Dwane Casey fired

[Buckley]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2740436

not suprised as the twolves have not been all that good. still there the 8th seed as of now. wittman will take over

your thoughts?

[Ty-Land]

My thoughts; I hope Terry Stotts is next. Rick Adelman where are you...?

[kingtrobe807]

I see a KG move next.......

[CMJ3]

Given their current record i thought the Wolves would give him more of a chance but i guess they lost their patience.

[Donatello]

I see a KG move next.......

I see a joint in your mouth

[Anthony15]

Rick Adelman is probably the best option for them now, but Im sure a big losing streak with interim HC and KG will start whining about trading again...

[Matt]

strange move to fire a coach when your the 8th seed and have been playing well in the last 6 weeks or so. I wouldn't be surprised if KG is gone this time next month.

[BigKaboom2]

I was sure they had named McHale interim coach as I was reading the article. Darn.

[Andrew]

strange move to fire a coach when your the 8th seed and have been playing well in the last 6 weeks or so. I wouldn't be surprised if KG is gone this time next month.

Agreed. Steve Kerr opined that the timing suggests McHale has just been waiting for an excuse such as a four game losing streak to fire Casey. We all know that the coach usually takes the fall when a team falls upon tough times but even through this recent struggle the Timberwolves remain the eighth seeded team in the tough Western Conference midway through the season. I guess for all the nice things they have to say about him, the Timberwolves (or perhaps rather McHale) just didn't have confidence in Casey to get the job done in the second half of the season or down the road.

[Axel]

I don't know what the fuck Kevin McHale is thinking. Dwane Casey has gotten so much out of this team, he deserved a contract extension, not to be fired. The Wolves have vastly overachieved this year. I for one thought they would finish with less than 40 wins, and this firing guarntees it. McHale is a fucking douchebag. KG seriously should just sit on his ass and refuse to play.

[Riot]

WOW! I missed a whole lot while I was out of town. I never thought I would see this happen. When I left for Florida the Timberwolves were riding high and people were talking about how Casey saved his job. Now he is fired? I don't agree with it at all.

Was Casey the best coach? Absolutely not. He made a lot of mistakes and there were times when he looked like a coach that didn't know what to do. There were some times where I doubted his ability to execute a play out of a timeout or adjust to a team at halftime or during the course of a game. However, over the past 5-6 weeks he has made some huge strides. The plays out of timeouts were getting better and better and he was making some outstandings adjustments in games to pull off victories in overtime. The game against Houston was a great example of that. He placed Mark Blount in the corner and spread the floor so Garnett could work in the post. Everytime he would get doubled they would just rotate the ball around and get it to the open man (Blount) and he would hit it everytime. Mutombo was too slow on the rotation to contest Blount. Even Van Gundy and the Rocket players praised Casey on his adjustments.

As I understand it, Garnett and Casey were good friends and got along well. Casey and the players in general got along and I listened to an interview he had literally a week or so before he got fired. He talked about how he doesn't mind living day to day knowing his job is in question. He said it makes him work harder and become a better coach. He talked about how he doesn't like to insult players or make them look bad in front of their teammates. If he needed to talk to them he would sit them down after practice and talk to them. He was a players coach. I got the vibe that him and the players had a good relationship.

I last game I saw was the game against Detroit where Casey and Ricky got into a little agrument about taking him out of a game. Ricky was then suspended for a game and that is the last I heard for a week. I don't know if that had anything to do with the firing because it was McHale who suspended Davis and not Coach Casey. Was Ricky tuning out Casey? Did McHale simply want Casey to fail? I have no idea. All I know is this was probably not a good move. I love Coach Wittman and I think he is an amazingly smart coach. I wanted him to come back to Minnesota ever since he left last year. I think he'll be a fine replacement but I still think it was wrong to can Casey in the middle of a road trip. He didn't deserve it.

One more thing I want you guys to know before I press submit. Coach Casey is one hell of a guy. He is one of the more kind and gentle person you will ever meet. Some would say he was so nice to a fault. He was also an extremely hard working coach. He would watch film and study gameplans all through the night. In fact, during last season there were articles talking about Casey's weight and how he was so stressed out and so focused on the team he wasn't eating much. The assistant coaches and people around Casey were concerned about his long hours and lack of sleep. You can question Casey's ability as a head coach (although, he is one of the best defensive coaches I've witnessed) but you cannot question his character and work ethic. He is one hell of a guy and he will get another job somewhere.