Randy Wittman wants Wizards fans to ‘pull up the internet,’ which might not be a smart move
If Randy Wittman were to, using his vernacular, “pull up the internet” he would likely not enjoy what he found.
He might find the work of various scribes, very good scribes, documenting his many lacking coaching qualities at Bullets Forever. He could visit an angry message board. He might find a transcription of Bill Simmons’ half-joking demand for Wittman to be fired immediately from Washington’s most-listened to sports radio chat show. He might find a radio host, more than aware of Wittman’s failings all the way from Memphis, asking me if the Wizards should fire Wittman even with just five weeks left to go before the playoffs.
He could just pull up the team’s game logs, which would show the Wizards losing 13 of the team’s 18 contests, with their last ten games in particular looking rather awful. Wittman really doesn’t have to click for too long to find fans and writers alike bitching about his outmoded ways and the Wizards’ needless mid-to-late season collapse.
He still wants you to pull up internet dot com, though, and ‘ave a look:
It’s true that, around this time of year, there are teams moaning about their lot in life. Dan Devine already hepped you to the similarly-fading Toronto Raptors’ fortunes, and Amar’e Stoudemire is not happy with his new teammates in Dallas, so it is fair to point out that the Wizards’ misgivings are not unique.
With that in place, the mere fact that many solid NBA minds have suggested an NHL-styled late-season coaching change, pitched to right the ship of a team that is still comfortably ahead in the race for the East’s fifth playoff seed, is telling.
What’s more telling is the idea that Wizards owner Ted Leonsis, who has infamously shown incredible amounts of patience with both Wittman and much-maligned Washington general manager Ernie Grunfeld, is going on record with his frustrations.
From Leonsis’ personal website, following a Washington loss in late February to a Minnesota Timberwolves squad that ranks last in the Western Conference:
The spacing on the floor is not positive right now as we lacked some three point shooting options, and teams are defending us by stacking the paint. To be out scored by 20 points at the free throw line last night is really indicative of how much we are struggling on the offensive end of the floor. In today’s NBA, three point shooting and foul shots are so very vital, running the floor to get lay ups as the efficient 2 point shot is also key. We haven’t been executing those sets well; and our record of late is concerning to all.
By now, Washington’s woes have made it to the mainstream. Even the owner gets it.
Washington ranks ninth in three-point percentage, but they rank 27th in three-point attempts. Despite the preponderance of quick guards, crafty scorers and big men with offensive skills, the Wizards only rank 24th in free throw attempts. Lead guard John Wall is making center Marcin Gortat millions right now, and yet Wittman has saw fit to bench the talented Wizards center at several inappropriate times down the stretch of games this year.
Randy Wittman is not playing to his personnel’s strengths, his offensive sets mistake activity for achievement and the rest of the NBA is leaving Washington behind. The Wizards are treating Wittman like their figurative version of Bulls-era Doug Collins while waiting for Phil Jackson to come along, but 2014-15 is getting away from the team as a result.
As many have intelligently mentioned, Randy Wittman is a good guy that has done well to turn around Washington’s defense, while bringing a sense of order and professionalism to a franchise that badly needed a turn in fortune. He has been rather cranky at times when it has been suggested that his offensive approach might be a bit anachronistic, but you’d be a little churlish yourself if you had to toil under the obvious-hit-or-needless-miss personnel work of Ernie Grunfeld.
By typical NBA orthodoxy, it’s too late in the season and too late in the Wittman/Grunfeld era, to make a change now. And it may seem a bit unfair to both Wittman and Grunfeld to can both in the summer of 2015, just 12 months before Kevin Durant might consider coming to his “hometown” team as a free agent.
With that in place, based on Wittman and Grunfeld’s work so far, we’d have to suggest that …
Actually, let’s be nice and not finish that thought. Let’s just suggest that Randy Wittman stay off the internet for a while.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
