With the selection of Kahn, the Timberwolves are moving in a new direction for the first time in 15 years.

Kahn, 47, most recently was the owner of Southwest Basketball, LLC, which owned several NBA D-League teams including Fort Worth and Austin, Texas, Albuquerque, N.M., and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Kahn worked for nearly nine years in the front office of the Indiana Pacers. During that time he held the positions of General Manager for four seasons, Assistant to the President for one season and Vice President and Assistant General Manager for two years. From 1998-2002 he oversaw both the business and basketball sides of the organization; represented the Pacers on the NBA's Competition Committee; and managed a staff of over 120 when the team moved into Conseco Fieldhouse in 1999.

Kahn also served from 1991-95 as the basketball consultant for "NBA Showtime" at NBC Sports in New York, working closely with the show's producers and on-air talent, including Bob Costas and Basketball Hall of Famer Julius Erving.

We caught up with Kahn on Sunday, just two days after his selection by the Timberwolves. With the fate of coach Kevin McHale still up in the air after meeting with him this past Tuesday, the Draft, and working to make the Timberwolves a premier franchise in the NBA, Kahn is clearly going to have his hands full. Still, for those that know him, his driven personality may be just what the doctor ordered for the organization.

The following interview covers how business and basketball development are intertwined, Moneyball in the NBA, how rookie scale players are key to allowing the payroll flexibility needed to land quality veteran free agents, scouting NBA players, the use of objective analysis to improve scouting and much more.

Select Read More to see the interview with David Kahn

Maury Brown for the Business of Sports Network: In your press conference, you mentioned that the business side and the basketball development side were inseparable based upon the salary cap restrictions, etc. Given those comments, can the business side be absent from how franchises do business in the NBA these days?

Kahn: Well, I think that’s a little too black and white, because you certainly could have a pairing of people, or even more than two people view it. I think the best way, would seem to me, would always be if you had people who could do both. I believe there are a lot people in the league right now who do both; meaning, who have the ability to evaluate talent and also the ability to view that talent through the prism of budget and the salary cap and luxury tax.

Bizball: Moneyball was something that came to the forefront with Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s – the ability to find undervalued talent when faced with constraints, such as limited revenue streams or, in the case of the NBA, bumping into cap restrictions. Is finding undervalued talent something that will be key for the Timberwolves moving forward?

Kahn: I think so and I hope so. I think certain NBA teams already do an outstanding job of that. But, yes, with the Timberwolves, we definitely want to buy low and sell high. Now that comes across sometimes as a little too unemotional, and a little too unfeeling, but I think that the concept is an important one. It all again flows back into how to manage the payroll, based on the fact that you don’t have an infinite number of dollars to spend. That’s why the rookie scale players, in particular, provided they can contribute right away, are so important. It’s the rookie pay scale players that contribute right away that takes away a lot of pressure, and that does allow you the opportunity to allocate significant dollars to your top players. If, on the other hand, your rookie scale players aren’t contributing, and aren’t in your rotation, then you’re having to pay veteran players who make more money, in many cases. It can really cause the thing to become askew.

Bizball: You mentioned at the press conference that there would be some payroll flexibility for the Timberwolves in 2010. Tying back into your rookie skill players, are you looking to augment your young players with key veteran talent through trades and free agency?

Kahn: Yes, because again, there’s a finite amount of space. Nobody is quite so fortunate to have the luxury of not making a mistake. Inevitably, every now and then there will be a mistake on your roster; a contract, a player who isn’t contributing comparable to what they're being paid; taking up space. It’s almost a yin-yang game, you better have somebody who is the opposite, who is making less money than what they should be based on their contributions, or in a long contract, so you don’t have to pay them improved value until their contract comes up.

Bizball: Going back to the press conference, you talked about character and you also mentioned that that there was a lot of scouting that goes on at the collegiate and high school level, but not as much after the players enter the league. Were you referring to scouting players to see if once those players enter the league that they work to reach their maximum potential, or looking for players that might be “mailing it in”; simply looking to collect a paycheck?

Kahn: Well, no. I was mostly referring to the fact that we have the ability, because we have one-year expiring contracts on our roster, a lot of teams would be looking to take those one-year contracts, and will offer contracts lasting more than one year. That puts a premium then on being able to make certain that when you take a player with a longer contract, because they have to match up salary-wise, meaning in that one year when they match, you better have a real firm handle on these players. It was just a general observation, and wasn’t intended to be more than that. Generally, I think we spend an enormous amount of research scouting college players, high school players, and not quite nearly the amount of resources to scouting the players who are already in the league. When, now all of a sudden, scouting them, you have a lot more ability to make some more careful assessments. If you have a college kid, you have to project everything. You have to project his place in the league, you have to project how he’ll fit into the league. Can he make the jump? Once they’re in the league, you don’t have to project anymore, you’re watching them play other NBA players. So now, it would seem to me that the need to have information shouldn’t stop when they come into the NBA. It should continue on and you can make the argument that it should be bigger and more substantive.

Bizball: You’re talking about risk aversion on a number of levels. Some franchises will be able to absorb bad decisions better than others based upon revenues. Given where the Timberwolves are at, do you have less room for mistakes?

Kahn: Sure, because all of this flexibility will be for naught if we start trading one-year contracts and using cap space inefficiently. If we start overpaying for players who don’t seem to be playing what they're truly worth, then all of a sudden we're stuck where we were a couple years ago. We can’t afford to be stuck. As opposed to other sports -- in baseball there’s 25 players, football there’s 45 players, maybe more. Here, there’s 12, 13, 14, right around there. Really it’s like eight to 10 that’s in the rotation. All of a sudden, if you have a couple players who aren’t contributing, or worse yet, are making a lot of money, you can find yourself screwed up really fast.

Bizball: I don’t need to tell you that you and the Timberwolves are in a tight position with the Draft coming five weeks away. What are some of the immediate steps you are doing to prepare in your first days with the organization?

Kahn: I had individual meetings Saturday with staff. I think it’s understandable, especially early on in a group setting, there’s certain things that probably they will not want to say in front of others. It’s going to be uncomfortable, that’s natural human nature. I wanted these limited individual meetings to allow them the opportunity to speak freely and privately with the understanding that when we reconvene Tuesday (5/26), they had their time to speak privately, but now we need to pull it all together and act as one and have the very best Draft we can. There has to be a really collegial, open environment here over the next five weeks that will produce the best results. Having one group meeting, individual meetings, and back into group meetings was the right approach.

Bizball: In his introductory statements, Glen Taylor mentioned that there was a lengthy evaluation process that he has applied to other businesses he oversees, much as in interviewing CEOs. Based upon the length of the interview process, you must have had some ideas in your head beyond just these meetings as to what you would like to do. Was there a sense of what your strategy would be early on in your tenure here? What you might do based upon a methodology that has been in place in Minnesota for 15 years?

Kahn: I think we can all do a better job; that isn’t to be critical. I do think there’s some information that we can pull together that I think would be helpful for all of us. Not to try and be coy, but I don’t know if I feel comfortable speaking about what that information is. Not that it's a super-duper secret, but I want to make sure that we have a really firm handle on what our team is now, and how we measure up against the rest of the NBA, and the Draft and free-agency. And start exploring the whole array of ideas for this team. There’s just not one way of doing it. You can improve the team through a mixture of the draft, free agents, and trades. The question is, of those three things, what’s the right pick? How do we build the best team over the next seventeen months?

Bizball: Will analytics come into play?

Kahn: Analytics will absolutely come into play. It’s not that I’m an adherent; I’m adherent to anything that helps. Everything is on the table, to the extend that anything can help, we’ll use it and process it.

For more on David Kahn, see the 2007 Biz of Basketball interview

• Interview by Maury Brown on Sunday, 5/24/09
• Transcribed by Nick Kappel