Winter of Discontent
Expressing certain doubts in his own managerial abilities, Minnesota Timberwolves vice president Kevin McHale told a press conference gathering at Target Center following the conclusion of the 2006-07 season: “I did a bad job.”
The press conference came on the heels of another losing season for the Timberwolves, one that saw the team finishing the season with a 116-94 home loss to the lowly Memphis Grizzlies and thus assuring Minnesota a finish in the NBA’s “Bottom 10.” A loss was necessary to prevent the Wolves from losing a draft pick this year to the Los Angeles Clippers as the result of the Marko Jaric for Sam Cassell trade two years ago. By losing, the Timberwolves actually exceeded expectations. The team’s listless play coupled with a New York Knicks victory over Charlotte assured Minnesota of a “Bottom 7” finish. (Indeed, Minnesota was slotted seventh after losing a tiebreaker to the Portland Trailblazers.)
McHale took the blame for the season’s sorry finish. “I’m responsible for putting that team on the floor and the coaches that coached it. It was a bad year, and I did a bad job. That’s the way it is. We are going to have to try to make some changes.”
McHale rejected the notion of wholesale change at Target Center, indicating that as few as three new players could make a significant difference, providing the newcomers are a center and two forwards. Most difficult of all will be obtaining a quality center. “That five-man is getting harder and harder to find,” he said, “so you're probably more realistically getting bigger at the three and the four spot via the draft.” McHale admitted the team lacked a defensive presence. “We have to protect our paint more. We don't protect the paint, and that's why we have to get bigger. We have to get guys in there that will protect the paint more for us. That will be one thing.
“We also have to have guys that will go out there and do some more sacrificing for each other. We don't have a lot of guys making plays and sacrificing for us.”
McHale acknowledged the obvious when he said, “We're not a very good team right now. We don't close games very well. You're going to win or lose a lot of close games in our league. We have to win our share. [First year guard] Randy Foye is a guy who I really like his ability to close games. I like the fact that Randy is better late in games than he is early in games. We just have got to get better in our ability to protect the paint. We can get bigger and probably will get bigger in the draft.”
Many observers of the Timberwolves (including a group of unruly fans at the final game of the season) have expressed the view that McHale should step down. At the press conference, he was having none of that. “I just don't want to walk away when the team is in this shape,” he said. “I'd much rather walk away when the team is on much better footing. I've never been afraid of responsibility, never been afraid to go out there and take the big shot. It's going to happen. It doesn't always work out great. It has not worked out great here. Some of the things we tried to patch up did not work. We have to start building a little bit differently.”
Changes at Target Center will not include the departure of Kevin Garnett, according to McHale. “We're not planning on trading Kevin. We want to build around Kevin. We want to keep Kevin here. We'll go on the assumption that he's going to be here.”
McHale indicated Randy Wittman would be his coach for the 2007-08 season, despite a 12-win, 30-loss record after replacing Dwane Casey. “His record wasn't what he or any of us wanted, but I do like the fact that he commands the [locker] room, and says, ‘When I say we're going to do something we're going to do it.’ That's the only way you can play basketball. I think Randy is a guy that can be very effective if you give him a training camp to go move forward through, and give him a team that he can coach from the start. I think he will have more success.”
Many times during games this year, Wolves’ players were not on the same page. “I don't think that you can really win significantly without having decent chemistry,” McHale admitted, “but that's also such an elusive thing. Chemistry ends up being kind of a catch-all phrase. It's hard to define. When you have really good chemistry, you're not sure why that's happening either. With 12 guys in an NBA locker room, there will always be disagreements about how to do things and different things going on.”