Wolves fire Casey

[Lurker]

I think this from Hollinger says it best....

Somebody, anybody, please tell me what Dwane Casey did wrong.

Casey kept the Wolves in the top half of the league in Defensive Efficiency all season despite basically having only three big men in his rotation -- Kevin Garnett, the sporadically motivated Mark Blount and rookie Craig Smith, a second-round draft pick.

You can't critique Casey's late-game strategy either -- he more than held his own in close games, winning three straight overtime contests earlier this month.

But apparently losing four games in a row -- two of which can directly be pinned on Kevin Garnett's ejection against Detroit last Friday and subsequent one-game suspension -- was too much for Minnesota's brass to bear. No matter that the Wolves were 7-5 in January, or that they surprisingly held the West's No. 8 seed heading into Monday's games.

Apparently Minnesota management thinks this is still 2003-04 and they're gunning for the Western Conference title. This would be an absurd notion with almost any other franchise, but the Timberwolves are perhaps the league's most delusional franchise.

[westkoast]

Bulls fans can now rest easy   

I didn't think the Wolves were doing bad.  All things considered they don't have the same amount of talent the other 7 teams in front of them in WC have.  In fact I don't think they have as much talent as the Kings or Clippers who they are currently better then.

Also you have to take into mind how bad the top 6 teams in the west are beating up on their conference.  The Mavs, Suns, Spurs, Jazz, Lakers, and Rockets are all 9 to 12 games UP in the win column against their fellow conference mates.  It's tough when 80% of the strong teams in the league you see 3-4 times a year.

Jn, thoughts?  Any rumor on who they may be going out.

[Skandery]

Randy Wittman, the T-Wolves assistant coach has been promoted to Head Coach and the position is NOT on an interim basis as I understand.

I've heard the firing of Casey has been a long time in coming and they were waiting for the right excuse to get rid of him and promote Randy Wittman (who they LOVE).  4 game skid seemed to be the right time.

Really don't know what to think of this, honestly.

[jn]

I'll make this short for the time being.  Casey has done pretty well this year.  The lineup is just not that talented and has some chemistry issues.  Plus upper management really likes Wittman for some reason.  Wittman might be a good coach but I have no reason to believe he will do better than Case.

This has lead to an increase in hostility among fans towards McHale and many fans openly mocking Glen Taylor.