56 TEAMMATES, 5 HEAD COACHES, 422 LOSSES : WEST'S STINT IN MINNESOTA STUDY IN FUTILITY.

Byline: Ron Lesko Associated Press 

The Beatles and the Little River Band sang about it. Minnesota's Doug West has lived it.

``I'm in all the NBA record books,'' West said after a recent Timberwolves practice. ``I'm the all-time loser.''

West has lost 422 games in the seven long, cold winters since the Timberwolves joined the league in 1989. That's more than any player in that time, although not in a career (career losses aren't kept as an official record, but Robert Parish, for example, has 633).

Still, as the only player left from Minnesota's expansion season, West is the poster boy for NBA futility.

``Things happen,'' he said. ``There's nothing I can do about it.''

In his career, West has had 56 teammates, five head coaches and three different people in charge of basketball decisions for his hapless team. A second-round pick out of Villanova in '89, West has watched the Wolves waste their first six No. 1 picks on players with questionable talent or questionable attitudes, players who aren't around anymore.

That's a formula for failure if there ever was one, but it's not exactly a secret recipe the Wolves have locked away in a vault somewhere in the bowels of Target Center.

The NBA is full of losers, teams seemingly doomed to defeat by their own shortsighted decisions on players, coaches, general managers - even owners. Although none of them can match Minnesota's rotten run in the '90s, the Clippers, Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Nets, Dallas Mavericks, Sacramento Kings and Boston Celtics certainly are trying.

The 76ers, for example, have etched a place in history by losing more games than the previous season for six straight years. Among the league's proudest franchises in the 1970s and '80s, Philadelphia lost 29 games in 1989-90, then 38, 47, 56, 57, 58 and 64 last season.

That downward spiral culminated in a clean sweep after last season: New coach, new front office, new owner, new arena.

``Maybe complacency sets in,'' new president Pat Croce said. ``You lose the will to win, or you lose the way to win.''

Sometimes that happens with the loss of a key player like Charles Barkley in Philadelphia or Larry Bird in Boston. Other times it's the loss of a successful coach, like Chuck Daly with the Nets.

Until Minnesota joined the league, the Clippers were known as the lowest of the low. Between the 1981-82 season and the 1990-91 season, they never won more than 32 games. But Larry Brown took over midway through the 1991-92 season and guided the team - gasp! - into the playoffs with a 45-37 overall record.

They made the playoffs again in 1992-93, but Brown bolted for Indiana and Bob Weiss led the Clippers back to their losing ways. Under Weiss and third-year coach Bill Fitch, the Clippers have lost 163 games the last three years. Minnesota has lost 179.

In Fitch, the Clippers have a 62-year-old leader who has coached more games (1,886) than anyone in league history. He's also coming off open-heart surgery in the offseason.

Sounds like more change is on the way in downtown L.A.

``We've got young, hard-working guys and I'd like to stick it out with them and see how they end up,'' Fitch said. ``I want to see if I can't get these guys up another rung.''

Like Minnesota, which has missed with its first-round picks on duds like Felton Spencer and Donyell Marshall and malcontents like Christian Laettner and Isaiah Rider, the Clippers have their own history of draft debacles.

Do Bo Kimble, LeRon Ellis, Elmore Spencer, Randy Woods, Terry Dehere and Lamond Murray sound familiar? They shouldn't. They were the Clippers' first-round picks from 1990-94, and none came close to meeting expectations.

The 76ers helped continue their '90s slide by passing over Penny Hardaway to take Shawn Bradley, the skinny center traded to the Nets last season for the brooding Derrick Coleman, who had been part of the problem in New Jersey.

``We're not going to make any stupid moves,'' Croce promised.

The Dallas Mavericks are a good example of how a team can right itself.

The Mavs were as bad as it gets in the early '90s, winning just 11 games in 1992-93 (that .134 winning percentage is the third-worst ever) and matching an NBA record with 20 consecutive losses in one season. But they grabbed Jimmy Jackson, Jamal Mashburn and Jason Kidd in the draft and began to ascend, although bickering among the trio has threatened to nix the fix.

``Winners know how to win,'' Croce said. ``Jordan knows how to win. Magic knew how to win. Larry Bird knew how to win. Isiah Thomas knew how to win. Even crazy Kevin McHale, he knew how to win.''

Minnesota hopes he still does.

McHale took over as the Wolves' director of basketball operations in 1995, replacing general manager Jack McCloskey, who built championship teams in Detroit before ruining what had been a promising start for Minnesota's franchise.

McHale quickly has split from McCloskey's bumbling ways by drafting Kevin Garnett and working deals to get rid of Laettner and Rider and bring in highly regarded point guard Stephon Marbury. McHale also plucked buddy Flip Saunders from the CBA as his general manager, and then gave the player-friendly Saunders the dual role as coach when he fired Bill Blair early last season.

Along with Philadelphia, the Wolves seem most capable of making a U-turn out of Loserville.

In the process, they could save West from another ignominious mark he'd rather not have. If the Wolves miss the playoffs again, West will have been in the league longer than any current player without playing in a postseason game.

Would all the losing make a playoff berth even sweeter?

``Would it feel better? Winning? Oh my God,'' West shrieked. ``If I'm playing basketball in May, I'm going to be the happiest person ever.''