The Minnesota Twins are up for sale and Justin Ishbia is extremely interested in buying the team. There have already been reports that Ishbia has contacted prominent business owners in the state to form a group to buy the franchise, but he may also bring together an all-star cast to get the deal done.
ESPN’s Dave McMenamin had an interesting note in a piece on Randy Mims, who has been instrumental to LeBron James’s success in the NBA. In the piece, Ishbia approaches Mims before a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns and informs him that he is interested in buying the Twins and wants to line up some famous Minneapolis sports figures to be involved in the ownership group.
“They start brainstorming,” McMenamin wrote. “Justin Jefferson, Kevin Garnett, Cris Carter, [Kevin] Love, Dave Winfield, Joe Mauer, Randy Moss, Robert Smith. Mims says he will get Ishbia in touch with Garnett, or ‘Ticket’ as he calls him. He and Garnett share a mutual close friend in [Los Angeles Clippers head coach Tyronn] Lue.
“Mims is in his element, bringing people together, expanding the network. He is a plug, known to locate certain things from time to time.”
Joe Mauer, Kevin Garnett, Randy Moss could be involved in Twins sale this summer
There had already been rumblings of former Twins getting involved in the sale of the franchise as LaVelle E. Neal of The Minnesota Star Tribune name-dropped Mauer, Justin Morneau and Torii Hunter as players who could get a minority stake as little as one or two percent when the sale is finalized.
While the involvement of former Twins isn’t surprising, neither is the idea of a crossover between the state’s prominent athletes. Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo currently owns a stake in the Milwaukee Brewers and former Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is part of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks ownership group dating back to 2018.
Other athletes such as James, Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady own pieces of sports franchises and former Twins killer Alex Rodriguez is currently involved in an ownership dispute with the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx.
Whether Ishbia, who is the brother of Phoenix Suns and Mercury majority owner Mat Ishbia, can get names like Mauer, Garnett and Moss aboard is uncertain. But it’s another sign that he’s serious about buying the Twins.
The idea of assembling The Avengers of Minnesota sports to buy the team from the Pohlad family may be fitting to Twins fans who have been bogged down by payroll slashing and television blackouts over the past two season and it could lead to Ishbia being identified as the winning bidder by Opening Day and the new owner sometime this summer.