As the Timberwolves' season came to an end, finally and mercifully, last night (a loss to the league's worst team, by the way), the speculation is centered on whether Kevin McHale will continue as coach. Normally, a coach with a 20-43 record doesn't get to make the decision himself. But owner Glen Taylor apparently has so much confidence in McHale that whatever the former Boston Celtic and Gopher star wants, he gets.
I have been a Wolves fan since they played in the Dome in the late 1980s and Magic Johnson and the Lakers helped fill the place. I used to own a shared season ticket with some buddies in the early years. Later on I bought scalper tickets for big games or went with my neighbor and friend on his tickets. I used to take my young daughters, hoping they'd catch the bug.
I watched with excitement as the Kevin Garnett/Sam Casell/Latrell Sprewell team made it to the Western Conference Finals in 2004.
Like most fans, I watched incredulously as the Taylor-McHale group seemingly made wrong decisions in the draft year after year, then lost more draft picks in the Joe Smith signing and then fired Flip Saunders, Duane Casey and Randy Whitman, replacing the last two with McHale.
In a town with loyal sports fans who tend to give the hometown team the benefit of the doubt, the Wolves, under Taylor and McHale, have accomplished the seemingly impossible: made the team irrelevant. People don't seem to care anymore. And with Tubby Smith heating things up at the Barn at the U and the Wild retooling next winter with a new coach, it will take more than Taylor's ad campaign featuring his personal guarantee of cheap tickets to bring back the fans.
Yes, two key players, Al Jefferson and Corey Brewer, suffered season-ending knee injuries. But you have to ask yourself that even with those two fully recovered next year and three first-round draft choices and possible free agent signings, can this team compete, let alone make the playoffs? Most good NBA teams have three very strong players and others who fill a role as well as a strong bench. The Wolves have Jefferson, who could become a very good player, and Randy Foye, who is good, but inconsistent. And other than a great record in January, the Wolves didn't do much the rest of the year and apparently played with so little effort in a couple games at the end of the year that even McHale was exasperated.
After 13 years in the front office and now on the sidelines, McHale has to decide whether to coach another year or call it quits, leaving this franchise's future to someone else. I loved McHale as a Gopher and a Boston Celtic. He played with power and enthusiasm and always had a sense of humor. It's hard to tell whether he's a good coach because the team he created isn't very talented by NBA standards.
Taylor is planning to hire a head of basketball operations who, one would think, wants his own coach. So the win-win option for a franchise that has not had much success recently is for McHale to step aside, move to the broadcast booth (where he once worked and did well) and let the new basketball boss hire his own coach. Two problems: Flip Saunders, the only successful coach in Wolves history, is apparently going to Washington and isn't available. And, when faced with two options, the Wolves historically have chosen the wrong one. Maybe, finally, even Kevin McHale has had enough of the mess on First Avenue North. Here's hoping the Wolves become relevant again.