MINNEAPOLIS — When Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez agreed to purchase the Timberwolves and Lynx from Glen Taylor — who also owns the Star Tribune — way back in 2021, one of the major story lines was whether these outsiders were intent on whisking the franchise away to some other more lucrative market.

Here we are in 2024, with the transfer of majority ownership chugging along and perhaps lurching to the finish line by the end of this month, with Lore and Rodriguez recently securing new financing to stabilize the deal.

The year before they bought the team (2019-20), the Wolves were dead last in average NBA attendance and they had made the playoffs just once since 2004. Now they are selling out Target Center as a matter of routine and the Wolves are cruising toward a high seed in what will be their third straight playoff appearance.

Lore and A-Rod bought the team for $1.5 billion, and it's now valued at $2.5 billion. Count me among those who would like to acquire something and have it increase in value by 10 figures before I was done paying for it.

The protracted nature of the ownership transfer might have been a bigger deal if not for all the winning this year. Last week's odd news that executive Sachin Gupta allegedly had his hard drive stolen by a disgruntled employee also could have dominated headlines for days during a lesser time for the Wolves.

Instead: The sideshows have remained on the side for once, as Patrick Reusse and I talked about on Monday's Daily Delivery podcast.

The on-court product is too compelling to worry about much of anything else. Karl-Anthony Towns is injured again? That's unfortunate, and his absence has been felt, but the Wolves are an impressive 6-3 without KAT while learning to play with different lineups.

The Wolves have looming salary cap decisions to make this offseason with new NBA rules combined with salaries for Towns and Anthony Edwards scheduled to take big leaps? Sure, but that's a problem for another time. And besides, President Tim Connelly — roasted in his first year and celebrated in his second — should be able to solve it.

Minnesota almost certainly will have home-court advantage for the first round of the playoffs. It could be two or even three rounds depending on how the final 11 games and the playoffs go.

After a nice win over Golden State on Sunday put the Wolves within a half-game of Oklahoma City and a game of Denver, the biggest question remains this: Who would Minnesota prefer to play in the first round?

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