Things could be worse for the Wolves. Or not

At 10:30 tonight I'll turn on NBA League Pass and watch the Timberwolves play the Lakers in LA. Judging by the respective starts for each team, the game will likely be over by 11:10, though it won't officially end for another two hours. The Lakers enter the game 7-0 and have played only two close games as they aim for a third straight title.

The Timberwolves enter the game 1-6, yet it all seems so much worse than that. In their last five games, the Wolves lost to Memphis by 20, to Miami by 32, to Orlando by 42, to Atlanta by 10 (!), and to previously winless Houston by 26. They've become the professional equivalent of a Division II team that's served up as a sacrifice for a Division I team early in the season. Playing the Wolves has to hurt their opponents' ranking in the BCS standings. The outcomes of their games aren't quite as predetermined as a Generals-Globetrotters game, but at this point Washington might be favored by 5 in a head-to-head matchup at the Target Center.

After tonight's game, Kurt Rambis might just stay back in LA, serving as a volunteer assistant under Phil Jackson, trying to forget his tenure with the Timberwolves while the franchise attempts to forget its time under him. Not that it's Rambis's fault. In his first stint as a head coach, with the Lakers in 1999, he had to deal with a young Kobe Bryant and an old Dennis Rodman and San Antonio easily swept LA in the playoffs, which led to Phil Jackson's hiring, Rambis's retreat from the bench, his return to the bench as an assistant and his ascension to Timberwolves head coach. Now he deals with a mismatched roster that has plenty of point guards, none of whom are Stephen Curry, and plenty of small forwards, none of whom possess a consistent jump shot. The good news? They're well on their way to a high draft pick in 2010, which they can use to take a...small forward or point guard.

It's a tough start to a long season. Even for the franchise of Roth, Brooks, Rider, and Lohaus, this is a low point. Remember when fans grew apathetic with the franchise because they only won 50 games each year and kept getting eliminated in the first round of the playoffs? Those teams now look like Jordan's Bulls in comparison. But has it ever been this bad, this early for the Timberwolves?

Last year the team also started 1-6, which eventually turned into a 1-15 record. But those six losses didn't resemble the six from this season. The Wolves lost by 3 to the Clippers and by 2 to the Celtics, with an 8-point defeat against Phoenix sprinkled in. Nothing like this season's debacle. The Wolves also began the 2009 season 1-6 (as you'll see, it's a pattern). Yet one loss came in double overtime to the powerful Spurs and another came in overtime against Golden State. They also had a three-point defeat against Oklahoma City. Again, nothing like this season.

The Timberwolves of 2008 also lost six of their first seven games, on their way to a 1-10 beginning. Only two of those first six losses were by double-digits.

After that you have to go back to the 1995-96 season, Garnett's rookie year, to find a Wolves team that started 1-6. But that slow start included an overtime loss to Vancouver and a six-point loss to Portland. Toronto beat the Wolves by 18 and Houston by 22, but no one beat them by 30. Or 40.

The 1995 season? There we go.
Denver 130, Wolves 108
Houston 115, Wolves 85
Detroit 126, Wolves 112
Lakers 122, Wolves 99
Bulls 112, Wolves 100
Celtics 114, Wolves 101

The Wolves lost their first six games that year before defeating Golden State by two. They went on to lose their next seven to drop to 1-13, just to prove the first seven games weren't an aberration. Not a single defeat by less than 12 points to start that season. At least this year's squad opened with a 1-point loss to Sacramento. That Wolves team did scrape together 21 victories, a number the current team will struggle to reach. Credit the leadership of top scorer JR Rider for the turnaround.

Even the worst team in franchise history - the 1992 squad, which went 15-67 under the beleaguered Jimmy Rodgers - had a three-point defeat and a pair of five-point losses in their 1-6 start. For those wondering, Tony Campbell led the team in scoring that year, followed by Pooh Richardson and Tyrone Corbin. Randy Breuer, Tod Murphy, Mark Randall, Luc Longley and Felton Spencer all manned the frontcourt that year for Minnesota, and suddenly the Darko Era doesn't seem so bad.

So is this year's start the worst ever for a franchise that's all-too familiar with on-court fiascoes? Possibly. That 1995 season was ugly. At this point it's like comparing and contrasting natural disasters. What's worse, a hurricane or a tornado? An earthquake or a tsunami? Things are bad for the Timberwolves. And tonight in LA, they're going to get worse.

There might be only one way out of the mess: Fire Childress.

With the fourth pick, the Timberwolves select...a bad center

In the run-up to the NBA draft, NBA TV has been replaying past drafts, from the legendary 1984 event to the depressing 1986 draft. No matter the sport, I've never gotten real excited about drafts, simply because it's usually several years before anyone knows if it was worth celebrating a selection. A team that gets an A on draft night might get a D if the pundits graded three years later. Or maybe my enthusiasm died during a June night in 1990, when I went with my parents to the Timberwolves draft party in Minneapolis. It was a very cool event. A drive north to the big city, food and drink, big-screen televisions, Timberwolves celebrating a new day.

The Timberwolves selected Felton Spencer that year. A lot of things kill parties. Bad music. Running out of beer. Felton Spencer. The next years affirmed our fears about Felton (a year later, remarkably, the Wolves drafted another center who did nothing for them - Luc Longley - although at least Luc found success while filling the lane for Jordan's Bulls).

Still, it's fun watching these old drafts. Drafts don't interest me much as they happen, but looking back always provides highlights.

They just played the 1996 one. Rick Pitino served as an analyst, an NBA expert based on his sterling success with the Knicks - he was still a year away from leaving Kentucky for Boston. At one point, Pitino, Ernie Johnson and Hubie Brown welcomed new Nets coach John Calipari to their desk, where the former Massachusetts coach praised the team's pick of Kerry Kittles. There had been talk the Nets would take high school phenom Kobe Bryant. Peter Vecsey, the longtime New York Post columnist who often has the word acerbic used before his name, was working for TNT. Vecsey said the Nets should have taken Bryant. Calipari smiled that same grin he gives recruits who express concern about an upcoming SAT exam and said the team liked Bryant, but got the man they wanted. They envisioned Kittles playing a pair of spots, "the 1 or the 2."

Calipari - the only NBA coach in history to have more Final Four appearances vacated (2) than playoff appearances (1) - proved right. In their rookie years, Kittles averaged an impressive 16 points per game, compared to Bryant's meager and embarrassing 7 points a game.

NBA Reference has all the drafts. It's fun clicking on a random year. Take 1985. Four centers went in the top six picks, headlined by Patrick Ewing. The other centers were Benoit Benjamin to the Clippers (of course), Jon Koncack to Atlanta and Joe Kleine to Sacramento. Oy. Three players who made it to the NBA thanks to the cliche, "You can't teach height." Later in the draft, there was another run on tall stiffs, as Denver grabbed Blair Rasmussen with the 15th pick, Dallas took Bill Wennington at 16, and remarkably - bizarrely, ridiculously, inexcusably, heinously - took Uwe Blab with the 17th choice.

And it's almost a guarantee that after each of those picks, the general managers of those teams looked a reporter in the eye and said with a straight face, "We wanted him all along. We got the guy we wanted the whole time."

Karl Malone, incidentally, went to Utah with the 13th pick. Detroit grabbed Joe Dumars at 18. In 1985 the NBA had an absurd seven rounds. If you were white, 7-feet tall and didn't get drafted that year, it was only because your pre-draft physical indicated there was a 95 percent chance you'd die within nine months. There are some great names there, though. Mario Elie - who became known as one of the grittiest players during his NBA career and played on numerous title teams - went 143 spots after Uwe Blab, as Milwaukee took him at 160. Dallas took Minnesota Gopher Tommy Davis in the fifth round. Davis did nothing in the pros, but he became a star overseas, especially in the Philippines. I remember stories that he once scored more than 70 in several games, but couldn't find anything online verifying that.

The diminutive Spudd Webb emerged from the Class of 1985, as did the late Manute Bol, the gentle giant with a great soul. Atlanta took a guy who actually was a great center - Arvydas Sabonis - but it would be 10 more years before he played in the NBA, and that was with Portland, a decade after his prime and years after his knees went out.

The Wolves have the No. 4 pick this year. In the past teams have found franchise players there, and franchise killers. In between the centers from hell in 1985, Seattle grabbed Xavier McDaniel with the fourth pick, a standout player for a number of years. Three years later, the Nets - being the Nets - took Chris Morris at No. 4, one spot ahead of Mitch Richmond. Other players who went in that position include Glen Rice, Dikembe Mutombo, and Donyell Marshall in 1994 - to the Wolves. Marshall certainly did nothing spectacular in the Target Center, but it's hard to criticize the Timberwolves considering the lack of depth in that draft. The 12 picks after Marshall: Juwan Howard, Sharone Wright, Lamond Murray, Brian Grant, Eric Montross (who, in a previous life was taken in the 1985 draft), Eddie Jones, Carlos Rogers, Khalid Reeves, Jalen Rose, Yinka Dare, Eric Piatkowski and Clifford Rozier. A few guys you'd take over Marshall, but nothing that would have altered the franchise.

But no matter who the Wolves take on Thursday it seems unlikely the player will fix the team or improve their fortunes dramatically. Outside of Kevin Garnett, that's the history of the team. How bad has it been? That depressing night in 1990, the night of Felton? That was actually one of the best draft nights in team history.

A depressing walk through Timberwolves history

In their 20-year history, the Timberwolves have won two playoff series.

I thought of that tidbit last week while watching another Timberwolves loss, though it's not exactly a hidden piece of trivia.

Both victories came in 2004, one against Denver and a 7-game classic against the Kings. This is the team's 21st season. At 13-44, we can eliminate them from playoff contention, even if the league's mathematicians haven't given the official verdict. So this will be the 20th season in franchise history that ends without a playoff victory. It's almost improbable, the level of ineptness and despondence that afflicts the franchise and has hovered over the team since that first season in the poorly lit but spacious Metrodome.

Twins fans suffered from 1993 through 2000, as the Rich Becker and Marty Cordova Era replaced the Puckett and Hrbek clan, ruining the game for millions of baseball fans in the state. That was an eight-year span, bookended by a pair of World Series victories and a nine-year run that's seen the Twins become one of the most consistent franchises in baseball, even if each season end with a beating at the hands of the bullying Yankees. It's not just that the Wolves have been bad. What's been so depressing for an ever-shrinking fan base is that in many years, there hasn't even been any hope. The fans look to the future and see nothing but missed jumpers, blown defensive assignments and a siren call to howl during opponents' free throws. The fans are as beaten down as a wrongly convicted person looking at life in prison with no chance for parole. There's seemingly only darkness in the years ahead.

And the past is even worse.

But what was the most depressing year in Timberwolves history? Not necessarily the worst year in the record books - which is the 15-67 mark in 1992 - but the most disheartening season, the season that was repellent on the court with no hope for a better tomorrow. There is no shortage of candidates.

* 1989-90. 22-60. A horrid record, but actually an uplifting season. As an expansion team, the Timberwolves had no expectations. They were expected to fail and look bad doing it. But led by coach Bill Musselman, the Wolves developed a reputation as a tough defensive team, one that could keep the game close with a plodding offense led by Laker refugee Tony Campbell, who averaged 23 points a game. Many familiar names of Timberwolves lore played this year - Randy Breuer, Brad Lohaus, Sidney Lowe, Scott Roth, Tod with one d Murphy. No one expected that lineup to make a run at 50 wins the following year, but there was a sense that the organization had a clue and some type of plan. Another highlight that year: an NBA attendance record, as the Wolves attracted more than a million fans to the cavernous Metrodome, a stadium that was so big, sometimes the only players fans could see with the naked eye were the ones who were taller than 7-feet. Mark Eaton. He was visible.

* 2007-2009. Gonna combine these two seasons, since all 164 games sort of blur together, one loss indistinguishable from another. These were depressing seasons. They traded Garnett and won a total of 46 games, as the team's head coach did everything but legally change his name to the Beleaguered Randy Wittman. Al Jefferson and Kevin Love provided a few highlights here and there but overall there was little to excite a fanbase that now half-filled the Target Center. A long ways from the days in the Metrodome.

* 2002-03. They won 51 games. Made the playoffs. But still depressing. Eliminated by the Lakers, this was the seventh straight season the Wolves lost in the first round. By this point, it seemed that Garnett would not only never win a title with the team, but he wouldn't even get a single series victory. It seemed like the Wolves would be winning 50 games and losing in the first round until about, oh, 2011, when Garnett's knees would begin to give out. Instead, Sprewell and Cassell joined the team and 2004 was the best season in team history. And, of course, the only season with a playoff victory.

* 1991-1992. The 15-win season. On the NBA.com recap of the season, the headline is "A Rough Winter." Coincidentally, 1992 was a long winter in Janesville as well. I don't remember the details from that season in JWP girls basketball history, but I know it was a long one. I know this because the following year - 1993, my senior year - the gals again struggled. At the end of the year the head coach put a lot of work into a booklet for the girls, a collection of newspaper clips recapping the campaign. He also headlined it. And the headline? "Another long winter." Yes, yes it was. He saw no point in glossing over that fact with any propaganda that would talk about how hard the team played or how close the games were. Every game was a struggle, for the coach, the players and the fans. So might as well call it what it was. And if it was "another" long winter, it must mean that 1992 was a long one as well.

Anyway, for the Wolves the long winter included losing streaks of 10 and 16 games. Certainly a disheartening season - any season that includes the Twin Tower tandem of Luc Longley and Felton Spencer can not be considered a success - but still not the most depressing year.

* 1993-1994. My vote for the most depressing season in team history. Others will disagree and I could definitely be persuaded, such is the history of the franchise. They went 20-62, the second-worst mark for the team. The season started with five straight losses, eliminating any hope for the remaining 77 games. The season ended with 10 straight defeats, reminding everyone of just how horrid the year had been. Sidney Lowe coached the team. Lowe had been a short, bad player for the team its first season, and became a short, bad coach after retirement. Christian Laettner and Isaiah Rider led the team in scoring, a pair of joyless, good-but-not-even-close-to-great players who flummoxed fans from numerous franchises during their long careers. By this time, it'd become obvious that Laettner, while a dependable player, was not going to duplicate his college success. It was obvious that he would not be another Larry Bird, though he was at least a better player than Eddie Bird.

Doug West continued to plug away, averaging 14 points. Everyone loved West's work ethic and attitude but watching him for five years dulled the senses.

Here's the most amazing stat from that season, the number that drives home with the authority of a Gary Leonard dunk just how bad the Timberwolves were in 2004. Dallas defeated the Wolves in five of the six meetings between the teams. Dallas won...13 games that year. 13-69. But in six meetings against Minnesota, they won five times. There were probably calls for the team to be disbanded at the end of the year, and that actually almost happened.

It appeared the team was going to be sold to a group that planned to move the team to New Orleans for the following season. The NBA nixed the deal. Mankato's very own Glen Taylor came to the rescue, buying the team and keeping the franchise in Minnesota. In 1995, they drafted Garnett and things began to turn around, relatively speaking.

But 1994...that was a long winter. The most depressing winter.

There seems to be little hope with the current version of the Timberwolves, who did manage to win their 14th game tonight. But they have some good young players. Rambis seems like a good coach, provided he doesn't suffer a breakdown. In fact, the struggles of 2010 are really nothing when compared to the franchise's travails the past 21 years.

A 14-44 record that doesn't seem that bad in comparison to past seasons.

That's depressing.

And people thought the Herschel Walker trade was bad

Six or seven years ago during a late night at The Forum, while waiting for either a Dodgers-Giants game to finish before 1 a.m., or a Fargo girls volleyball coach to call in with the details of how his scrappy club fell in three games ("Laura Smith had 67 digs." "Is that possible in three games?" "Yes."), I cracked open a Timberwolves media guide and stumbled upon the page that lists every trade in franchise history.

It's the kind of information an organization with the track record of the Wolves should suppress. Year-by-year, transaction-by-transaction, the entire page features a blueprint for failure, all presented in tiny type. It was like discovering the minutes to the meeting when execs decided that New Coke was what the soda-buying public really needed.

While catching up on some stories about the Ricky Rubio....insert own word: debacle, fiasco, unfortunate incident, I went searching for the list contained in that old media guide. And here it is.

Every trade in Minnesota Timberwolves history.

People everywhere ridiculed Kevin McHale's front-office reign, but the team's history of odd decisions, laughable draft picks and outrageous trades dates back to when Hibbing's finest was still wearing short green shorts and collecting paychecks from the Celtics. Maybe the poor guy never had a chance. Call it the Curse of Brad Sellers. Or the Curse of Gary Leonard. Some highlights:

Jan. 4, 1990: Traded forward Brad Lohaus to Milwaukee for center Randy Breuer and a conditional one-time exchange of second-round draft picks in 1991 or 1992.

One of those rare deals where no one wins. Rare for most teams, though strikingly frequent for the Wolves. "Well, we have a tall, below-average white guy who can do nothing but shoot threes but was born in this state, and we have a need for a really tall, below-average white guy who is also a homestate guy. How don't we make this trade?"

Feb. 22, 1990: Traded center Steve Johnson and a conditional 1991 second-round draft pick to Seattle for forward Brad Sellers.

The winter of 1990. Lohaus for Breuer, followed by Johnson for Sellers. In the history of the NBA, has there ever been a seven-week span when one team took part in a pair of trades that were so inconsequential? Johnson, a center, led the NBA in fouls in 1982 and again in 1987. Sellers had decent athletic ability, but his claim to fame was being the guy Michael Jordan didn't want the Bulls to draft in 1986 (he wanted Johnny Dawkins). When that tidbit is featured prominently in the second paragraph of a Wikipedia entry, the guy's career likely didn't live up to expectations. In 14 games with the Wolves that season, Sellers averaged 3.4 points per game. He returned to Minnesota in 1993, a shell of his former self, as his average plummeted to 2.5 points per game.

June 2, 1990: Traded a 1990 second-round draft pick to Philadelphia for guard Scott Brooks.
Nov. 10, 1990: Traded a 1991 second-round draft pick to Philadelphia for forward/center Bob Thornton.

These two teams apparently had a suicide pact. The Wolves fleeced you there, Philadelphia. Brooks is one thing. But then they stole Bob Thornton from you as well, only five months later? Good thing the Wolves didn't have another second-round draft pick to offer, or they would have traded for Mike Gminski to top it all off. Thornton played 12 games that year, scoring 16 points and committing 18 fouls, a Steve Johnsonesque pace fouling pace, a not-quite-Wilt-like scoring pace.

Nov. 15, 1992: Traded guard/forward Gerald Glass and forward Mark Randall to Detroit for guard Lance Blanks, forward Brad Sellers and a future second-round draft pick.

Sellers returns! Not quite as successful as Fran Tarkenton's second stint with the Vikings.

June 30, 1993: Traded center Felton Spencer to Utah for forward/center Mike Brown.

A big stiff for the Big Brown Bear. The Wolves of the early 1990s had more overmatched centers than any franchise since the Lakers of the 1960s sent victim after victim out to be dismantled by Bill Russell. And, oddly, they kept trading them for other centers of equal or even worse value. Speaking of which...

Feb. 23, 1994: Traded center Luc Longley to Chicago for center Stacey King.

Stacey King was a dominant, scoring machine in college for the Oklahoma Sooners. He was not such a player for the Timberwolves.

June 29, 1994: Traded a 1996 second-round draft pick to Seattle for the rights to center Zeljko Rebraca.

Nearly a year to the day that the Wolves acquired Brown, they picked up the second part of the Twin Towers. Unfortunately, Rebraca never played for the Wolves. But would it surprise you to learn he played two seasons with the Clippers? And has any team made more bad trades using second-round draft picks than the Wolves?

Nov. 1, 1994: Traded a conditional 1996, 1997 or 1998 first-round draft pick to Dallas for center Sean Rooks (restructured the conditions on June 29, 1996: acquired center Cherokee Parks from Dallas, who received Minnesota's 1997 first-round pick.)

So the Wolves acquire Rooks, then a few years later the after effects of that deal lead to them grabbing Cherokee Parks. No, the Wolves didn't win the title the following season.

When McHale took over in 1995, the trades actually improved, meaning the team acquired players who actually functioned on the court and helped them win games, from Marbury to Gugliotta. Drafts remained...sketchy, but the trades improved.

For the most part.

June 25, 1997: Traded center Stojko Vrankovic to the Los Angeles Clippers for center Stanley Roberts.

Former LSU coach Dale Brown wrote in his memoir that he used to motivate Stanley Roberts by telling him he was better than his teammate, Shaquille O'Neal. It didn't work.

Rooks, Parks, Longley, Spencer, Breuer, Leonard, Paul Grant, Stanley Roberts, Stojko, Andrew Lang, Olowokandi, Ervin (not that one) Johnson. A pattern exists somewhere in that list. A pattern that reveals the clues to success in the NBA and life itself. There has to be a secret message in there. Something. That can't just be a list of centers the Timberwolves have willingly acquired over the years. It's not only a blueprint for failure, it's night reading for a masochist.

It's the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The night Kurt Rambis was unstoppable

New Timberwolves coach Kurt Rambis is best known for two things: wearing glasses while playing, and being the victim of Kevin McHale's borderline criminal clothesline in Game 4 of the 1984 Finals.

He had a brief run as head coach of the Lakers in 1999, a season ultimately ruined by the appearance of Dennis Rodman. After the Lakers fired him and replaced him with Phil Jackson, Rambis loyally remained with the franchise and served as Jackson's top assistant for several years. He was rumored to be a leading candidate for the head coaching jobs in places like Sacramento, before ultimately landing with the Timberwolves this season. Well, at least he avoided the Clippers.

Maybe he'll help turn the Timerwolves around or maybe he'll make Randy Wittman look like a modern day Red Auerbach.

But Kurt will always have this night in 1988.

Inexplicably, in a first-round playoff game against the Spurs, Rambis - who averaged 5.2 more points per game in the NBA than I did - erupted for a playoff career high 19 points. Fifteen of the points came during a third quarter when Rambis displayed the post moves of Olajuwon, the dribble-drive locomotive force of LeBron, the leaping skills of Vince Carter, and the cutting skills of a young Havlicek. He made seven straight field goals during his 12 minutes of bizarre dominance. He capped it off with an amusing post-game interview, prominently featuring his mustache and self-deprecating humor.

The video proves two things: Rambis actually had more skill than you'd think considering his stats and specs, and an office chair could have averaged 8 points a game playing with Magic Johnson.

Timberwolves fans: Your new coach.