Glen Taylor says Marc Lore, Alex Rodriguez missed deadline to buy final 40% of Timberwolves, sale off

Glen Taylor loves owning the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx. The sense around the league has been that Taylor wasn't eager to let go, which is part of what led to an unusual, multi-stage team sale to new owners Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez — a slow process expected to be concluded this week.

In a shocking turn of events, Taylor announced Thursday that the sale will not go through.

Taylor says Lore and Rodriguez did not meet the contractual obligations to purchase the final 40% of the team by the March 27 deadline, and that they didn't meet the criteria for an extension. The sale is now off, Taylor said in a Timberwolves organizational statement.

"I will continue to work with Marc, Alex and the rest of the ownership group to ensure our teams have the necessary resources to compete at the highest levels on and off the court," said Taylor. "The Timberwolves and Lynx are no longer for sale.”

Lore and Rodriguez say they did raise the money to buy the team and had letters of financial commitment, allowing an extension and time to go through the league's formal approval process. In a statement, they said Taylor was suffering from "seller's remorse."

Taylor argues Lore/Rodriguez didn't meet their contractual obligations by the deadline. Taylor had said that Lore and Rodriguez ran into trouble when The Carlyle Group dropped out of financing $300 million of the final payment. However, days later, a report surfaced that a new group, Dyal Capital Partners, had stepped in and kept the sale on track. Taylor's argument is Lore and Rodriguez missed required deadlines: They have yet to undergo a final review from the NBA's finance committee, there has been no vote of the board of governors, and no money has been exchanged, reports Jon Krawczynski at The Athletic.

Lore and Rodriguez believe they have met the criteria for a 90-day extension to go through the final steps of the league's approval process.

Underpinning this is a tense personal relationship between the two sides that had deteriorated over the last couple of years.

While the league will be working on this behind the scenes, it's not hard to envision this situation ending up in a courtroom.

All this comes as the Timberwolves are having the franchise's best season since the Kevin Garnett era. The Timberwolves, led by budding superstar Anthony Edwards and likely Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert, have already won 50 games and are headed for a top-three seed in the West.

Ownership matters because Minnesota also has one of the higher payrolls in the league, bumping up against the luxury tax line, and things are about to get more expensive with the max extensions of Karl-Anthony Towns and Edwards set to kick in next season. This roster is headed for an unsustainable financial cliff because of the new CBA and second tax apron restrictions, and changes will have to come, either this offseason or the one after. That could mean trading Karl-Anthony Towns or another star to get the tax bill down, the kind of decisions owners need to make.

Taylor wants to be the owner making those decisions, but so do Lore and Rodriguez. This is going to get messier before it gets resolved.