The Minnesota Timberwolves will finish January with the worst record in the NBA since Dec. 1. Over a period of two solid months, encompassing 29 games, with a roster that includes two maximum-salary players — one in his sixth year, the other in his fifth — the Wolves have bottomed out more thoroughly than any other team.



The Timberwolves are no strangers to ineptitude, of course. Five times in their 31-year history they have failed to win as many as 20 games over the course of an 82-game season. There is a common thread to those dreadful campaigns — they were attempts to rebuild, to take a step back and regroup after a ceiling of mediocrity.



We know, all too tangibly, that rebuilds are painful. And we know, with numbing profundity when it comes to the Wolves, that, minus Kevin Garnett, rebuilds don’t work. This leaves a laudably dedicated (albeit ever-shrinking) fan base with a distinctively unpleasant choice — you want to be a smug cynic...