Judging from all the chatter in their locker room, the Timberwolves are convinced that Gerald Wallace will be coming on board from Charlotte, with Rashard McCants and Jason Collins heading to the Bobcats.
East scout on the recent firings of Oklahoma City’s P.J. Carlesimo, Washington’s Eddie Jordan and Toronto’s Sam Mitchell
“The number of people who’ve been fired already means that the next few guys that are teetering — [Reggie] Theus, [Marc] Iavaroni, [Randy] Wittman — will probably get axed soon, too. The earliness of the firings makes it easier for teams [to follow] because there’s no surprise factor. It won’t look like you’re jumping off a cliff. But Minnesota probably has a little bit more patience being so young. It would be more dangerous for Wittman if he had a good veteran player or two to make more of a ruckus.

Usually chatty owner Glen Taylor, clearly unhappy, turned me down in a hallway afterward when I asked to talk him, surely knowing I wanted to ask if he planned any management changes. In the team’s locker room, you could look back into the training room and see Kevin McHale hugging both Al Jefferson and Randy Foye, an odd sight indeed.

You’ve got to believe something’s going to happen, probably with coach Randy Wittman, but who knows?…And perhaps as early as Sunday, or Monday, when the team resumes practice, at the latest. The right thing to do if they decide to fire him and still keep McHale is to make McHale coach this group. Asking, say, Jerry Sichting or Fred Hoiberg to do so is the ultimate cop-out.
Watch the players when they interact with their head coach. They don’t care and they only listen in an obligatory manner. Although they like Randy Wittman as a person, they have little respect for Coach Wittman as their leader. With coaches such as Sam Mitchell and PJ Carlesimo already fired during this young NBA season–coaches who actually have had some success in the league at times–the question remains…why again does Wittman have this job?
Peter J. Schwartz/Forbes.com includes Al Jefferson on their list of “the best clutch players for the buck.” He’s listed as #1 among Centers. Click here for the explanation on how players were chosen. Click here for their info on Jefferson.
The road ahead for the Wolves doesn’t look much better as Utah comes to town, followed by a trip to Denver, back home for a healthier San Antonio than the team saw earlier in the year and out to California to play that other Los Angeles team. I would say that the Wolves let a winnable one slip away tonight, but the bad news is that they are all starting to look like tough games for the Timberwolves.