T’Wolves Fire Head Coach Dwayne Casey

The Minnesota Timberwolves have struggled to keep a head coach after firing their longtime coach Flip Saunders a few years ago. Such is still the case as the team management has decided to fire coach Dwayne Casey. The team announced that assistant coach Randy Wittman will take over as interim head coach

Timberwolves vice president of basketball operations Kevin McHale fired Casey on Tuesday, one day after Minnesota lost its fourth consecutive game.

“I’ve been in basketball 29 years, and this is going to be my first time out of basketball,” Casey told ESPN Insider’s Chris Sheridan. “But you understand what you’re getting into when you enter this business.”

ESPN 1/23/07

Casey only spent one full season (2005-2006) as the team’s head coach and his career with the Wolves was pretty much doomed from the start. Ever since the Wolves parted ways with Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell, the team’s x-factors that got them to the Western Conference Finals in 2004, the team has struggled to keep a winning record and make the playoffs. Since then the team has done little to surround KG with the right talent. Sure they got new promising draft selections, they got Ricky Davis and Mike James, but they have proven to be insufficient to repeat the glory of that 2003-2004 season. Add to the fact that KG is getting older and getting more and more restless to win a championship each year, all these were ingredients for distster wherein an inexperience head coach just puts the icing on the cake.

Casey was on the not seat much earlier this season when the Wolves actually had a worse win loss record. It’s a bit weird that he wasn’t fired back then but was fired now when his team actually has a better record. This means that T’Wolves management just put the bar too high this season expecting a significant improvement in the team’s record. The team is at .500 right now, much better than last year’s 33-49 record so far. Assuming the team continues at this pace then it’s an improvement already. But seriously, how much better did they think the team would do anyway?

Here’s a hint (and it’s not the first time anyone has ever said it): Go rebuild the team. Trade KG and whoever else needs to go. Who cares if the team is at .500 right now. That won’t mean anything if the team doesn’t make the playoffs. Heck the team has been losing in the past anyway, better to make those losses count for something – something that will make them better in the future.