MINNEAPOLIS — Glen and Becky Taylor were spending a couple of weeks at their home in Naples, Fla., in mid-February, a quiet place on a narrow, passive river that leads into the Gulf of Mexico.

"We're going to miss five Timberwolves home games, which we don't want to do, but Becky likes it here,'' Glen said, and my immediate thought was, "And who could blame her?''

There was an office back in there somewhere — Taylor's Zoom room for business — and that very morning he was involved in a remote meeting with Marc Lore.

Except, this was not a discussion about the effort of Lore and partner Alex Rodriguez to complete a purchase of a majority interest in Taylor's Timberwolves.

It was Lore trying to interest Taylor in making an investment in a different business, and it was none of my "bees' wax'' — as they used to say in Taylor's hometown of Comfrey, Minn. — on how that turned out.

The Star Tribune (which Taylor also owns) was planning a story on his departure of high-profile sports ownership to coincide with the end of the Wolves' regular season.

I was in Fort Myers for vacation and spring training — which are basically the same thing — and was able to get Taylor's OK to "come to the house" in Naples for an interview that would be heavy on retrospective.

Mrs. Reusse came along, we were there for three hours, and the voice recorder ran for 1 hour, 37 minutes. But before I hit record, Taylor made this point emphatically:

"The deal is not done. There are deadlines to be met. As always, the NBA must be satisfied with new ownership, as well as its financials.''

The Lore-Rodriguez tandem already had been given an extension. That was reached on March 27 — this Wednesday.

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