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Randy Whitman is a bad coach.
Nooooo.
The guy was a miserable failure with Cleveland, so what the , he probobly got better....
Sources: Wolves to fire Wittman if McHale will coach
By Marc Stein
The Minnesota Timberwolves are on the brink of firing Randy Wittman after Saturday night's 23-point home loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, according to NBA coaching sources.
But Wolves owner Glen Taylor, sources say, wants Timberwolves vice president of basketball operations Kevin McHale to agree to take Wittman's place on the bench before going ahead with a coaching change.
It would be the NBA's fourth firing already this season, following dismissals in Oklahoma City (P.J. Carlesimo), Washington (Eddie Jordan) and Toronto (Sam Mitc ).
Yet it's believed that McHale is resistant to coaching again, even on an interim basis, despite the fact that Minnesota's much-maligned vice president of basketball operations has been successful as an interim coach before, guiding Minnesota to a 19-12 record in the second half of the 2004-05 season after firing Flip Saunders with the Wolves at 25-26.
It would appear that Minnesota's in-house options for replacing Wittman would appear to be limited if McHale declines to return to the bench, but sources say another possibility is general manager Jim Stack, who has expressed interest in coaching in the past.
The Wolves declined comment Sunday.
When McHale coached previously, his roster was built around Kevin Garnett and still featured Sam Cassell, Latrell Sprewell and Wally Szczerbiak from the group that went to the 2004 Western Conference finals under Saunders in the most successful season in franchise history. These Wolves are much younger and still early in the rebuilding process after Garnett was traded to Boston in July 2007.
McHale nonetheless said coming into the season that he thought that this team -- using last season's respectable 17-26 finish as a springboard -- could make a run at .500 ball. The Wolves are well off that pace, losing 15 of 18 games since an opening-night win over Sacramento and looking increasingly disengaged under Wittman, judging by their four consecutive double-digit losses this week. The last two defeats, away to New Jersey and the loss at home to the Clippers, came by a combined 52 points.
"It's obvious that something has to change," one team source said Sunday.
Al Jefferson, who replaced Garnett as the Wolves' cornerstone forward, touched on the growing effort concerns Saturday night after the loss when he told local reporters: "It starts in this locker room with us. They could have Jesus Christ himself come and coach us, but if we don't go out there and play hard and play together, it won't mean nothing."
If this is indeed the end for Wittman, he'll leave the Wolves' bench with one of the lowest career winning percentages of all-time at .326. He has a career record of 100-207, going 62-102 in two seasons as Cleveland's coach (1999-2000 and 2000-01) and a record of 38-105 since taking over from Dwane Casey on Jan. 23, 2007. The Wolves were 20-20 in the 2006-07 season when Casey was dismissed, then went 12-30 under Wittman in Garnett's last days in Minnesota.
After Saturday's heavy loss, when asked about his job security, Wittman told reporters: "If you start worrying about it, there's nothing you can worry about. When you get hired, you're bound to get fired. No, you don't worry about it. I'm not. I've got to prepare these guys on where they need to get better, and that's what I've got to do."
Said Wolves rookie Kevin Love, who had 13 points and 15 rebounds in the defeat: "As you can imagine, no one is particularly excited. We have hit rock bottom."
The Wolves could have as many as four first-round picks in the June draft, but McHale continues to absorb heavy criticism for his front-office moves. In addition to the controversial Garnett deal, McHale preferred Randy Foye over Brandon Roy in the 2006 draft, used the No. 7 overall pick in 2007 on Corey Brewer -- only for Brewer to struggle mightily as a rookie and then suffer the misfortune of a season-ending knee injury on Nov. 29 -- and surrendered Memphis' O.J. Mayo in a draft-day deal last June that brought back Love and perimeter specialist Mike Miller. Even in a deep rookie class, Mayo is widely regarded as the most serious threat to Chicago's Derrick Rose in the NBA's Rookie of the Year race.
As recently as two weeks ago, Wolves owner Glen Taylor said Wittman's job was safe, telling the St. Paul Pioneer-Press: "If I worried about the short term, and I looked at the economy and all my companies, if I based things on that, then I'd fire all my presidents because they had a bad month. I've been through ups and downs. You've got to be patient. I think Randy has prepared [the players] well. We've just got to get them some confidence. They're still young."
But the Wolves have looked increasingly uncompe ive since a stunning 26-point victory in Detroit on Nov. 23 which appeared to ease some of the pressure on Wittman.
Going Backward
Randy Wittman has coached some bad teams and they haven't gotten better in his tenure.
Team Record Pct.
CLE 32-50 .390
CLE 30-52 .366
MIN 12-30 .286
MIN 22-60 .268
MIN 4-15 .211
Randy Whitman is a bad coach.
Nooooo.
The guy was a miserable failure with Cleveland, so what the , he probobly got better....
doesnt improve the wolves even with t hat fail gm mchale
I can't believe McFail has had the same job for 13 years.
My question is what is he doing to keep it?
Blackmailing Glen Taylor?
It's official:
http://www.startribune.com/sports/wo...7PQLanchO7DiUsBy Jerry Zgoda, Star Tribune
Last update: December 8, 2008 - 11:40 AM
The Timberwolves fired head coach Randy Wittman this morning and replaced him with Vice President of Basketball Operations Kevin McHale, but the big news out of Target Center is that McHale will relinquish his front-office duties to concentrate on coaching.
Owner Glen Taylor and McHale will announce the changes at a 2 p.m. Target Center press conference today.
It is not yet known if assistant general manager Fred Hoiberg, who was being groomed as McHale’s successor, will take over the team’s basketball operations on a permanent basis.
McHale, the team’s Vice President of Basketball Operations hired in 1995, is the architect of a franchise that won two playoff series in future Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett’s 12 seasons as a Timberwolf and then traded Garnett in July 2007 for five players and two draft picks in the NBA’s largest deal for a single player.
The Wolves are 26-75 in one-plus seasons since then. They are 4-15 this season after two lopsided losses Friday at New Jersey and Saturday at home to the Los Angeles Clippers.
McHale was expected to lead his first practice today at 11.
The Wolves were 38-105 under Wittman. He coached one full season and parts of two others.
The Wolves (4-15) have the fourth-worst record in the NBA this season. They started last season 3-24 and were on pace for one of the worst records in NBA history. They finished the season 22-60, still the third-worst mark in the league in 2007-08.
McHale hired Wittman in January 2007 when he fired Dwane Casey with the Timberwolves at .500, 20-20. The Wolves went 12-30 the rest of the way and then in the summer of 2007 traded franchise player Kevin Garnett to Boston for Al Jefferson, four other players and draft picks.
McHale was 19-12 in 2005 when he took over coaching duties after he fired Flip Saunders.
Matt Millen may be the only executive in professional sports capable of carrying on the legacy that Kevin McHale created in the Wolves front office.
Coaching hot seat: Who's next to go?
By Chris Sheridan
ESPN.com
(Archive)
Updated: December 8, 2008, 2:03 PM ET
Comment
Randy Wittman is out the door in Minnesota -- which means it took only six weeks for 13.3 percent of the NBA's head coaching positions to turn over.
The NBA has shown itself to be a league of a few elite teams and an exponentially larger number of sad-sack, empty-seat outfits, many of whom are now invoking that time-honored exercise of pointing the finger of blame at the head coach.
P.J. Carlesimo lasted just 13 games in Oklahoma City, Eddie Jordan was axed two days later (11 games into Washington's season) and Sam Mitc was fired after the Toronto Raptors lost nine of their first 17.
We all knew job security was tenuous in the NBA coaching profession, but this season has driven that point home like a Dwight Howard slam. And barring a couple of quick turnarounds in Memphis and Sacramento, the number of coaches who have lost their jobs since the season opener could rise to six before Christmas Day.
Let's have a look at who remains on the hot seat, along with our own odds on who will be the next coach sacked in this season of discontent.
Marc Iavaroni, Grizzlies
A well-connected source assures us Iavaroni will be coaching the Grizzlies on Monday night against the Houston Rockets, after spending several days barely hanging on.
The question appears to be not whether Iavaroni will be canned, but when. The next question is whether one of Iavaroni's assistants, namely Johnny Davis or Kevin O'Neill, will step into the same shoes Tony Barone filled two years ago, when Barone took over as interim coach after the Grizzlies fired Mike Fratello.
Memphis owner Michael Heisley might have moved even faster had Iavaroni not coached the Grizz to a victory over the Clippers on Friday night. Then Saturday night's debacle in New Orleans (the Grizz trailed by 21 after one quarter and lost by 19) put Iavaroni right back on the hot seat. Now Heisley has to decide by Tuesday whether he wants a new guy to have a chance for a running start, with four of Memphis' next six games appearing to be winnable -- Wednesday's game at Oklahoma City, plus home games against Chicago, Miami and Charlotte. Odds: 1-1
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Reggie Theus, Kings
The ankle injury that sidelined Kevin Martin for more than three weeks bought Theus some time, but Sacramento enters this week's back-to-back set against the Lakers with an eight-game losing streak -- and of the past four losses, three have been by 26, 23 and 33 points.
When he was brought aboard, Theus was the choice of the Maloofs, the Kings owners, who have now said any decision on the coach's future is in the hands of team president Geoff Petrie.
"I believe that they want me to just fight the battle and in the end to allow them to make their decision ... and I'm OK with that. I really hope that I have the opportunity to finish out. And that's not a plea in and of itself, that's just me saying that to you," Theus told the Sacramento Bee's Sam Amick this past weekend. "I believe in the plan. I believe in what Geoff and the Maloofs have in mind. And, whether it is a success on my side or not, I understand what we're trying to do. My job is to try to do what they've asked me to do. I think I'm at least moving in the right direction."
Theus told ESPN.com's J.A. Adande: "They [the Maloofs] asked me, 'Reggie, this is what we want to do. We want you to create a style of basketball that the fans like. We want you to keep the locker room together.'"
But Sacramento is down to 29th in average attendance, with catcalls coming from the fans who remain. That plus a dissatisfied locker room means that a team-record ninth consecutive home loss might be one too many. Odds: 3:2
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Maurice Cheeks, 76ers
If we were looking for the leading contender to be the seventh coach fired this season, Cheeks would be at the top of the list.
None of the Eastern Conference teams expected to be contenders (with the possible exception of Toronto) has been a bigger disappointment than the Sixers, whose 9-12 record to begin the week has them sitting in 10th place in the East, a half-game behind New York.
Cheeks' footing is solidified by a couple of things: He just signed an extension, and he is engineering a fundamental shift in offensive emphasis to account for the addition of Elton Brand (currently day-to-day with a strained hamstring). But there has been measurable regression in the production of Andre Iguodala, Samuel Dalembert and Lou Williams, and it wasn't a good sign when team president Ed Stefanski said, "You'll never hear 'patience' coming out of my mouth."
Watch to see how the Sixers look in their back-to-back set against the Cavaliers later this week. Two blowout losses, and the line on Cheeks moves shorter. Odds: 19-1
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Mike Dunleavy, Clippers
Upon his return to the Knicks' locker room a day after he was dealt from the Clippers in the Zach Randolph trade, Tim Thomas was asked how bad the chemistry dynamic had been in Los Angeles. "Oh, man. You have no idea," Thomas said, laughing and shaking his head.
Still, Dunleavy has recently emerged standing from the power struggle that led to the ouster of longtime general manager Elgin Baylor. And owner Donald Sterling isn't exactly enamored of the idea of firing people when he is still obligated to pay them.
Even with the 4-16 start and the poor chemistry between Dunleavy and point guard Baron Davis, there is still plenty of time for the Clips to work their way north from their current No. 14 spot in the Western Conference standings. And Dunleavy might have another move or two to try -- there isn't enough room in one frontcourt for Randolph, Marcus Camby and Chris Kaman, and Davis becomes trade-eligible on Dec. 15. Odds: 32-1
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The Field, including Flip Saunders' former Detroit assistants
Are Terry Porter and Michael Curry, who moved into the big chairs in Phoenix and Detroit, respectively, after serving as Pistons assistant coaches last season, in trouble already?
OK, maybe it's a reach to include either of these first-year guys in a hot-seat list column, but the Suns and Pistons are accustomed to winning a lot more than we've seen lately from these two teams.
The changeover in Phoenix from Mike D'Antoni's offensively-oriented system to Porter's defensive-minded schemes is running into resistance from certain corners of the Suns locker room, something that has been well do ented at ESPN.com (click here and here). One plugged-in, rival assistant coach described the Suns as "a bad mix and not on the same page."
And then we have Saunders' successor in Detroit, Curry, who pledged after Sunday's sleepwalk loss at New York to change his starting lineup -- dropping Kwame Brown -- and find more minutes for Rodney Stuckey, Arron Afflalo and Walter Herrmann. We'll see how that sits with the veterans -- namely Allen Iverson, Richard Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace and possibly Tayshaun Prince -- whose minutes will have to be cut. Odds: 49-1
Longest-tenured NBA coachesAfter Utah's Jerry Sloan (20 years) and San Antonio's Gregg Popovich (12 years), who has the longest tenure on an NBA bench?
It's Mike Dunleavy of the Clippers (hired at the start of the 2003-04 season), followed closely by 38-year-old Lawrence Frank of the New Jersey Nets.
The Clippers and Nets? Models of stability? What has the world come to?
"I don't know what that says, but there may be a deep psychological something or other in there. It is ironic, I'll say that," said Nets president Rod Thorn, who some might recall is the only NBA executive to fire Sloan -- back in 1982 when Thorn was running the Chicago Bulls.
-- Chris Sheridan
Chris Sheridan covers the NBA for ESPN Insider. To e-mail Chris, click here.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/column...HotSeat-081208
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