\I don't want to walk away from the team in this state.""
Wow, thanks Kevin McHale. You have vanquished all my fears. That statement was the exact one I was fearing from the embattled general manager of the Timberwolves after yet another horrific season. McHale did a great job in getting the T'wolves out of the cellar in 1995, but he needs to step down immediately after driving the team into the ground. If a poll by a local newspaper finds that more than 90 percent of readers want you gone, that should give you an idea of how well you're doing.
The terrible draft picks, the ill-advised coaching changes, the Joe Smith debacle, the complete lack of chemistry on the team, the reasons go on and on as to why McHale should no longer be GM.
Something must be done before McHale picks Taurean Green with his top-10 pick in the draft and then trades Kevin Garnett and a first-round pick to the Bulls for P.J. Brown, Tim Thomas and Michael Sweetney. You think I'm joking? Let's review some of McHale's past moves.
Only a year removed from a berth in the Western Conference Finals, McHale traded Sam Cassell and a first-round pick for Marko Jaric and Lionel Chalmers in what might be the worst trade of the last five years. This would have been a one-sided trade without throwing in the first-round pick. Jaric has done nothing for the Timberwolves, and I just found out that Chalmers was part of the trade.
The same year, he replaced Rasho Nesterovic with Michael Olowokandi, who I dubbed ""the black hole"" because when you pass to him, the ball isn't coming back out (or going into the basket for that matter). Then, a year later, McHale traded for Ricky Davis, a me-first player who destroyed what little chemistry the team had.
Poor trades can sometimes be rectified by drafting well, but that has not happened for a couple reasons. First off, the T'wolves have had very few draft picks this decade because they forfeited them when they cheated to sign Joe Smith. JOE SMITH!
Not that the picks would have done any good. William Avery, Ndubi Ebi, Loren Woods, Rick Rickert, Marcus Taylor, Igor Rakocevic, Louis Bullock, Andre Patterson. Any of these names even remotely ring a bell (at least for their NBA careers)? It's not good when Rasho Nesterovic is one of the best picks you have made in the past 12 years.
McHale's coaching carousel from the past few years has not helped the situation either. Firing Flip Saunders in the middle of the season and taking over himself was disastrous. Then his new hire, Dwayne Casey, wasn't even given two seasons to prove himself, as McHale made the questionable decision of firing Casey when Minnesota was 20-20 and in the final playoff spot.
Replacement Randy Wittman then led the team to a 12-30 record the rest of the way, yet Wittman gets another chance next year. He is a fine assistant coach, but Wittman's head coaching record stands at an awe-inspiring 74-132 in two and a half seasons.
I can't blame absolutely everything on McHale (although I want to). A couple of the draft picks he made were not horrible, the players just didn't pan out. I thought the Mike James signing this past year was a good one, but James never got anything going. However, the fact remains that nothing has gone right in the three seasons since the glorious run to the Western Conference Finals and the team is going in completely the wrong direction.
The team has needed a decent center ever since McHale has taken over, and although Mark Blount actually had a pretty good year (12 points, six rebounds, 50 percent from the field), they need another big man. They haven't had a good point guard since Cassell left; when Ricky Davis is leading the team in assists, there is something seriously wrong. There are so many things wrong with the T'wolves' roster right now, McHale should want to jump ship even if he were a good GM.
But he's not. And the biggest hole in the Minnesota roster is at the GM position. So if you want what's best for the Timberwolves, Mr. McHale, step down and let somebody else pick up the pieces of a shattered franchise.
