Patrick Reusse: Wolves stick with the leadership, and they're stuck with the roster

The Timberwolves have ended the past three seasons out of the playoffs, after which they held a state-of-the-team news conference featuring basketball boss Kevin McHale.

There would be questions for 45 minutes or so, and then the media types would head back to their newsrooms and TV stations.

The full measure of the Wolves' current desperation was not revealed Thursday until McHale ended his session with reporters. At that point, it was announced that lunch was available across the hall for interested media members.

So, there it was -- the one contrast between this McHale season-ender and the previous two: free lunch.

The rest of it was such a collection of recycled nonsense that the declining number of Wolves loyalists will be shrieking in anguish with every McHale sound bite.

Once again, the Big Lie was for McHale to suggest he could be successful in making trades, without including Kevin Garnett in such discussions.

"We're going to try to make some trades," McHale said. "We've had conversations already ... with teams that said, 'Hey, we want to move our rosters around a little bit,' and so do we."

The guess is here that the conversations actually went more like this:

McHale to rival GM: "We have Mark Blount with three years and $22 million remaining on his contract, Troy Hudson with three years and $19 million remaining, Marko Jaric with four years and $27 million remaining, Mike James with three years and $18 million remaining, Trenton Hassell with three years and $13 million remaining, Mark Madsen with three years and $7.9 million remaining and Justin Reed with two years and $3 million remaining.

"Which one of these noble veterans could I interest you in?"

Rival GM to McHale: "Have you gone completely out of your mind, Kevin? You have roughly $110 million worth of Charmin-like softness, bad rap music, unreliability, bricklaying, overrated defense, towel waving and wasted energy, and you want me to take some of this off your hands?

"Don't' call me again and mention any of those names, or I'm going to file a grievance against you with the commissioner's office for reverse tampering."

Randy Foye, Craig Smith and Rashad McCants are playing on their entry-level contracts. McHale has nine veterans with guaranteed contracts.

The seven listed above are attached to players who would have negative value in a trade. Their contracts' length and dollars make them more costly than what the players could contribute on the court.

Throw in Garnett, again ruled off-limits for a trade, and that leaves Ricky Davis as the team's lone bargaining piece. He's enigmatic, but he's making a modest sum -- $6.8 million -- by NBA standards.

Some club would take Ricky's talent and put up with his zaniness for a season, although the Wolves undoubtedly would have to take a longer, more expensive contract in return.

Owner Glen Taylor was not in attendance Thursday. Perhaps he was occupied with one of his successful businesses. Or, perhaps he was too embarrassed to show up and then offer the local sporting public more of the same:

McHale, a failure after 12 years as the basketball boss, and Randy Wittman, a failure after 42 games as the coach.

By now, it's evident that Taylor either has no idea on how to hire a creative basketball boss, or that he continues to suffer from hero worship. Can that be it, Glen: Does McHale's status as a champion Celtic offset the fact he has become a pariah to your ticket buyers?

It's easier to understand that Taylor and McHale have a symbiotic relationship when it comes to basketball than it is to understand the decision to bring back Wittman to coach.

Where are Ron Edwards, Spike Moss and the Rev. Jerry McAfee when Wolves fans need them?

The Wolves fired Dwane Casey, an energetic black fellow, as coach when he was 20-20. And now they are bringing back Wittman, clearly a Caucasian, who led the lads to a 12-30 charge down the stretch.

"The thing I like about Randy is that he is a commanding presence in the locker room," McHale said. " ... Randy nips a lot of things in the bud."

The locker room things that Wittman nipped in the bud most often were victory celebrations.

Patrick Reusse can be heard weekdays on AM-1500 KSTP at 6:45 and 7:45 a.m. and 4:40 p.m. • preusse@startribune.com