Halfway to healthy
The Minnesota Timberwolves made a move that pushes them halfway to healthy this past week. Specifically, they fired Randy Wittman as their head coach. Wittman, who doesn’t even win a third of his career games, has been a disaster as the ringmaster in the Timberwolves circus, and after earning only four wins in the first twenty or so games this season, he’s finally gone.
That’s a start.
The next move they made might just make me take up scrapbooking for the Wolves: Good ol’ Glen Taylor gave Kevin McHale the head coaching job for the moment, but more importantly, made him give up his duties as team VP and all-around shot-caller in the front office.
McHale now has to prove it’s the coach, not the players he’s assembled, that has been the problem. I suppose, depending on how the season goes, Taylor could still hire a competent coach and put McHale back in charge after the season is over; but I hope not.
If McHale can turn this team around and make the playoffs, maybe he should be the coach going forward. If he can’t – and so far, he hasn’t won a game since taking over the reins from Wittman – then perhaps the nightmare that has been the Kevin McHale era of Wolves management is finally over, and owner Glen Taylor will turn the page and hire both a new GM, as well as a new head coach.
With plenty of draft picks lined up over the next couple-three years, as well as a half-decent talent core built around Al Jefferson and Mike Miller, maybe a new regime can come over here and make the Wolves, if not exactly champions, at least a semblance of a competently-run NBA team.
We now have reason to hope; we’ll have to wait and see if the end of the McHale era ever comes and really ushers in a genuine reason for hope.
