Shams: Wes Unseld Jr. is out as Wizards Head Coach, will move to Front Office role. Brian Keefe named Interim HC…

[DCZards]

Saw Winger at the Wolves game last night. He was seated a few rows in front of me next to John Thompson III. First time I’ve personally seen Winger at a game. Looks like a 20 year old.

I thought the interim was going to be Vanterpool.

[badinage]

Last night showed what a not-tight ship this is.
Five or six minutes left, and they’re down 7 against a very good Timberwolves team, Deni (on the night of his coming out as a designer) is playing a great all-around game, Bags is balling and boarding. And then Poo comes down on a break, chance to cut it to 5 or 4, jacks a loooooong 3. Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. Minnesota doesn’t capitalize, we get the ball back — great. Bags with a good defensive play, and then — unaccountably — decides to take it downcourt himself; it’s just him and Gobert — the Stifle Tower — in a race to the hoop. He thinks he’s got this. But wait! Coming up right behind him is Kuzma. A simple little dump-off pass and it’s a dunk and two points. But no; Bags is gonna do it himself and be the man. And what happens? Gobert stuffs him (fouls him, but stuffs him); Bags, a terrible free throw shooter, goes to the line and misses both. That brief sequence was their window: they could have cut the lead down to 3. Instead, Minnesota played smart, crisp ball and added to their margin. And we continued to play dumb — turnovers, not moving the ball, etc. — and the lead ballooned to 13.

[Frichuela]

Brian Keefe is credited as a major influence in the development of Durant, Harden, Westbrook and Ibaka at OKC. He is truly a developmental coach, which is what this team needs. Makes sense, at least until season-end.

Now, I am not sure if he'll have the cojones to rein in on Poole and Kuzma...

[badinage]

A development coach, sure, but they also need a coach who will insist that they play the game the right way, and hard — hard all the time — and are crisp in their rotations on defense, and that they move the ball on offense.

[Snakebites]

Pistons did the same with Casey.

It’s a classic situation where someone has really good standing with the organization and is well liked by all, but just isn’t getting the job done.

It’s not clear to anyone what if anything Casey does in the Pistons FO. It just allowed all sides to save face.

[MikeTheKid]

Last night showed what a not-tight ship this is.
Five or six minutes left, and they’re down 7 against a very good Timberwolves team, Deni (on the night of his coming out as a designer) is playing a great all-around game, Bags is balling and boarding. And then Poo comes down on a break, chance to cut it to 5 or 4, jacks a loooooong 3. Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. Minnesota doesn’t capitalize, we get the ball back — great. Bags with a good defensive play, and then — unaccountably — decides to take it downcourt himself; it’s just him and Gobert — the Stifle Tower — in a race to the hoop. He thinks he’s got this. But wait! Coming up right behind him is Kuzma. A simple little dump-off pass and it’s a dunk and two points. But no; Bags is gonna do it himself and be the man. And what happens? Gobert stuffs him (fouls him, but stuffs him); Bags, a terrible free throw shooter, goes to the line and misses both. That brief sequence was their window: they could have cut the lead down to 3. Instead, Minnesota played smart, crisp ball and added to their margin. And we continued to play dumb — turnovers, not moving the ball, etc. — and the lead ballooned to 13.

Man oh man I remember both sequences but that steal and drive by Bagley really burned me up. Literally Kuz is behind and ready to accept the pass but Bagley what in the world tries to drive it.

Just rogue hero ball


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[closg00]

Don’t really understand this. Yes he’s a terrible coach with terrible line ups, but he is our tank commander along with Poole! Fire him in the offseason.

I think they expected to be bad, but not this bad, and the human element, i.e. players not listening to him anymore probably plays a role in this.

I have full confidence Dawkins and Winger will get their coach. They seem to have a pulse in the league that Shep and Grunfeld didn't have.

Arriving to make the same comment, they had to give him the hook for underperforming even as a tanking team.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

Great way to start my day, and I don't like celebrating anyone getting fired so I don't even have to feel bad because WUJ still gets a ceremonial role within the organization he probably still doesn't deserve, but whatever.

What Keefe should focus on for the rest of the season:

1. Holding players accountable, especially vets who basically had a free rein under WUJ. Merit is the name of the game.

2. Maximize development of Deni and Bilal. I think the big thing here is Deni. I want him to have a larger role in the offense, to be playing a minimum of 30 minutes a night, and allowed to play through some growing moments. For Bilal, we need to get him back on track. He's looked sloppy out there as of late, he seems like he was starting to adopt the "me" ball mentality many on this team. He needs structure right now, and be put it positions to excel.

3. You aren't going to create a brand new team identity mid-season with a roster that is mostly not going to be here in the future, but it's time to lay down some road map of what they want to be. Keefe can get the ball rolling, and start off with point number 1.

[MikeTheKid]

I was sick of his rotations. His bias against Deni was aggravating.

Move him to front office role...LOL. What's he going to be doing exactly? Sharpening pencils for Dawkins?

Last night had to have been the final straw, idk if many saw during that TO/challenge late in the 4th and the visible sad emotion that Deni had. Looked like he wanted more of a chance in that 2nd half


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[nate33]

Read on Twitter

Interesting. I'd be happy if can get the Wizards defense up from 28th to 25th.

(Honestly, the Wizards have been playing better defense lately. They were dead last by a pretty good margin earlier this year, but have moved ahead of Charlotte and Detroit.)

[GoneShammGone]

Let's see if Keefe continues to start Poole. If so, then I don't think this amounts to much. But it would be nice to see Jordan's minutes cut to say 18 a game and some of those then go to Kispert, Butler, or even Davis. That would at least make the team more watchable.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

Read on Twitter

Interesting. I'd be happy if can get the Wizards defense up from 28th to 25th.

(Honestly, the Wizards have been playing better defense lately. They were dead last by a pretty good margin earlier this year, but have moved ahead of Charlotte and Detroit.)

There's no way Kuzma should be arguably the worst defender at PF in the league among players playing significant minutes. That's something that can be worked on and coached up, so I'm hopeful.

I was tinkering with D-Lebron yesterday, and Poole (SG), Kispert (SF), and Kuzma (PF) were dead last in D-Lebron for their respective positions among players, if I'm remembering right, that have played 500+ minutes. Kuzma was dead last by a country mile.

There's just no way with his size, length, and versatility he should be playing that bad on defense. Poole and Kispert are more expected but, yeah hopefully Keefe can get them to buy in more because having a trio of defenders that bad that play significant minutes is a recipe for disaster. Obviously one advanced stat, but I'd be willing to bet other metrics would bear similar fruit.

[nate33]

Let's see if Keefe continues to start Poole. If so, then I don't think this amounts to much. But it would be nice to see Jordan's minutes cut to say 18 a game and some of those then go to Kispert, Butler, or even Davis. That would at least make the team more watchable.

Agreed.

I think Keefe will start out with a "blank slate" approach and not change anything immediately. But hopefully he will be willing to bench Poole and/or Kuzma when they start playing too much iso ball and shoot bad shots early in the shot clock.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

Let's see if Keefe continues to start Poole. If so, then I don't think this amounts to much. But it would be nice to see Jordan's minutes cut to say 18 a game and some of those then go to Kispert, Butler, or even Davis. That would at least make the team more watchable.

Agreed.

I think Keefe will start out with a "blank slate" approach and not change anything immediately. But hopefully he will be willing to bench Poole and/or Kuzma when they start playing too much iso ball and shoot bad shots early in the shot clock.

Yeah I was thinking the same, I don't see him sending Poole to the bench the for his first game, but it will be intriguing to see 4-5 games in what he'll do if Poole continues to play like a dunsky. I'm less worried about Kuzma, but he does need to cut out some of the hero shots and some of his travel turnovers because he's forcing things. Defense for both needs a ton of work.

[keynote]

Things I'd like to see immediately from Keefe:

1. Run a handful of Kispert-like actions for Coulibaly. He's often on the weakside, and he's an effective cutter for backdoor dives when the defense is asleep. But I'd like to see him work on the strong side more -- on come off screens, etc.
2. Run a few pick-and-rolls with Coulibaly as the ball handler.
3. Accountability measures for Poole (still starts, but reduce minutes as warranted).

I'd be open to more wholesale changes in the starters, rotations, etc., but we'll need to wait until after the deadline (e.g., no sense benching Poole to start Bilal alongside Tyus if Tyus is getting traded in a week).

[nate33]

Things I'd like to see immediately from Keefe:

1. Run a handful of Kispert-like actions for Coulibaly. He's often on the weakside, and he's an effective cutter for backdoor dives when the defense is asleep. But I'd like to see him work on the strong side more -- on come off screens, etc.
2. Run a few pick-and-rolls with Coulibaly as the ball handler.
3. Accountability measures for Poole (still starts, but reduce minutes as warranted).

On item 1, bear in mind that Kispert's back door cuts are effective because he is such a threat on the catch-and-shoot. Team have to stay closer to him which opens up the cutting lanes. Coulibaly already makes cuts, but he is just less likely to be open on them because teams play further off of him.

On item 2, Bilal is a terrible ball handler. He is currently has the 14th highest turnover percentage, and most of the guys worse are either unskilled bigs (Hartenstein, Poeltl, etc.) or really young or really old PG's who are out of their depth (Scoot, Westbrook, Keyonte George). Coulibaly has, by far, the worst turnover percentage among any low-usage 3&D wings in the league. Nobody else comes close. We can have him run some pick and rolls, but it's going to hurt the team. I wouldn't force it too much, except in garbage time.

Agree completely on item 3.

[TGW]

Yea doc, I was about to suggest Joeger as well. He's a good coach for a young team lacking discipline.

[keynote]

Things I'd like to see immediately from Keefe:

1. Run a handful of Kispert-like actions for Coulibaly. He's often on the weakside, and he's an effective cutter for backdoor dives when the defense is asleep. But I'd like to see him work on the strong side more -- on come off screens, etc.
2. Run a few pick-and-rolls with Coulibaly as the ball handler.
3. Accountability measures for Poole (still starts, but reduce minutes as warranted).

On item 1, bear in mind that Kispert's back door cuts are effective because he is such a threat on the catch-and-shoot. Team have to stay closer to him which opens up the cutting lanes. Coulibaly already makes cuts, but he is just less likely to be open on them because teams play further off of him.

Ah, I meant *Bilal* is often on the weakside, and is already an effective cutter from that position. We've seen him get multiple easy open dunks off of cuts over the past few games.

In contrast, Kispert is often on the strong side. He curls off screens *towards* the ball. Kispert is put in a position to catch and shoot or attack the closeout because the screen action gives him a slight advantage on his defender.

Most of Bilal's touches* come off of kick outs or swings/rotations. He usually then just continues to swing the ball around, unless he's wide open. I want the offense to engineer more opportunities for him to have a step on the defender upon receipt of the pass.

* anecdotally. perhaps the data says otherwise

On item 2, Bilal is a terrible ball handler. He is currently has the 14th highest turnover percentage, and most of the guys worse are either unskilled bigs (Hartenstein, Poeltl, etc.) or really young or really old PG's who are out of their depth (Scoot, Westbrook, Keyonte George). Coulibaly has, by far, the worst turnover percentage among any low-usage 3&D wings in the league. Nobody else comes close. We can have him run some pick and rolls, but it's going to hurt the team. I wouldn't force it too much, except in garbage time.

Again, I'm only talking a handful of times per game. But I don't care if it "hurts" the team, as long as it doesn't hurt his confidence. Give him a chance to play through. I have a theory that he can see the plays to make, but his skills aren't quite far enough along to consistently execute. Eventually, his handles will catch up with his brain. But in the interim, I want to get him a few reps/game to start mentally processing the floor that way.

I don't think this should be reserved for garbage time. The rest of the game is too unstructured and unfocused, and other guys (PBJ, etc.) are trying to get theirs.

[Eli Babak]

A bit surprising (I expected him to be gone after the season), but he's such a bad coach so it's a good move. I guess they didn't have heart to fire him because of the family ties so now he can just chill basically doing nothing and maybe land an assistant coach job somewhere eventually.

[Dark Faze]

Wouldn't be surprised if Wes himself wanted to bail. I don't think he's a good HC, but this isn't a good situation atm. It's one thing to coach a rebuilding team with young talent that's going to lose a lot of games. It's another thing to coach a team that's tanking and potentially a couple years away from drafting a franchise player.

I hope we get lucky and get a franchise guy this summer. It's just really tough to have direction without one.