On the one-year anniversary of the blockbuster trade that sent Kevin Garnett to Boston and reshaped the Timberwolves’ future, the team today announced what has been coming for many days: Houston Rockets personnel guy Dean Cooper joins Randy Wittman’s coaching staff, replacing Bob Ociepka, who left to join new Chicago Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro’s staff.

A former high-school and college coach, Cooper last was on the bench in 2003 for the final of his two seasons as an assistant to Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich. Since then, he has been an NBA personnel scout, scouting director and vice president of player personnel for the Rockets.

He interviewed with Wittman at this month’s Las Vegas Summer League after Wittman and Kevin McHale inquired about his interest in the position and asked the Rockets for permission to speak to him. He is good friends with Texas Tech coach Pat Knight, son of Bob Knight, who coached Wittman in college at Indiana. Cooper credits that relationship and joint pre-draft workouts the Rockets and the Wolves held together in June for the connection that led to the job offer.

“Things in the NBA sometimes happen quickly and they come when you least expect it,” Cooper said from Houston on Thursday. “I wasn’t looking for a job. I coached my entire life (until he moved into the Rockets’ personnel department)…once a coach, always a coach.”

To prep for his interview, Cooper watched tapes of Wolves’ games from last season. One was a game very late in the season in Orlando, where the Magic was trying to win its 50th game of the season and the Wolves were aiming for victory No. 20.

The Wolves trailed by 14 points in the third quarter, by seven with three minutes left, by four with 87 seconds remaining, but won 102-101 and ended a six-game losing streak when Ryan Gomes made two free throws with 2.9 seconds left.

“That says a lot about the coaching staff, the environment, the players’ commitment to what’s going on,” Cooper said. “There are a lot of 20-win teams that would have mailed it in long prior to that. I look at that and said to myself, `These guys have a plan and their players are buying into it.’ It was impressive. It really stuck out to me. I wanted to be a part of something like that.”

Cooper join assistant coaches Jerry Sichting, J.B. Bickerstaff, Ed Pinckney and Brent Haskins on Wittman’s staff. He said he plans to be in town and ready to go to work the second week of August.

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