New York Yankees great Head Coach  failed to finalize the purchase of Minnesota Timberwolves due…

Many around the basketball world were shocked when it was revealed that Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore’s attempt to buy the Minnesota Timberwolves had failed, and it seems that continually being late on payments on the nearly $2 billion deal played a massive role.

On Thursday it was announced that a planned sale of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx to a group led by New York Yankees great Alex Rodriguez and business partner Lore had fallen through. There had been cracks in the facade of this deal for some time and the process to finalize it seemed to drag on.

On Friday, a new report claimed that while Lore was passionate about a purchase in the early stages, he lost interest in being the majority owner of the NBA Western Conference powerhouse and he pulled hundreds of millions meant to go toward the sale and instead reinvested in a new food company. That left Rodriguez in a serious bind that he could never dig himself out of.

On Thursday night, during a new edition of the “This League Uncut” podcast NBA insider Chris Haynes explained how late payments from the consortium played a huge role in current Timberwolves and Lynx owner Glen Taylor ending the agreement and retaking control of the franchises.

“Throughout this process, the selling process, I kept hearing rumors about like, payments being late,” Haynes said. “Giving Alex Rodriguez and his team a little bit more time to come up with a payment. I was hearing rumbles about that throughout the process. And so, if those were concrete rumbles, then that means that this final straw was just that, that it had to have been other instances of Glen Taylor just feeling like this process was playing out way too long.

“Longer than expected or anticipated and he probably felt like he’s given too many opportunities, that he’s given a couple more extensions, and he probably felt like this process wasn’t going the way it should have been. And then to your point, about the evaluation [of the franchise], he probably could get more now on the market. Maybe that does play a factor as well. But yeah, I wasn’t surprised when I heard the news of this.”

Co-host Marc Stein also added that many around the league had doubts if the deal would ever get done and that Taylor actually had trouble finding worthwhile bidders for the team until Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore. However, now that the Wolves are on the rise, the word around the league is the failure of this deal could open the door to a sale for much more money in the future.

The former New York Yankees star and his partner were set to pay $1.5 billion for the team.

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NY Yankees News: Outfielder Dazzles in Opening Day Debut…

For a few minutes on Thursday, the sold-out crowd at Minute Maid Park in Houston fell silent as they watched New York Yankees right fielder Juan Soto pound his chest, stomp the ground, and let out a giant roar.

With one out and two runners on in the ninth inning, the Astros’ Kyle Tucker sent a single Soto’s way. As Mauricio Dubón rounded third, Soto cleanly fielded the ball and came up shooting for home. The ball hit the infield grass at the perfect angle bouncing directly in catcher Jose Trevino’s mitt who then applied the tag on Dubón to preserve New York’s one-run lead.

The celebration ensued with center fielder Aaron Judge flexing his right arm at Soto and left fielder Alex Verdugo jumping in the air with both of his arms extending to the sky. After a lengthy review to make sure there was no interference at home plate, Clay Holmes slammed the door on the Astros for the third and final out and the Yankees held on for a 5-4 Opening Day road win.

“I worked all Spring Training long on my arm and the throws from right field,” Soto told reporters after the game. “It’s just a great feeling. It just tells you I’m going in the right way with what I’ve been doing, and I’m more than excited to keep doing it.”

After the game, Trevino commented on the play and told reporters it was a tough play. He was positioned in fair territory and the skip took him toward the baseline.

“You ask any catcher, it’s a tough play,” Trevino said. “I thought [Soto] had a good jump on it, came in, and put a good throw in a nice area where I could catch it and put the tag on him.”

Four innings before his stellar defensive play, Soto collected his first hit and RBI with his new club. His bases-loaded RBI single launched a three-run rally for the Bronx Bombers, who came back from four runs down.

“That was a Yankee classic right there,” Judge said. “Juan’s debut, that was pretty special out of him.”

Soto worked an eight-pitch walk in his first at-bat and finished the day 1-for-3 with one RBI and two walks.

“His process and work ethic and care factor about not just hitting, he takes a lot of pride in his defense,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He wants to be great on defense. He wants to be really good on the bases. And he made a big-time winning play today on defense.”

Soto acknowledged that the only blemish in his game has been on defense and decided to spend extra time working on it this spring. It appears that his hard work paid off. The next step is for him to keep it up for the rest of the season.