http://www.twincities.com/timberwolves/ci_5699463 Timberwolves coach Randy Wittman plans to sit down soon with team management to discuss his future. Before Minnesota's season-ending 116-94 loss to Memphis on Wednesday night, Wittman said he hadn't talked about his situation with management since he replaced fired coach Dwane Casey on Jan. 23 and had no indication what might happen. Owner Glen Taylor has said Wittman's fate would be decided after the season. "We'll sit down here hopefully in the next couple days, and I'll have a better understanding," said Wittman, under whom the Wolves were 12-30. "I'm not saying I've got a bad feeling. I haven't had a conversation. We'll have that." By his own admission, Wittman's half-season in charge has been difficult. But he vowed to learn and improve. "I felt I was coaching on a carousel this year, trying to change and tinker things to the point that maybe there was more confusion than good out of it," he said. "But when you go on a slide, you try to do whatever you can. When you don't have your foundation of what you want to do, there was no training camp and everything leading up to that, it was hard. No question. But you learn through tough times, too." As an NBA head coach, he has been associated with three teams that failed to make the playoffs. The Cleveland Cavaliers suffered two 50-loss seasons under his direction from 1999 to 2001. And the Wolves began Wednesday with 49 losses. Wittman's Cleveland teams were plagued by injuries. Star center Zydrunas Ilgauskas barely played in two season. Taking over in the middle of the season in Minnesota was more difficult than his experience in Cleveland because of the timing, he said. "It's tough when a coach is let go, and you have to step in," Wittman said. "That's the first time I've ever done that. It's hard. It's a lot harder than having the ability to have what you want to do in place and in line." In the last three months of the season, the Wolves had one of the NBA's worst records, and they are out of the playoffs for a third consecutive season. "It's hard to try to put any kind of coach in a situation with a half of a season," Wolves veteran Ricky Davis said. "You've got the nucleus going with another coach, Casey, and then it changes. Maybe you give him a whole year and see what happens." Although the team was inconsistent, there was a chance to make the playoffs because the teams competing for the Western Conference's eighth and final playoff spot had underwhelming seasons. "The struggles that we went through, how easily that could have been different," said Wittman, who was an assistant in Orlando last season. "That kind of sits with me in a way that makes you upset that we are sitting where we are. "But that gives you hope, too. We've got to have, from players to coaches and management, serious changes in how we're doing things and how we accept things and how we need to play. That's obvious." --

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