Timberwolves Coaches (Seven)

To me, coaches are the most important thing in basketball. If you have a good coach that will motivate players to play the right way (defense, rebounds, blocks and assists first) then you will at least have an above average team no matter what your GM does as far as personnel. Unfortunately this makes my coaching debut this year in the 5th grade Minnesota traveling basketball league a little suspect as our record was like 5-15. So by my own logic I am a bad coach. But that therefore makes me uniquely qualified to call out bad coaches. And my friend we have had plenty of them here.




Bill Musselman (1989-1991) Good ‘ol Muss. A poor man’s Bud Grant actually. Kept it simple for his players and therefore did surprisingly well. The team brought in some quality verterans like Tyrone Corbin and Sam Mitchell to build on too, too bad with the lifeblood of new teams being the draft, the T’wolved did incredibly bad. Our first pick being Pooh Richardson, ‘nuf said. I liked the pick at the time because they were trying to start off with a point guard. A theme that would haunt the team to this day. Here are the point guards that I remember: Richardson, Michael Williams, Terry Porter, Stephon Marbury, Terrell Brandon , Chauncey Billups, Troy Hudson, Sam Cassell, and that’s not even mentioning guys like William Avery and Winston Garland. Pooh goes down as probably the best true point guard in team history, not saying much I know. Others in that list were better basketball players (Marbury, Billups, Cassell) but were playing out of position. Anyway we still have not had a 'better than good' true point guard.
(51-113)



This is the only pic I could find of him, that should tell you something right there about his coaching prowess. Very small, like...

Jimmy Rodgers (1991-1992) Since there’s not much to say about the Jimmy Rodgers era, I’ll give you a random it’s a small world note: After a game my wife and I attended, we left pretty much right after the game, didn’t rush out, but left right with everyone else. Well as we were walking down the sidewalk, a full size black luxury car pulls out of the underground ramp. So I’m trying to see who it is and whatta ya know, it was Jimmy’s big gray curly head. I have a hundred questions right now, but HE WAS ALREADY LEAVING THE TARGET CENTER BEFORE I COULD WALK TO MY CAR, and that about sums up his coaching career. Besides, in the early 90’s nobody had poodle hair except Richard Simmons. Maybe a flat top, or a shaved head was as weird as haircuts got back then, or if you were me, a mullet (short on the top, party in the back). So here’s a new rule “Never trust a guy with poodle hair” right up there with “Never trust a woman who knows more about guns than you do” as evidenced by Brigitte Nielsen in Beverly Hills Cop II, Flav I’m talking to you.
(21-90)


Er... swords either



Sid Lowe (1992-1994) I don’t remember much about Sid Lowe, except he was the slower, worse shooting version of Pooh Richardson in the Wolves early years. He took over early in the 92-93 season after Rodgers went 6-23 and Lowe was an assistant. He was handed a disaster though, Michael Williams, Chuck Person, Doug West, Christian Laettner were the stars of this team, and it went downhill from there. Somebody named Bob McCann played the next most minutes who I don’t even remember, that’s saying something because he played more than Felton Spencer and Luc Longley who were two more of our first round busts. I will address our draft day woes on a seperate day.
(33-102)

I Can't even find a pic of him on Google, definitely proof that he is the worst coach of T'wolves history.
Bill Blair (1994-1995) Maybe the worst coach we had in terms of he could not get the team to work on the defensive end, and this in an era where defense ruled and there were not silly rules against hand checking and the like. Like I said earlier, any team with a decent coach can be .500 if they just do the basics. My favorite Bill Blair moment was when he left the team and the players were asked what was different with their new coach, the answer was “We actually have a defensive game plan”. Nice, how many hours did I waste watching that team.
(27-75)



Flip Saunders (1995-2004) Random It’s a small world note: I went to the Flip Saunders basketball camp for a couple of years as a kid. I remember him always being there (which is something that most “Name Brand” camps do not do these days) and demonstrating the drills. He could dribble and shoot like a fool. Behind his back through his legs, low dribble in circles around his legs. Like those “And 1” guys without the somersaults. He would play us in P-I-G during breaks too. But it was over very quick (breaks were only a couple of minutes) He would shoot 35 foot shots, backwards from 20, it was amazing. And he was the first person I met who loved basketball as much as I did. So he does the demonstration on Free-Throws and he describes how to do it hold your hand here, do the same number of dribbles, arc the ball like this, put your toe on the nail (he was the first person to point out that there is always a nail on a wood floor right in the middle of the basket on the free throw line) and the whole time he makes every single shot, 90% of them swishes. It was probably 35 in a row, and he just kept on shooting, he knew we were all losing our bowels at this showing, and was kind of laughing. He went on to make 96 out of 100. Missing the 4 towards the end as his arm got tired. Anyway Flip is of course the best coach we have had. I truly think he will be in the Hall some day. The first coach since Muss to make the right decisions at the end of games and halves. Played the players in a logical rotation and they generally seemed like they knew what to do at all times. He also finally had the talent too. Kevin Garnett , Tom Gugliotta, Stephon Marbury, Wally Szczerbiak and later with Sam Cassell, and Latrell Sprewell plus a strange affinity to Anthony Peeler, an average at best shooting guard who couldn’t shoot all that well. In fact I always pictured Flip playing the Wolves in P-I-G in practice just like at camp and I can’t think of any player that could beat him, but certainly AP wouldn’t have a chance. I always wondered if the players that came in for a “workout” before they are signed had to play him or something... OK so I’m weird. And he (or McHale) was smart enough to get rid of Isiah Rider and Christian Laettner within the first year. Also the announcing team of Trent Tucker (double T) and Kevin Harlan came in under his reign. The best combo by far in franchise history. Kevin Harlan would say stuff like “Googily Oogily Baby” and double T would say in his staccato voice “What the Timberwoles need to do is work the basketball and get it into the hands of their best player, the big ticket, and ride the big fella to victory”. God I miss double T. I saw him at the game against the Knicks and he just didn’t look happy. He has to watch that miserable Jim Peterson walk over to the table and take his job each game, and he just gets to do the post-mortem while Petey goes home to his mansion. I’d guess he was bitter. He was also doing some stuff for the Minnesota high school basketball tournament. Not to mention he was on the greatest Gopher team ever, in 1982 (because that other team that went to the final 4 never happened remember, I mean you can't remember because it never happened... never mind) but that deserves another entry on its own. Double T we miss ‘ya.
Flip had moderate success in the playoffs, getting to the Western conference finals in 2004 losing to the Kobe/ Shaq / Payton and Malone Lakers 2-4. It was not meant to be as Cassell was injured (putting his back and Dennis Green’s balls as the most infamous body parts in Minnesota sports history) so we had Derrick Martin Leading our team from the point. Yet another page in Minnesota sports agony. Flip’s greatest quote of the series: regarding his hack a Shaq strategy, using Ervin Johnson, Michael Olowokandi, Mark Madsen, and Oliver Miller to foul Shaq whenever possible “If we have to foul him 40 times we’ll foul him 40 times if that’s what it takes” with Shaq answering “They’ll only call 15 of them”. Making Shaq literally the 'biggest' whiner in sports history, passing Abdoul-Jabbar. Him complaining about those guys fouling him is like me complaining when my 100 pound 10 year old fouls me in the driveway. Kareem Rush dropping 6-7 from 3 point range put the final nail in the coffin in game 6.
regular season (411-326)
playoffs (17-30)




Kevin Mchale (2004) If anyone thought that Flip was the problem with the 2004 Timberwolves you’re insane. But Kevin Mchale fired his buddy Flip and took over the team late in the season. Wally Szczerbiak is best as a bench player. There I said it. Some guys just are, its not a knock. Great shooters and incredibly fast players are best off the bench when they can come in and break the other team’s back when they are tired. Wally is not quick enough to start, he needs that edge of the other tem being a little tired to get his shot off, and defend well. But with Cassell and Spreewell gone we just didn’t have the talent to get to the finals any more.
(19-12)


Dwane Casey (2005-Present) We don’t know much here yet. The best we can hope for is that the younger players from Boston we just acquired will get better in the next couple of years. Hopefully Mchale wasn't just doing old buddy Danny Ainge a favor as a final move before Taylor fires him. Kevin Garnett has put the team completely on his back since the trade and they are doing better as of late. Hopefully Casey can get them to play team defense so we can shut some teams down in the 4th quarter. So far we are back to 1990 with about a 30 win team. The cycle has bottomed out, hopefully.
(31-43 so far)