MINNEAPOLIS — Owner Glen Taylor said Thursday the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx "are no longer for sale" after the deadline for buyers Marc Lore and
Alex Rodriguez passed without the sale closing. A statement from the organization said the deadline for closing was Wednesday. "Under certain circumstances, the buyer could have been entitled to a limited extension," the statement read. "However, those circumstances did not occur." Taylor said he "will continue to work with Marc, Alex and the rest of the ownership group to ensure our teams have the necessary resources to compete at the highest levels on and off the court." The deal with e-commerce billionaire Lore and Rodriguez was announced in 2021. The agreement allowed Lore and Rodriguez to come on as minority partners before, eventually, purchasing a majority stake. That did not happen, according to Taylor's statement. As recently as January, Taylor was optimistic the sale would go through, if seemingly hesitant about handing the team over to its new owners. "If you recall the way that the transaction was put together, they were going to make the payments over three years. So my expectations were, at that time, that they would take advantage of these two or three years to learn about running the club and see how I did things. If they wanted to change things or if they thought I was doing things that could be done better. I'm always open to suggestions," Taylor told WCCO's Mike Max. "I think whatever they should have done, they've already done or haven't done, and they better be prepared because it's they're going to have the ownership in the next six months here." The collapse of the sale comes during the Wolves' best season in two decades. The team hit 50 wins for the first time since 2003-2004, when Kevin Garnett led the team to the Western Conference finals. Led by a big three of Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert, the team's future is as bright as its ever been. The Lynx, meanwhile, are in the early stages of a rebuild after losing much of the core that led them to multiple championships in the 2010s. Two All-Rookie draft picks and fourth-place finisher in the MVP race Napheesa Collier , though, brought them to a playoff appearance last season. Anthony Bettin is a web producer at WCCO. He primarily covers
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