tennis, so they’ll have some time for that. They can travel—albeit at a much more leisurely pace than during the NBA season—and they can keep busy with their grandkids.

For now, it’s time for a new chapter in the Rick Adelman book. He’ll be a consultant for the Wolves, adding his input on personnel decisions, but the day-to-day basketball grind is in the past.

“There’s second thoughts and everything else, but Mary Kay and I talked about it and again, we came to the conclusion, thinking about another year, thinking about the travel, especially. That was the biggest thing,” Adelman said. “When you’re on the road all the time—and of course she’s had some problems and everything, and all that stuff enters into it. We’re doing fine right now, and we want to keep it that way. And like I said, enjoy other things in life.”

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For The Adelman Family, "It's Time"

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