Thoughts On The Firing of Randy Wittman McHale gets one last chance to makes things right in Minnesota By Alec Schimke TimberwolvesPress.com Webmaster 11:30 PM CT 12/8/08 First of all congratulations to all of the Timberwolves fans and players, we needed this change! This move gave all of us a breath of fresh air that was desperately needed. When I learned on Saturday morning that Wittman would most likely be gone today or yesterday, I really had a hard time waiting for the news to become official. Wittman essentially got the boot before the Clippers game and the outcome really didnt matter. The Timberwolves of course dragged out the situation when in reality Wittman should have been fired Saturday night after an embarrassing loss at home to the lowly Clippers. One of the things I thought was really interesting from a source of mine was how Wittman reacted to the McHale "40 win comment" before the season started. Apparently when Kevin McHale told reporters before the season that this team could win 40 games, Wittman was not a big fan of the comment. This created some tension between the two after last season's finish at 22 wins. Wittman most likely figured the team would get better but McHale's 40 games was somewhat out of a reach. From the beginning, this season was set up for failure, fortunately this season we at least made a move to prevent it from getting uglier. From the recent "rock-bottom" quote from Kevin Love to the not even "Jesus Christ" could not help us quote from Al Jefferson, something was certainly wrong in the locker room. Plain and simple the players were not responding to Randy Wittman anymore and it certainly showed on the court. Below are my thoughts after today's big move. Randy Wittman -One reason why Randy Wittman was not a good coach...he tried to make this team into something it wasn't. Wittman can bring all of his Bobby Knight X's and O's that he wants but if you are not coaching your team based on what you have, nothing is going to work. Maybe if Wittman realized that this team plays best when they are allowed the freedom on the offensive end like in the Detroit game, this team would have won a lot more games. I still don’t get why so many coaches still ignore the fact of what they have in terms of talent on their team and try to implement something that does not fit the team's/player’s style of play. I feel that you should assess a team’s talent every season and put together the best plan that caters the current roster rather than trying to live by your basketball principles. There are some coaches who can get by with this technique because they are proven winners/well-respected and have that special talent to make players play a certain way. Wittman had neither of those qualities. Ultimately I think this is what got Wittman fired. The players stopped believing in what Wittman was preaching because it simply wasn’t working. As a player you can only buy into a system for so long until you start to have your doubts if it isn't producing. As soon as that happens, the players respect for the coach is out the door. Maybe if Wittman had allowed a simpler offense that was more up-tempo and free-flowing the Timberwolves would have seen better offensive numbers. Al Jefferson was the only player that has had some sort of success in Wittman’s system, everyone else drastically underachieved. -The career winning percentage speaks volumes about what kind of a coach Wittman was. I don't care what kind of talent he had in Cleveland or in Minnesota, that isn’t the problem. Did he make any of these teams better while he was there? No! The Timberwolves only got worse in Wittman’s tenure as no player really significantly improved and the Timberwolves never were able to put up a respectable winning streak. This team always seemed to be taking steps backward in Wittman's tenure rather than taking steps forward which is critical for a young team. -What did this guy ever do to get involved in the community or to engage with fellow Timberwolves fans? Nothing comes to mind. Wittman was a very isolated individual in his tenure here in Minnesota. There seemed to be a very big gap between him and the local community. People hyped him up as this great basketball mind but in my opinion I never saw that expertise here in Minnesota. -I listened to a recent interview with Chad Hartman where he talked to Wittman and I couldn’t believe how arrogant and hard to listen to he was. He has this sort of cockiness to him that makes him really hard to like. In general, Wittman did not care for the media. Every time he talked to the media he looked like the kid who's mother just told him to go clean his room for the 100th time. He always acted like he didn’t care and never really gave the media the respect they deserved. His diss to blogger’s on Hartman’s show was uncalled for when he acted like he didn’t know who Britt Robson was and then claimed that all bloggers live in their mother’s room (I do not by the way). Listen Randy, Britt is one of the greatest minds covering basketball today and us fellow bloggers actually take the time to cover your team and we do so to help engage fans because we are passionate about this team. -How many excuses did we hear from this guy that this team just didn't have it in a certain game? Did it ever occur to you Randy that you are most likely the problem? Maybe that we did have “it” in a game but your bizarre rotations lead us to destruction. -Randy Wittman was not a player’s coach. There is no way a player like Rashad McCants with so much talent should ever be held back. Every time McCants touched the court he looked afraid to mess up because Wittman was always on his butt. You could tell he was very tense at times and even began to pass up open shots as the thought of messing up was always in the back of his mind. I remember McCants passed up a wide open jump shot earlier this season to win the game with a few seconds left and instead passed to Ryan Gomes. That is not the Rashad McCants I know. McCants can be very successful in this league if he has a coach who is confident in him. Wittman was killing McCants potential every time he coached a game. I bet there is no player happier than McCants that Wittman is gone. -What kind of identity did Wittman bring to this team? I really can’t think of anything special, our offense and defense both were below average in his tenure. There was never really any unique aspects to this team like aggressive play or a high tempo offensive like you see from some other coaches. -To me Kevin Love’s comment that this team had hit "rock bottom" was something the Timberwolves organization had to have paid attention to. For a rookie who has played less than 20 games in this league to claim that his team had hit rock bottom is something that you just don’t see everyday. At the end of the day, the Timberwolves decided that Wittman played the biggest role in the team hitting rock bottom and that is why he was fired rather than him keeping his job and the team making a trade. -To wrap things up, I never really got what the FO saw in Wittman. His rotations were so inconsistent and bizarre that it never allowed anyone to get any confidence on the court. He messed with so many players minds and what kind of role they had on this team. One game a player like Craig Smith would be an all-star and play 30 minutes and the next game he would play 7 minutes and wouldn’t score. How many games have seen like that from guys like Telfair, McCants, Gomes and Brewer where they never seemed to have a consistent role on this team? If there is one thing I hope McHale brings to this team it's consistency. Kevin McHale -First of all this is a long-term position for McHale. It seems that McHale has given up his tenure as VP of this team for good and he will now only be coaching for the remainder of his time in Minnesota. I would bet that McHale is the coach again next season unless he really puts up a stinker and this team fails to win 20 games. With Taylor and McHale so close, I really don’t see this duo splitting up soon. If Taylor had a hard time firing Wittman, can you imagine how hard of a time he would have firing McHale? -This is McHale's last opportunity to make up for a lot of poor decisions over the past few years. I'm actually rooting for him and I think he can be a very good coach. He can make people forget about all of those bad moves by simply getting this team to win. I think McHale is much more of a player's coach then Wittman ever was. How much more do you think the average NBA player respects a hall of famer like Kevin McHale than the below .300 winning percentage and average NBA player in Randy Wittman? Not to mention that Kevin McHale assembled this team and drafted a majority of these guys. If the players needed a coach who has confidence in them right now, there is no guy better than McHale to fill that role because he was the guy who had faith in these players in the beginning as he either drafted or trade for them. -I think there are a few guys that will really benefit from the coaching change, Kevin Love, Rashad McCants and Al Jefferson. Love will admire having a coach who is a hall of fame post player and I think McHale really has a man crush on this kid which will result in a lot more playing time for Love. Don’t you think he is sick and tired of hearing about how the Wolves should have kept OJ Mayo? My gut tells me Love will see another 5-10 minutes a game for the Wolves. McCants needed a coaching change more than anyone. His relationship with Wittman got to the point where I think McCants just didn't care anymore. McHale got a lot of heat for taking McCants but at the same time he is the same guy who showed faith in him with the 14th pick. McCants needs a coach who believes in his scoring abilities and McHale sure does as that was the reason he drafted him. Look for McCants to get a lot more consistent minutes the rest of the season. Finally I think Al Jefferson will be a much better player this season with the coaching season. You could really start to see the frustration boiling on this guys face during games and I'm sure he wasn’t the biggest fan of Wittman after starting out 26-75 as a Timberwolf. McHale traded Kevin Garnett one of the all time greats for Jefferson and I think McHale will really stress to Al that this is his team and that he needs to do a better job of leading this team. Al has to bring an identity to this young team for it to have any success. What we here at TimberwolvesPress would like to see from McHale... -Somewhat close to .500 ball -A more relaxed offense that caters to the teams abilities rather than what the coach believes will be successful like Wittman did. -More playing time for the young guys, especially Love, McCants, Telfair and Smith -Consistent minutes...please, giving out minutes is not meant to resemble the stock market -A team identity,...defense..scoring...3 point shooting...just give me something -Confidence in his young players….rather than penalizing and making them play tense, let them learn from their mistakes -Finally get this team to have some fun. Basketball is a sport that is ultimately most successful when you get a group of guys that like to play with each other. This way everyone is a lot more relaxed and not so damn depressed like we have seen the last few games. Glen Taylor -Good work Glen, a move was definitely needed to keep fans happy in Minnesota. Ultimately you made the correct decision and while you may get some heat for giving McHale another chance, its saves the team money and bringing in a completely new coaching system in the middle of the year would not help this team young team -McHale should be critiqued fairly regardless of the friendship you guys have. If he does not show improvement as a coach, it may be time to find another coach and let McHale go. One thing that this hiring sure shows is that there is favorites in this organization. I feel bad for the assistant coaches on this squad that don't even get mentioned as candidates for replacing Wittman. Regardless of McHale's status in the organization he seems to be able to trump any other employees rank regardless of the situation. Hoiberg, Babcock, Stack -It looks like these three will share the duty in the front office for the rest of the season. If they actually give them positions I would say that Stack aka McHale #2 would be named VP and Hoiberg would be named GM. Note: It easy is to forget that the members of the NBA are human beings and not just objects that we see on TV. Although I was awfully critical of Wittman in this article and in the past I only wish him the best in the future and hope he lands an assistant coaching job soon. Getting fired from a job is something that no-one wants to go through and I wish him and his family the best through this time. I'm sure Wittman will be able to attend a lot more of his sons games now as his son Ryan is a star player for Cornell.
