When the Minnesota Timberwolves tip off their season at the Miami Heat on 21 October, the man standing a few feet from Chris Finch with the offensive game plan in his hand will have been born in St Asaph, north Wales.
Tim Lewis, confirmed as a Timberwolves assistant coach on 25 September, has travelled a route no British coach had taken before him. He first took charge of an England under-16 side in 1997. Nearly three decades later he is responsible for offensive game planning, post-game analysis and the development of Minnesota’s young forwards on a team that won 49 games last season and reached the Western Conference semi-finals.
“We want to make the play-offs and get to the championship games, everybody wants to win a championship,” Lewis said. “It would be an amazing accomplishment.”
From Crystal Palace to the Minnesota bench
Lewis played for Wales in the 1990s and spent his early coaching years inside the British system, working across Great Britain’s under-16, under-18 and under-20 programmes and serving as an assistant to the GB men’s team at the London 2012 Olympics. His professional stops read like a tour of the sport’s margins:
- Essex Pirates in the British Basketball League
- Hitachi Sunrockers in Japan’s NBL (2013-14)
- Bakersfield Jam in the NBA D-League (2014-15)
- Head coach of Thailand (2016-17) and later Qatar, plus consultancy work with the Philippines
- Coaching roles in Germany, Belgium, Canada and Panama
The thread running through it is Finch. The pair first met as opponents in Britain, long before Finch became an NBA head coach. “We played against each other when I was back at [Crystal] Palace and Chris was at Sheffield [Sharks],” Lewis said. They later coached together in Belgium, and Lewis spent six months on Finch’s staff at Houston before the 2012 Games.
“We’ve become close, it’s almost like brothers,” he said. “We’ve known each other 25 years and a strong bond.”
That bond produced a standing invitation. Lewis had already worked with Minnesota and their G League affiliate, the Iowa Wolves, in 2021-22 — becoming the first British-developed coach to sit on an NBA bench — before leaving to spend three seasons as head coach of the ENEOS Sunflowers in Japan’s WJBL, where he won the Empress Cup in January 2026.
“For the last year and a half, Chris has knocked on the door and said, ‘come back, come back’,” Lewis said. “Eventually I gave in this summer again and gone back for a more influential role.”
A reshaped roster and the LaMelo gamble
He returns to a franchise that has changed its shape. Minnesota finished 49-33 as the sixth seed last season, upset the third-seeded Denver Nuggets in six games despite losing Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo to injury, then went out to San Antonio in six in the conference semi-finals.
In June the Wolves traded Naz Reid, an unprotected 2033 first-round pick, first-round swaps in 2028, 2029 and 2030 and three second-rounders to Charlotte for LaMelo Ball and Josh Green, in a four-team deal that also sent Julius Randle to Brooklyn and Nic Claxton to Chicago. Ball, 24, averaged 20.1 points, 7.1 assists and 4.8 rebounds in 72 games last season; Edwards led Minnesota with 28.8 points per game.
Lewis sees the fit in the passing. “With LaMelo, you’ve got somebody that can now throw the lob and Rudy becomes a rim threat,” he said of Rudy Gobert. “It takes the pressure off Anthony.” Of Edwards, he added: “He is an immense talent, very responsive, a great kid overall and coachable.”
The schedule offers no grace period. “We come out of the gate hard, Miami, Orlando, and then Toronto,” Lewis said, referring to the trip to Miami on 21 October, Orlando on 23 October and the home opener against the Raptors on 25 October.
What it means beyond Minneapolis
Lewis’s presence matters to a British system that has produced NBA players — OG Anunoby, Jeremy Sochan, Ben Simmons via Australia — but almost no coaches. Britain has never had a route to an NBA bench; Lewis has now built one twice, and this time with genuine offensive authority rather than a developmental brief.
His stated benchmark is modest by title-contender standards and realistic by Minnesota’s. “Fifty-plus wins a season is what you want, that puts you in a great position to compete,” he said, adding that Ball’s arrival means “teams are going to have to adjust to the way Minnesota plays” and that “one of the things Minnesota’s going to be lucky to do is play different ways”.
Beyond that, he is content to let the league decide. “It’s one of the things about the NBA at the moment, it’s somewhat unpredictable.” If the unpredictability breaks Minnesota’s way, a coach from St Asaph will be holding a championship ring.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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