McHale kicked downstairs and on the road to nowhere?

Kevin McHale was involved in one of the most infamous plays in NBA Finals history when he clothes-lined Kurt Rambis in 1984. Monday, McHale had his legs cut out from under him.

Randy Wittman might have been the fourth NBA coach fired this season, but McHale was the first general manager.

"I wanted to make very clear to Kevin that I'm offering him the coaching job and it's a full-time coaching job, and he is to concentrate on it 100 percent," Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor said. "I'm confident that's best for the team."

Taylor fired Wittman after a 4-15 start and summoned McHale, the architect of the roster, down from the executive offices to coach the mess he has created. Asked what role McHale, the former vice president of basketball operations, would have in personnel decisions, Taylor said, "The same one Randy had."

Whoa.

"In other words, when we talked about decisions, Randy was brought in at all of the meetings that I also attended," Taylor said. "As for the voice of the coach -- how would the coach use that player -- I don't think that's going to change. ... That's the same way I had it when Flip (Saunders) was here. Flip always sat in when we made a decision like that. That, Kevin will be used to. He's always had a voice, but he'll be voicing it from the coaching position. Knowing Kevin, he'll look at it the same way he's always looked at it."

McHale is heading to the bench for his second tour with the T-Wolves. The first time, in 2004-05 after Saunders was fired, was on an interim basis. This isn't -- though it might wind up being temporary.

"I didn't offer him an interim (job)," Taylor said. "I just offered him the coaching job. ... I'm very aware of the alternatives I had. I just felt like this is the best alternative for us to have a successful season. Kevin's my first choice, and I'm glad that he accepted."

McHale dodged questions about whether he was given a choice, saying Taylor "asked" him to coach and that serving as coach and GM simultaneously would be "too much." For the rest of the season, personnel decisions will be made collectively by GM Jim Stack and assistant GMs Fred Hoiberg and Rob Babcock, with Taylor having final say and McHale having input -- but nothing more.

Kevin McHale made the deals to acquire players like Kevin Love; now he gets to coach them. (Getty Images)

"Kevin will report directly to me," Taylor said.

McHale said if he had turned down Taylor's offer, he would've "hired someone else." But Taylor's bluntness, and McHale's well-documented personnel blunders over the years, left little doubt: This was a demotion McHale was in no position to turn down.

When asked why he decided McHale was the best choice to take over for Wittman, who was 38-105 since taking over for Dwane Casey in January 2007, Taylor didn't exactly give McHale a ringing endorsement.

"Mostly that has to do with just the timing," Taylor said. "We're in the middle of a season, we've laid out a plan, and a lot of that plan has to do with Kevin's direction anyway. He's selected most of the players and he's worked with Randy in setting up the plan.

"If we'd gone externally, then you're looking at, 'Are you going to change it all for the players? Are you going to change even the players that you have?' And I didn't want to do that. And the reason is, I'm still confident that we can have a good season. We've lost, let's say, the first quarter of the season, but my expectations are high. I wanted to select someone who could step in and give guidance and make this a successful season. I didn't want to give up on the season."

McHale inherits a roster he knows well; he built it. When he was in the unenviable position of having to move Kevin Garnett two summers ago to end K.G.'s longstanding flirtation with leaving Minnesota, he was criticized by those who thought he was merely helping out his former teammate, Danny Ainge, by sending him to the Celtics.

But McHale got five players -- including Al Jefferson, who has since signed a long-term extension -- and two first-round picks for Garnett. The seeds for rebuilding seemed to have been planted.

But many of McHale's personnel moves have been head-scratchers -- Randy Foye over Brandon Roy in 2006, Corey Brewer in '07 and the draft-day trade sending O.J. Mayo to Memphis for Mike Miller and the rights to Kevin Love in '08. The T-Wolves have first-round picks galore coming to them -- as many as four in the upcoming draft, including one from the Garnett trade -- and ample cap space in the all-important free-agent summer of 2010. You just have to wonder if Taylor wants McHale around that long.

Poll Who is to blame in Minnesota? 42% Both   12% The coaches   46% Kevin McHale   Total Votes: 2043

"If it doesn't work, it'll be on me," McHale said. "I told the players nothing changes with the plan. We've got a lot of cap room in the future. The only thing that changes is I'm going to be spending all my time coaching."

Taylor said he met with the players to stress that Wittman wasn't the only problem. But now, Taylor might have unwittingly made McHale the focal point of the organization -- and the inevitable recipient of pent-up fan anger.

When Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan ordered team president Isiah Thomas to coach the roster he had assembled after Larry Brown was fired in 2006, Knicks games turned into a "Fire Isiah" sideshow. If the T-Wolves continue to spiral, with McHale in full public view on the bench, it's going to be open season on the former Celtics great. Not to the degree it was with Isiah in New York, but enough to create a distraction Taylor might not have anticipated.

"The part that I can deal with personally is the part that I will have a new coach in here," Taylor said. "But unless (the players) are willing to look at this clearly and clean up some of the other issues, whatever they might be -- and I didn't ask them to write a list for me, but let's just call it effort and not getting down on ourselves -- clearly they're going to have to do that."

McHale said he came to the conclusion that a coaching change was needed when the players came out flat, "like we were almost dead," in a 107-84 home loss to the Clippers on Saturday.

"I just said, 'Wow, that's just not acceptable,'" McHale said. "You've got to bring effort every night. ... It looked like a black cloud over us."

It's McHale's problem now, every bit of it. And as such, some would argue that the dark cloud is still there.