Flip Saunders brought in a magician to entertain the Minnesota Timberwolves

The first season of the post-Kevin Love era figures to be a trying one for the Minnesota Timberwolves. At the same time, it shouldn't be entirely depressing. Top draft pick Andrew Wiggins remains a potential star at both ends, Ricky Rubio should be on the giving end of his customary highlights, and enough could go right for the Wolves to seem as if they have a very bright future. After several seasons of expecting and failing to make the playoffs, that could even make the franchise more exciting to follow than they were with Love.

None of this will serve as comfort to head coach and president of basketball operations Flip Saunders, who is carrying virtually all the management risk associated with the team's performance this season. Saunders needs to convince owner Glen Taylor that he's the person to lead the team going forward. So, naturally, he's doing everything possible to get the team motivated in training camp.

And we do mean everything, because Saunders hired a magician to perform for the team during the first week of camp. From Jerry Zgoda for the Star Tribune (via EOB):

“This is a game, you’re here to have fun,” Saunders said. “You’re here to stimulate players. You’re here to motivate them.”

On Friday, he opened practice by commanding players to throw footballs around rather than basketballs, an exercise that led him to conclude European center Nikola Pekovic is better suited for the position of offensive lineman than quarterback.

On Tuesday, he brought a magician — the Amazing Hondo, of course — to camp for some sleight of hand.

On Thursday, he had players pull numbers out of a hat to pick sides for a shooting contest after which Kevin Martin and Corey Brewer reportedly walked away with a little extra spending money.

The methods appear to be inspired by another Minnesota coach — former Junior Goodwill Games U.S. Hockey coach Gordon Bombay, who famously allowed his team to horse around and even lasso each other before the gold medal game against vaunted Iceland. Team USA won that game in part because they embraced fun, with several players changing uniforms as a trick and Coach Bombay finally realizing that it made more sense to play a superior woman in goal over the comic relief. I can only assume that Rubio is now attempting to improve his jumper by having it resemble the knuckle-puck.

It's difficult to see the point of many of Saunders's gimmicks, unless he has plans to take the Wolves to a screening of "The Room" or wants Wiggins to start pulling Harlem Globetrotters-esque neverending scarf tricks during a game. There does not appear to be a direct correlation between winning games and getting players to wonder just how a rabbit hid in that hat for so long.

Of course, that lack of an obvious connection could be the whole point. The Wolves are building towards the future and aren't expected to perform particularly well in 2014-15. The main goals for this season involve gauging Wiggins's readiness for stardom, getting Rubio to become more of a scoring threat, and finding quality role players who can serve important roles if and when the team does return to playoff contention. Perhaps Saunders wants to emphasize growth over reaching for an exact number of wins. The fact that such an approach figures to improve his own job security could just be a happy coincidence.

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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at efreeman_ysports@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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