McHale returning to Minnesota with Rockets

The Houston Rockets' first-year coach was asked Saturday for his thoughts on going back to Minnesota Monday to play the Timberwolves, the team that fired him as coach and general manager.

He had one thought.

"It'll be nice to see my wife," Kevin McHale said.

When he said it his eyes sparked a little, as they often do. The message was clear enough, one you probably heard from your mother: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

McHale's relationship with the Timberwolves is no doubt complicated by the fact that Minnesota is his home state. He began working for the Timberwolves in 1994. He was part of the decision to draft a high school kid named Kevin Garnett, who eventually led the franchise to the conference finals. He also was part of the staff that got busted for the illegal Joe Smith deal. And he was the one who eventually traded Garnett, completing an ultimately unsatisfying cycle. If success is measured by winning records and playoff berths, McHale was unsuccessful in Minnesota, going 39-55 there as coach.  

Eventually, the Timberwolves discarded him. Yet there was a belief, from without but mainly from within, that he could do this.

McHale will take one of the NBA's hottest teams back to his home state. Saturday's win over San Antonio was Houston's sixth straight, improving the Rockets to 9-7.

Minnesota, coached by previous Rockets coach Rick Adelman, hasn't fared any better without McHale than it did with him. The Timberwolves won 15 games the under McHale's first replacement, Kurt Rambis. Last year, they finished last in the Western Conference at 17-65, which made Rambis 32-132 in two seasons.

Rambis was fired this summer, Adelman was let go by the Rockets, and so Minnesota and Houston made something of a coaching swap. This year, Minnesota is 7-9.

McHale might have something to say about all this, but he listened to his mother.