According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Utah was a place Snyder, a young man out of Los Angeles, didn't want to be. And he was playing for coach Jerry Sloan, a strict man whose basketball knowledge Snyder, at the time, didn't fully appreciate."

"Now that I'm mature, I have kids and a family, everything has changed," Snyder, 24, told the newspaper. "If you'd have seen me in Utah, you'd have said, 'This kid, what is he doing?' It wasn't the right place at the right time for my career. (Sloan) told guys, he said, 'When you get down the road, you'll look back and say, 'Jerry told me that.' I'm thankful to have had him coach me."

Snyder, now with his fourth team in four seasons, will play mostly small forward in Minnesota, which the Jazz visit Tuesday night. His stay with the Timberwolves will amount mostly to an audition, as he has no guaranteed contract for next season.

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com