There’s been talk the Wolves will terminate coach Kurt Rambis sometime after their season ends tonight but former NBA championship coach Bill Fitch told Sports Headliners,“I would be slow to move on the coaches.”
Fitch, who coached Boston to a league title and also had Houston in the finals during a long career, is retired and living in Texas but remains a close NBA observer. He’s aware of how the Timberwolves franchise is floundering, winners of 32 total games out of 163 during the last two seasons.
“There are probably a lot of reasons (for the Wolves record) other than coaching ,” Fitch said by telephone. “When you get a poor situation, I would start looking at management before I would coaching.”
Rambis is finishing the second season of a three-year contract. President of basketball operations David Kahn hired Rambis and is also completing his third season. Rambis and Kahn inherited a talent-poor roster and have been trying to rebuild.
Both the 2010 and 2009 drafts have been second-guessed. Rambis was hired after the 2009 draft when Kahn and his staff passed on sharp shooting guard Steph Curry and quickly traded point guard Ty Lawson, both first round picks. Last year the Wolves preferred shooting guard Wes Johnson to center DeMarcus Cousins on the first round.
Few would argue a Wolves starting five of guards Curry and Lawson, with Cousins at center, along with forwards Kevin Love and Michael Beasley, would be a better starting five than what Minnesota has now. Curry averages 18.5 points per game for the Warriors while Lawson is a developing point guard and scorer for Denver who made 10 of 11 three point shots last week while scoring 37 points against the Wolves. Cousins averages points 14 points and 8.7 rebounds for Sacramento, both better totals than Wolves’ center Darko Milicic who is averaging 8.2 points and 5.5 rebounds while finishing up his eighth NBA season.
Fitch, who left the Gophers’ job in 1970 to begin his NBA career, said firing coaches should not just be about “wins and losses.” He added management has to ask, too: “Who could I get better?”