Former Minnesota Timberwolves Employee Fired, Arrested for Burglary
Somak Sarkar, a former coaching analyst for the Minnesota Timberwolves, has been fired, arrested, and charged with felony third-degree burglary for allegedly stealing thousands of internal files, including “strategic NBA information,” from a team executive. The incident came to light when Sachin Gupta, a Timberwolves executive vice president, reported a missing hard drive containing personal and team information from his office at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis on Feb. 5.
Surveillance footage revealed that Sarkar had entered Gupta’s office multiple times on Feb. 3 and taken the hard drive while ensuring that no one saw him. Another employee was able to recover the hard drive from Sarkar, who had downloaded over 5,000 files onto another device. Police executed a search warrant at Sarkar’s home, where they found several hard drives, a computer, and three tablets, one of which contained information from Gupta’s missing hard drive.
In his police questioning, Sarkar claimed to have taken the hard drive to put some material on it but forgot to return it. It was also revealed that Sarkar had transferred out of Gupta’s department due to poor job performance. Sarkar, who joined the Timberwolves in August 2021, previously held analytics-related roles at the New York Knicks and New Orleans Pelicans. He also interned with the Houston Rockets from October 2012 to June 2013.
Sarkar is in custody and will face a court hearing on Thursday afternoon in Minnesota. The Timberwolves have terminated his employment in light of the incident, which has sent shockwaves through the NBA community. Stay tuned for further updates on this developing story on Forever Sports Online.
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