Empty the Bench

Or so says head coach Randy Wittman, who is at a near loss to explain the season-long fog that has engulfed his team and manifested itself in the form of an uninspiring, sub-.500 record of 28-35. Yesterday, the man that GM Kevin McHale has hinted will be back for another go of it next season seemed totally exasperated with the ways his team consistently succeeds at shooting itself in the foot. He also revealed that part of the Timberwolves’ process for evaluating talent is to see “who had the demons come back and who didn’t:”

“We still have demons inside us that come back to bite us, whether it’s not sharing the ball, whether it’s being upset with playing time, whatever,” Wittman said Monday after practice. “We go through a lot of things of that nature that still come back to raise its ugly head to us. All I can do is continue to point it out to them and help teach them and coach them.”

We can’t have a lapse of, ‘Jeez, why am I coming out of the game? Or why am I not getting more touches?”‘ Wittman said. The Timberwolves have been dealing with the same problems for most of the season, and Wittman was asked if it gets frustrating when some players keep making the same mistakes. “That’s what you look at at the end of the year,” he said. “Who continually had the demons come back and who didn’t. Those are the decisions you make when changing your team or changing the look of your team or whatever.”

Teams like the Clippers, Kings, Warriors, Nuggets and Hornets have all had their struggles, leaving a sliver of hope for Minnesota. “That’s maddening,” Wittman said. “It’s maddening. It’s maddening.”

Wittman went on to describe the whole situation as “maddening,” and said that if the ‘Wolves do indeed miss the playoffs (they’re only a game back of the 8th seed) that he’d consider it… wait for it… “maddening.” Frankly, we know of an easy way to exorcise the team’s demons, and it doesn’t even involve a priest: fire Kevin McHale. Fire him right now, and bring in a real general manager with at least a passing interest in improving his team.

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