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Official Randy Wittman Thread - It's Playoff Randy Time LOL

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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#81 » by nate33 » Sat Jan 19, 2013 2:22 pm

It's nice to have everyone healthy. We finally have a credible 10-man rotation where all 10 guys are legit, NBA-caliber players:

PG Wall/Price
SG Beal/Crawford
SF Webster/Ariza
PF Nene/Booker
C Okafor/Seraphin

We no longer have to play the likes of Vesely, Singleton, Temple, Mack, Pargo or the pre-January version of Beal. None of those guys belong in an NBA rotation. We were asking Wittman to turn water into wine and then complaining when he couldn't get it done.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#82 » by Chocolate City Jordanaire » Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:09 pm

nate, I think you're way too hard on Jan Vesely.

It's one thing not to have to depend on Vesely but entirely different to say not to play him. Jan has played good basketball recently. In two of the three games before Denver, which also marked the return of Booker, Jan put in very good efforts. He had a couple games of 10 points and 7 rebounds. He even had 4 assists in one game. Booker has an explosive game and should be ahead of Jan on the depth chart, but Vesely is good in certain matchups IMO.

I think Randy Wittman likes Jan. Vesely played as an eleventh man in the close win over Denver. nate, here's why I believe Jan Vesely is better than you think he is:

--Through games played 1/15/13, the Wizards were +7.9 points per 100 possession better with Jan Vesely on the court. (see the bottom On / Off Court Stats)
http://www.82games.com/1213/12WAS14.HTM

--Just so you don't think that is a fluke, they were +1.9 points all season with Jan on the court in 2011-2012.
http://www.82games.com/1112/11WAS14.HTM

Jan is terribly flawed but his basketball IQ and hustle plays, as well as his ability to catch and finish all make the team better. As this is the Randy Wittman Appreciation thread, instead of talking about Vesely's flaws I will credit Randy Wittman for still utilizing Vesely. You can't coach big, and Jan is just 22 years old. He's potentially a valuable contributor moving forward. Randy used Vesely to frustrate the heck out of Vucevic the other night.

nate, your point is well taken that the 10-man rotation with Booker is a strong rotation with legit talent at every position.
Bye bye Beal.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#83 » by hands11 » Sat Jan 19, 2013 4:01 pm

Randy clearly has more and better options which is making it easier for him.

I still stand by my criticism of his earlier in the year. I still don't think Beal should have started with

Price, Beal, Trevor A, Booker and Okafor or
Price, Beal, Trevor A, Kevin and Okafor

Making Beal the primary scoring threat at 19 was a no win situation for him. He is an off ball player. I think a good bit of his struggled can be distributed to Randy's line ups. Should have started Crawford at PG at a min or brought Beal off the bench. They could have won more games. But that is water under the bridge now. Can't go back in time. Looking forward.

But for Randy, even the last game against Denver, I felt he stuck with Price way to long when he was getting eaten alive by Ty. Price has improved and he fit in the guard rotation, man was that painful to watch.

By halftime I was hoping Randy made some adjustments. You could see the speed and aggressiveness of the game was to much for Ves and Nene was sub par, so I was hoping he didn't put him back in. Specially a Ves and Kevin combo which he did in the first half. Without Nene balling, there wasn't a good place for Ves this game. Booker needed to be used instead and he did that because he has more power and he could hang with the likes of Faried. He also turned to Trevor A which was smart. Denver is long and and Trevor A can play against players like that.

It also seemed important to have Okafor out there. Nene was struggling and they needed a strong post presence for rebounding. Wizards out rebounded the #2 rebounding team in the league 45-34. That was huge.

Denver was murder in the paint, and Randy went to Kevin who MAGICALLY discovered his beast mode. He just schooled Faried on back to back plays by taking it to the rack. THAT WAS AWESOME to see from Kevin. I hope he got a good taste of why they want they from him. And his teammates gave his tones of praise for it when he game to the sidelines at the time out. Keep it up Kevin. You can be a pure beast.

I saw some holes in what Randy did but he made some good decisions and made adjustments. I still think he was blowing it earlier in the year but with a full roster, I hope we get to see the Randy that I pimped to get resigned.

It will be a little hard to let go of the season that could have been had they been healthy from the start, but at least we get to see this team growing now. Nice blend of young players, mid players and pure vets. I like team designed like that. I still say this team is designed better then any of those old EFJ teams.

Good times. This thing is just getting started. They may have had a full roster but lots of players are fresh off injuries and still not even at full minutes. As such, they haven't gelled and settled into roles. This thing has a lot more upside to go.

With a mostly complete roster, we will more easily see the effects of Randys coaching. Now he has core pieces and specialty pieces. And now that they have their scoring up, I think Randy is going to very shortly return to a focus on D FENSE. I think this team can be nasty defensively. When that add that back to the mix, I think they are going to just demolish some teams like they did Orlando.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#84 » by nate33 » Sat Jan 19, 2013 4:18 pm

Chocolate City Jordanaire wrote:nate, I think you're way too hard on Jan Vesely.

It's one thing not to have to depend on Vesely but entirely different to say not to play him. Jan has played good basketball recently. In two of the three games before Denver, which also marked the return of Booker, Jan put in very good efforts. He had a couple games of 10 points and 7 rebounds. He even had 4 assists in one game. Booker has an explosive game and should be ahead of Jan on the depth chart, but Vesely is good in certain matchups IMO.

I think Randy Wittman likes Jan. Vesely played as an eleventh man in the close win over Denver. nate, here's why I believe Jan Vesely is better than you think he is:

--Through games played 1/15/13, the Wizards were +7.9 points per 100 possession better with Jan Vesely on the court. (see the bottom On / Off Court Stats)
http://www.82games.com/1213/12WAS14.HTM

--Just so you don't think that is a fluke, they were +1.9 points all season with Jan on the court in 2011-2012.
http://www.82games.com/1112/11WAS14.HTM

Jan is terribly flawed but his basketball IQ and hustle plays, as well as his ability to catch and finish all make the team better. As this is the Randy Wittman Appreciation thread, instead of talking about Vesely's flaws I will credit Randy Wittman for still utilizing Vesely. You can't coach big, and Jan is just 22 years old. He's potentially a valuable contributor moving forward. Randy used Vesely to frustrate the heck out of Vucevic the other night.

nate, your point is well taken that the 10-man rotation with Booker is a strong rotation with legit talent at every position.

Fair enough. There may be time when Wittman can use Vesely for a change of pace or to take advantage of certain lineups when the opposing team can't capitalize on Vesely's weaknesses. My main point point is that he no longer has to play guys like Temple and Vesely. It was real tough for Wittman when he had no choice but to put those guys on the floor and then figure out a way to hide their weaknesses.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#85 » by Induveca » Sat Jan 19, 2013 4:35 pm

Wittman is useless. A #3 pick performing well and a former #1 returning doesn't make you a good coach.

I see no reason to show any appreciation for a coach until our pathetic squad is back in the playoffs.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#86 » by Induveca » Sat Jan 19, 2013 4:38 pm

CCJ love the optimism but what we see is what we get with Vesely. If he wasn't shooting 25% from the line I'd give him some hope.

He's athletic and seems to be able to set a pick and slightly disrupt opposing players at times. However those are not unique skills.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#87 » by Chocolate City Jordanaire » Sat Jan 19, 2013 4:38 pm

double post
Bye bye Beal.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#88 » by Chocolate City Jordanaire » Sat Jan 19, 2013 5:11 pm

I love it! Induveca, this is why I love blogging!

Dissenting views are welcome, particularly when someone tells what they really think. :)


Induveca wrote:CCJ love the optimism but what we see is what we get with Vesely. If he wasn't shooting 25% from the line I'd give him some hope.

He's athletic and seems to be able to set a pick and slightly disrupt opposing players at times. However those are not unique skills.


Indu, I agree. WYSIWYG with Jan Vesely.

I appreciate his unique athleticism at his height and his ability to finish in transition or off one or two dribble. I like that Jan looks to set picks and he moves well off the ball. I think he's an underrated passer.

Induveca wrote:Wittman is useless. A #3 pick performing well and a former #1 returning doesn't make you a good coach.

I see no reason to show any appreciation for a coach until our pathetic squad is back in the playoffs.


Come on, Induveca. Keep Hope Alive. You're going to make me start rhyming like Jesse Jackson. :)

I confess that the next coach after Flip had a pretty willing fan in myself. Flip the coach was coming down hard after being Piston coach and he had no tolerance for juveniles. But he also showed no spine, he placated bad Blatche, and he used the media to destroy reputations. He introduced so much negativity while always deflecting the blame to others. You know what? That didn't bother me as much as Flip's stubbornness! "Pound the rock" for him meant sticking with the same stagnant group of veterans and hoping for something to change. Stevenson was hurting, Oberto was old, Yi Jianlian was not the answer but none of that mattered--they played for Flip. Washington had so many unhappy players under the last coach they DID NOT COMPETE.

You see no reason to appreciate Randy? I note the point differential despite the injuries. Even when Price and Ariza went down just as those players hit their stride, the Wizards still played teams fairly close. If you look at the standings, Washington has two less losses than the Cavaliers. They have a good defensive team. As others have said, WITTMAN IS A GOOD CHEMISTRY COACH. These guys never threw one another under the bus. Veterans didn't square off against young other than one game where Nene spoke up about something he did not like. Whatever he said seemed to spark the team, too. Wittman didn't get in the middle of it.

I like this about Wittman: He reminds me of a good parent. Randy does not coddle players but he also does not tear them down permanently, either. He says what's on his mind. He has not cried at press conference but he has admitted to being clueless as to what to do with his team at times. He has admitted to being outcoached. Wittman is as genuine as it gets. The man has class, not unlike Eddie Jordan, even if their styles and demeanor are totally different. Both guys care about their players, not themselves, first.
Bye bye Beal.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#89 » by Induveca » Sat Jan 19, 2013 5:46 pm

Valid point about not competing under Saunders (despised that man). However I can't celebrate competing and not winning.

Give me 5 more games at an 80% winning pace and I'll change my mind. :)
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#90 » by jimij » Sat Jan 19, 2013 6:48 pm

I think Wittman has been extremely goof for this particular team. He definitely earned credit last year with the players after Flip was fired by coming in and starting to crack down on the goofballs on the team. You can tell that by the way they compete under him that the teams seems to respect him. Overall the team plays hard and, for the most part, plays the game the right way.

That said, I don't think he's a particularly strong X's and O's coach. His decision to allow Jordan Crawford to take over the point and dominate the ball in the fourth quarter is the antithesis of team play (its one thing if you do this with an LBJ or Kobe, but not a JC), the strange lineups with Wall at times with no shooters, the fact that he'll put repeatedly has the team's PG's hold the ball until there is only 10 seconds on the shot clock down the stretch in games hoping that the clock will run out rather than doing everything possible to extend leads.

Wittman is a decent coach and coming after the McGee/Blatche/Young/Arenas years he might even be the right coach for us at this point in time but I do think we're going to need a better coach than him if we want to eventually take a step up.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#91 » by jimij » Sat Jan 19, 2013 6:48 pm

I think Wittman has been extremely goof for this particular team. He definitely earned credit last year with the players after Flip was fired by coming in and starting to crack down on the goofballs on the team. You can tell that by the way they compete under him that the teams seems to respect him. Overall the team plays hard and, for the most part, plays the game the right way.

That said, I don't think he's a particularly strong X's and O's coach. His decision to allow Jordan Crawford to take over the point and dominate the ball in the fourth quarter is the antithesis of team play (its one thing if you do this with an LBJ or Kobe, but not a JC), the strange lineups with Wall at times with no shooters, the fact that he'll put repeatedly has the team's PG's hold the ball until there is only 10 seconds on the shot clock down the stretch in games hoping that the clock will run out rather than doing everything possible to extend leads.

Wittman is a decent coach and coming after the McGee/Blatche/Young/Arenas years he might even be the right coach for us at this point in time but I do think we're going to need a better coach than him if we want to eventually take a step up.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#92 » by Chocolate City Jordanaire » Sun Jan 20, 2013 12:23 am

My only complaint is Randy seems to have way too much love for Jordan Crawford.

I think Beal's stroke and Wall's return have made Jordan now a useful sub.
Bye bye Beal.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#93 » by hands11 » Sun Jan 20, 2013 1:13 am

Chocolate City Jordanaire wrote:My only complaint is Randy seems to have way too much love for Jordan Crawford.

I think Beal's stroke and Wall's return have made Jordan now a useful sub.


To much love for Crawford. Are you kidding me.

He has dissed Crawford so many times I lost count. He chose everyone he could over Crawford to start at PG even though he was clearly the most prepared to do it. And when he finally did, he posted a triple double. And after he did that, he started Mack Then Temple the game after Mack could get it done.

Now unless Randy was protecting him because he had been playing most the season on an injured ankle, that made no sense. Actually, it seems more like they are trying to keep him in a box because they want him to come off the bench with the roster healthy. It was like. Opp. Triple double. We better get him out of the starting PG spot.

Crawford has gotten nothing handed to him. And regardless of where they moved him or what they asked him to do, he never said word to complain and just keep balln.

My biggest complain about Randy is that he didn't show Crawford enough love.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#94 » by Dark Faze » Sun Jan 20, 2013 6:22 am

He kept Crawford in for like 7 crucial minutes for zero reason in tonights game. Jordan had the worst body language I ever saw, turned the ball over with a charge, shot some awful shots, played crap D...not sure why he was in the game for so long.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#95 » by mhd » Sun Jan 20, 2013 6:32 am

I pointed this out in the game thread, but good coachin by Randy in not even playing Vessley tonight. He knew Vessley would have been destroyed by all the physicality of the Clips.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#96 » by nuposse04 » Sun Jan 20, 2013 7:37 am

I think Vesely coulda banged with the likes of Grant Hill. When they went small, it became an issue. I understand why he wants to play big at times, but you only play big if you have bigs who can assert their dominance. While Okafor has been solid, he is a liability offensively with iffy hands at times down low.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#97 » by dangermouse » Sun Jan 20, 2013 12:39 pm

mhd wrote:I pointed this out in the game thread, but good coachin by Randy in not even playing Vessley tonight. He knew Vessley would have been destroyed by all the physicality of the Clips.


Yeah, the only thing i could fault him on was playing Crawford so much when he brought us absolutely nothing.
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NatP4 wrote:but why would the pacers want Mahinmi's contract


Well, in fairness, we took Mike Pence off their hands. Taking back Mahinmi is the least they can do.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#98 » by nate33 » Sun Jan 20, 2013 2:20 pm

nuposse04 wrote:I think Vesely coulda banged with the likes of Grant Hill. When they went small, it became an issue. I understand why he wants to play big at times, but you only play big if you have bigs who can assert their dominance. While Okafor has been solid, he is a liability offensively with iffy hands at times down low.

:o

And Vesely would have been better in that regard?
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#99 » by dangermouse » Sun Jan 20, 2013 2:47 pm

Well, at least Vesely would have passed out of the post.

And passed some more.

And passed and passed and passed and passed.
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long suffrin' boulez fan wrote:
NatP4 wrote:but why would the pacers want Mahinmi's contract


Well, in fairness, we took Mike Pence off their hands. Taking back Mahinmi is the least they can do.
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Re: Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread 

Post#100 » by hands11 » Sun Jan 20, 2013 5:10 pm

mhd wrote:I pointed this out in the game thread, but good coachin by Randy in not even playing Vessley tonight. He knew Vessley would have been destroyed by all the physicality of the Clips.


Yeah, this game would have been to big for Ves at this point. Booker was the right move.

This was a physical game and Booker is a physical player.

As for those gripping about Crawfords minutes and why Randy went with him. Its because the LAC had swarming defense and while Price has done ok backing up PG, he doesn't have enough to his game to brake a team down. Crawford was the right move. He was just a little off tonight. It happens. Doesn't mean he sucks or that it was a bad move.

Right now Crawford is both returning from an injury and adjusting ... AGAIN.. to a new role. I worry if he will be productive in only 16 minutes. He was averaging 29 min for the year and lots of games he was playing well into the mid 30s. That gave him a lot more opportunity to find a rhythm. Its only been two games in this new role. He did well against Denver and not so well tonight.

Its been only two games. Both on the road. Both good team. He is one and one.

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