Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez have exercised their option to purchase the next 20 percent of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx.

Lore and Rodriguez had until the end of the day Saturday to inform Glen Taylor that they had exercised the option.

The next step will be to purchase another 40 percent of the team. Lore and Rodriguez have until Dec. 31, 2023 to exercise that option.

Lore and Rodriguez have recruited other investors to join their Purple Buyers Holdings LLC, which joined the Timberwolves as limited partners in the summer of 2021. 

The unique structure of the acquisition satisfied Taylor's timeline for not yet wanting to relinquish control while also giving Lore and Rodriguez enough time to raise the capital needed to buy the franchise at a $1.5 billion valuation. Taylor plans on holding on to the final 20 percent of the franchise for some time after relinquishing majority control.

D'Angelo Russell wasn't happy after the Minnesota Timberwolves loss to the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday. He directed most of his unhappiness towards Pelicans star Zion Williamson.

“He ran through my guy, took the ball. He’s playing football, we playing basketball. We can’t touch him or guard him. So, good for him,” Russell said.

Russell was initially upset about a play where Williamson scored on Rudy Gobert to tie the game with just under a minute to play. Russell thought Williamson should have been called for an offensive foul for pushing off. On the ensuing possession, Williamson stole Russell's pass and went in for the go-ahead dunk.

Russell asserted that Williamson ran through Wolves forward Jaden McDaniels to make the steal. Anthony Edwards re-tied the game, but Williamson then made one-of-two free throws with four seconds left to win the game for New Orleans.

Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez have spent the past six months raising money to fund their purchase of the Minnesota Timberwolves with a Dec. 31 deadline to exercise an option to buy another 20 percent of the franchise from Glen Taylor.

The deadline is the first of three pre-priced call options in a unique layaway deal approved by the NBA last July. 

Rodriguez and Lore have spoken with private equity firms, family offices and individual investors about coming in at higher price than the $1.5 billion valuation that they negotiated last year.

If exercised, the group has 60 to 90 days to close on that payment.

The third option, a 40% stake that would give the pair a majority of the franchise, must be exercised before the end of 2023. The option for the final 20% must be exercised before Dec. 31, 2024.

Sportico currently values the franchise at $1.7 billion, which is the third lowest in the NBA. The Phoenix Suns recently sold at a $4 billion valuation. 

Lore and Rodriguez have discussed significantly higher valuations in their talks with investors, according to people familiar with those talks, including numbers higher than $2 billion.

Patrick Beverley's name has been bandied about in trade rumors, as the Los Angeles Lakers seek to upgrade their roster. Beverley's $13 million contract is the Lakers best piece of salary-matching in a deal, assuming a Russell Westbrook deal is off the table.

Los Angeles is rumored to have offered Beverley to the Detroit Pistons as part of a deal for Bojan Bogdanovic. However, the Pistons wanted an unprotected first-round pick and the deal never progressed.

If traded to a rebuilding team, Beverley will reportedly seek a buyout. Beverley would then look to return to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite trading him this summer, the Wolves would be eligible to re-sign Beverley after a buyout. This is because Beverley would have been moved on from the Utah Jazz, who were the original acquiring team.

Kevin Garnett was a recent guest on The Players' Tribune's Knuckleheads Podcast hosted by former NBA player Darius Miles and Quentin Richardson. The three did a retrospective on Garnett's life and career.

When it came to the Minnesota years, Garnett said he thought he and Stephon Marbury were going to dominate the NBA.

“I thought Steph and I was gonna be forever, and I thought out of that, we was probably gonna get a couple, even with the Shaq and Kobe s***. But yeah, at that time, man, that s*** blew me. Steph leaving Minnesota blew the f*** out of me. I didn’t understand it. To this day, I still don’t understand it. It was Stephon Marbury; it was his decision. It wasn’t an ‘Us’ decision.”

Marbury's tenue with the Timberwolves last just two-and-a-half seasons before he was traded to the New Jersey Nets. The young, upstart Wolves made the playoffs in each of Marbury's two full seasons with the team.

Garnett and Marbury would later reunite with the 2009 Boston Celtics. Unfortunately, the two only saw action together in four games, as Garnett missed most of the second half of that season due to a knee injury.

The Minnesota Timberwolves have signed forward Matt Ryan to a two-way contract. In a preceding move, the Wolves waived guard A.J. Lawson. 

Ryan, 25, most recently played 12 games this season for the Los Angeles Lakers where he averaged 3.9 points and 1.2 rebounds in 10.8 minutes per game. His best game of the season came on Nov. 2 at New Orleans after finishing with a career-high 11 points, including connecting on three three-pointers and two rebounds. Ryan played one game for the Boston Celtics in 2021-22 and totaled three points and one steal. The 6-6 forward played in 30 career G League games (20 starts) and averaged 19.4 points on 46.9% shooting, including 41.3% from deep, 3.3 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game.

The White Plains, N.Y. native spent time at Notre Dame, Vanderbilt and ultimately finished his collegiate career at Chattanooga. In 134 college games (62 starts), Ryan totaled 1,058 points, 333 rebounds and 121 assists.

The Minnesota Timberwolves made a bold trade for Rudy Gobert shortly after Tim Connelly was hired to run the front office and he's been surprised the team has had some struggles to start the season.

“We’ve seen moments we look really good and moments we haven’t,” Connelly told The Athletic. “If you were to ask me two months ago when the season started, we thought we’d be a little further ahead of the curve.”

The Wolves entered Wednesday's game with an 11-12 record.

Many around the league were skeptical of the fit of Gobert with Karl-Anthony Towns not to mention the exorbitant cost to acquire him.

“We didn’t have expectations it was initially going to hit the ground running. We kind of expected a lot of growing pains there,” Connelly said. “So I think, individually, Rudy’s been fantastic. When we’re fully healthy, we’ve got to figure out how to most effectively employ all those guys. It’s a win-loss league. If we had three or four more wins right now, it would be an emphatic positive.”

Towns has shown a willingness to incorporate Gobert into the offense and that is a big reason why Connelly believes the pairing can work.

“We’re not going to bury our head in the sand and pretend it’s been flawless,” Connelly said. “We never expected that. When we made the trade, it wasn’t done without a lot of conversation, a lot of watching of tape.”

Either way, Connelly takes responsibility for the move.

“If this team doesn’t perform on a big enough level, the responsibility falls solely on me. It’s not these guys,” he said. “It’s my responsibility under my role to make sure we put a good team out there. But in that chase to put a good team out there, these are really good guys. We have really good guys and women in this building. It’s been really fun to get to know them and to start to feel like it is home and start to understand what makes these guys tick.”

The Minnesota Timberwolves are signing Matt Ryan to a two-way deal, sources told Shams Charania and Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic.

Ryan averaged 3.8 points in 13 games before getting waived by the Lakers.

Minnesota Timberwolves guard D'Angelo Russell was fined $20,000 for making inappropriate remarks towards a game official. Russell yelled at an official at the conclusion of the Wolves home loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday.

Russell had previously been ejected from the game with 44 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. Minnesota teammate Rudy Gobert had previously been ejected in the first half for a Flagrant 2 foul.