<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Big move, small returns. If ever a trade appeared to be a washout, the Wolves-Celtics blockbuster qualifies. It appears as if neither team improved very much. Ironically, Wolves coach Dwane Casey on Wednesday chastised his players for looking over their shoulders and paying attention to trade rumors. "This is us. It's not changing. Nobody else is coming into this locker room," Casey said. On Thursday, the locker room resembled a bus station, with all sorts of players coming and going. They really need to get on the same page over there. As a general rule, it's not good when the deck is so thoroughly shuffled in the middle of a hand. But the 2005-06 Timberwolves have been horrible. Interest and attendance have been declining. The team had suffered embarrassing losses. The players were acquiring a much-deserved reputation for being "choke artists" in close games. Whoosh, here comes a whole new bunch of guys ? for better or for worse. If nothing else, this trade is going to cost me a few dollars. I had a friendly wager with a buddy that no NBA general manager would be dumb enough to accept Michael Olowokandi in a trade. I forgot about Danny Ainge. Kevin McHale just did to old pal Ainge what he did to old pal Flip Saunders. (Insert your own punch line here.) This is the second straight season in which McHale has taken drastic measures to try to right the ship. Coach Flip Saunders was fired last winter in an effort to shake things up. That didn't work. Now McHale is bringing in an entire new platoon of players. Clearly he is running out of chances to get the job done. The logical question is: Why is the team always on the verge of keeling over in midseason? Why aren't the proper changes made at the start? Surely McHale must have known at the onset that this was a scraggly bunch. "I thought that we wanted to change up," McHale said. "We lost so many close games, and when you lose close games you're usually a player or two away." Well, it doesn't appear that either the Wolves or Celtics got much better ? or worse. The early line is that we can categorize this one as change for the sake of change. Mark Blount isn't a big presence in the middle, as his 4.5 career rebounding average will attest. Besides, Target Center always has been a graveyard for centers. The Wolves are cursed at that position. Ricky Davis for Wally Szczerbiak? For sure, all that's going to do is tick off a large segment of the fan base. Wally was extremely popular here. But he always was a scapegoat, too. Now they won't have him to kick around anymore. And then all the other pieces of the trade have to do with youth and potential. After watching some of the draft choices that have passed through here, I no longer believe in youth and potential. McHale says that the Wolves just got more athletic. Maybe he's right. Let's put it this way: he had better be right. He also believes this might be a step toward better team chemistry. "I just sensed that it wasn't going in the direction that we wanted it to go," he said. Bad chemistry is sort of a catch-all excuse for when a team plays poorly. It's much easier to blame bad chemistry than to admit to putting together a lousy team.</div> Source
