The proud owner of a brand new contract extension, Chris Finch was relaxing on a patio in the bustling North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis on Monday night. As he reflected on how far he and the Minnesota Timberwolves have come since he first arrived in the turbulent winter of 2021, he used a word that has barely crossed his lips during more than a quarter-century of a globetrotting coaching career.
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“This is definitely home for me,” Finch said.
His coaching career started in England in 1997. It has taken him to Germany and Belgium overseas. Finch got stateside with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers in the G League in 2009 and then served as an assistant with the Houston Rockets, Denver Nuggets, New Orleans Pelicans and Toronto Raptors before being hired in the middle of the 2020-21 season to take over a Timberwolves team with the worst record in the league.
Through all of his travels, his longest NBA stay had been five years in Houston, but even then he knew that he may have to move on to find his chance to run a team.
The four-year extension he signed with the Timberwolves on Monday was significant for multiple reasons. First and foremost, it was recognition by Wolves owner Glen Taylor and his wife, Becky, that Finch had outperformed the extension he signed in 2022. He has led the Wolves to the playoffs in all three of his full seasons, including a run to the Western Conference finals in May. His 160-127 regular-season record is second only to Flip Saunders (427-392) in terms of career coaching victories in franchise history. Finch’s .557 winning percentage is atop the franchise list.
But that is only one of the reasons that the Taylors and president of basketball operations Tim Connelly chose to essentially tear up his existing contract, which ran through the 2026-27 season in its existing form. Finch has not only gained their trust with his success on the court but also in the way he has helped connect all facets of the organization, from basketball to business.
“Chris is a wonderful coach and an even better person,” Connelly said in a statement issued by the team. “We are thrilled that he is being rewarded with a well-earned extension. Under his guidance the team has improved every year, he’s the perfect leader for our organization.”
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When Finch arrived in February 2021, the Wolves were 7-24 and had just fired Ryan Saunders. Former lead executive Gersson Rosas drew criticism for the process he led in hiring Finch, including a rare rebuke from the National Basketball Coaches Association. Rick Carlisle, the president of the group, later apologized for the organization’s statement.
The Wolves lost their first five games under Finch heading into the All-Star break with the scores so lopsided that Finch previously told The Athletic that he wondered “will we ever win?”
“You feel like all the answers will come quick,” Finch said via phone on Monday night when thinking back to the idealistic early days on the job. “Then you get rocked a little bit, your confidence might get shaken and then you’ve just got to trust your pathway. What has your journey shown you and how can you rely on it?”
Beyond the X’s and O’s and scheme changes, Finch recognized early on that an unstable franchise needed a connector. He quickly went to work building relationships with the players, including Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid, four players who remain four years later as a large part of the core of a winning team. He built bridges with CEO Ethan Casson and the business side of the operation. And he kept the lines of communication with Taylor wide open, leaning on transparency to get the Wolves through a period of roster upheaval.
He also has navigated a lot of change himself. Taylor brought in Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez to his ownership group, setting up a three-year transition plan that went up in flames in March. The two sides are currently in a bitter battle for the team, with Taylor retaining all decision-making power while an arbitration process plays out.
Rosas, the man who stuck his neck out to hire Finch and has known him for more than a decade dating back to their time together with Houston’s G League team, was fired days before Finch’s first training camp as Wolves coach in the fall of 2021. Finch adapted, working closely with interim president Sachin Gupta to guide a young, excitable roster that flew around defensively and thrived on chaos to the seventh seed in the West and a first-round playoff loss to Memphis.
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Finch’s second full season included Connelly’s hire as his new basketball boss and the daring trade for Rudy Gobert that started a new big roster construction that took a year for the Wolves to figure out.
“Fundamentally, the job comes down to leadership,” Finch said. “It’s way more about leadership than it is even about basketball. Of course, you’ve got to have the acumen and the ability (to coach). But there’s also so many talented basketball people on our staff or in general out there who can help you.”
Winning certainly helps, and Finch has done it in all different ways in Minnesota. The Wolves were riverboat gamblers in 2021-22, riding Patrick Beverley’s edge, KAT’s skill and Edwards’s energy to their first playoff berth in four years. The next season was a slog of frustration and angst as Gobert settled in, but it still finished with the first back-to-back playoff appearances in two decades.
The breakthrough came this season — with the No. 1 defense in the league, a sweep of Phoenix in the first round and a stirring dethroning of the defending champions in Denver — before the Wolves lost to the Dallas Mavericks in the conference finals.
“We all kind of grew up here in the last several years,” Finch said. “And not only did the players allow me to coach them, but they also allowed me to make mistakes while learning along the way to my first time being in the position of a coach here in the NBA.”
The players swear by him. Edwards, the face of the franchise and a rising star in the league, has flourished under Finch’s watch and welcomes the hard-nosed critiques that his coach will often give him in film sessions. Towns trusts him after Finch became his fifth head coach in his first five and a half seasons in the league. Gobert appreciates how Finch stuck with him after an underwhelming first season in Minnesota.
“He’s our leader,” point guard Mike Conley said during the playoffs. “He’s the guy that’s made this thing work from the beginning.”
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Finch has assembled a top-flight staff that includes assistant coaches Micah Nori, Elston Turner, Pablo Prigioni, Kevin Hanson and Corliss Williamson. He also has a player development staff that includes Joe Boylan, Chris Hines and Max Lefevre, which has helped Minnesota become a place where young players get better. Every member of his staff, including assistants Jeff Newton and Moses Ehambe, has contracts set to expire at the end of June, but Finch said he believes progress is being made to keep the group together.
Nori, who filled in for Finch on the sideline when he injured his knee at the end of the Phoenix series, has been a candidate for several head coaching positions this summer. The Detroit Pistons have the only vacancy left.
“That’s been paramount for me,” Finch said of his staff. “It’s been huge for our success. And it starts with just getting good people. Good, talented people.”
Assuming that business is taken care of, the staff will have to embark on the organization’s greatest challenge yet. Their run to the conference finals, just the second time in franchise history that the Wolves have made it out of the first round, was thrilling. But their performance against the Mavericks in a 4-1 series loss showed how far away they remain. Finch has said the offense will need to be addressed to get it closer to their superb defense with decision-making and reducing turnovers being two offseason points of emphasis.
There is always a chance at another significant trade, but most with the Wolves expect there to be only minor tweaking to the roster. That will put a premium on internal improvement if the Wolves are going to take things one step further next season. The players, most of whom had never experienced a deep playoff run, also learned what it takes to play deep into May. Finch believes that the harrowing first two rounds, which included his ruptured patellar tendon against Phoenix that forced him to sit behind the bench and a win for the ages in Game 7 at Denver, took a lot out of his team.
“I just think we emotionally and physically ran out of gas,” Finch said. “That playoff stamina, we’ve got to continue to keep building it up. But that doesn’t start when the playoffs start. It starts becoming more of a machine during the regular season. I think that really helps.”
With the ownership situation up in the air and unlikely to be resolved before the fall, Taylor made it a priority to instill as much stability as possible into the leadership positions. Connelly pushed back the opt-out date in his contract until next summer, giving him the flexibility to see who prevails in the arbitration case before making a long-term commitment. But it also ensured that the man running the front office will continue to do so through the draft and free agency this summer.
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And the Taylors did not need to do anything for Finch. He was still under contract through 2026-27. But he was underpaid given his success on the job and this move shows how much they value him. He thanked the Taylors, Connelly and Casson for opening discussions on his deal far earlier than many teams would.
“They broke open the contract and redid it,” Finch said. “That doesn’t often happen and I’m extremely grateful for that.”
Lore and Rodriguez were known to favor extending Finch as well, team sources told The Athletic, so this would align with their long-term vision for the franchise should they win in arbitration. Finch said he has always appreciated the support he has received from them.
His new deal extends through the 2027-28 season. Given the volatility of the profession, peace of mind is a rare thing for an NBA coach. But as he sat on that patio in downtown Minneapolis on Monday night with his second contract extension locked and loaded, Finch, 54, chuckled as he recalled how much moving he has done in his coaching career.
He lives just blocks from Target Center, in the heart of a fan base’s revival. He can feel it every time he ventures out on the town, where he is met with warm wishes and requests for selfies from Wolves fans who are used to seeing their team change coaches every two or three years. Next season will be his fourth full one in Minnesota. Now, more than ever, it feels to Finch like he’s found a home.
“I love this neighborhood,” he said. “So I’m not moving.”
(Photo of Chris Finch: Patrick McDermott / Getty Images)