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

[hands11]

Am I the only one a little annoyed with this thread title? "Raisins"?? Come on! Is that even relevant? Is that his nickname from back in the day? Is it supposed to be funny? An insult? A reference to an inside joke? Please don't tell me it's insinuating Randy has a 'raisin' sized brain, if it is then LOL!

LOL

Nahhh. Its the counter to this.

BIG BALL CRAWFORD.



This is not Randy.

Randy Raisins just worked because it fits his inability to make anything but the paint by numbers decision ( no balls) and its an alliteration.

[closg00]

Am I the only one a little annoyed with this thread title? "Raisins"?? Come on! Is that even relevant? Is that his nickname from back in the day? Is it supposed to be funny? An insult? A reference to an inside joke? Please don't tell me it's insinuating Randy has a 'raisin' sized brain, if it is then LOL!

Considering Hands original title was Official Randy Wittman Appreciation Thread, this is an improvement.
Actually this new title is very irritating

[dckingsfan]

I was hoping during that last losing streak that it was a revolt. I never like to see players give up on a coach but at some point, short term pain is worth the gain. Players have to be talking behind closed doors. Specially once you have vets that know better.

Yep, it seems like this group really likes and backs Witt. Don't know why but they do... and they like each other as a group as well. Again, not sure why but they do...

And the team plays hard on the defensive end as much as they are disjointed on the offensive end of the court. It has been a very interesting season to say the least.

[Nivek]

Now that I've read the Official Explanation for this thread's title...the title is even lamer than I'd previously thought.

[dobrojim]

So here's Witt addressing good shots and Popovich addressing good shots. Which answer do you think is better?

Q. Can you explain the concept of “good-to-great?”

Popovich: “There are a lot of good shots, but if you can turn that into a great shot, percentages go through the roof. Contested shots are really bad shots. People’s percentage goes down almost by 20, almost without exception. All those things in an offense are things a coach is always trying to develop. It takes time to get everybody to the point where they all buy in and understand how it’s good for the group to do things.

“You want to penetrate not just for you, but for a teammate. Penetrating because I want to make things happen. It could be for me. It could be for a teammate. It could be for the pass after the pass I make. As people start to realize that, then you get a flow and people start playing basketball rather than just running the play that’s called or making up their minds ahead of time.”

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursnatio ... ense-a-qa/

"So you’re saying that a 15-foot open look is not good? "You take open shots. You take open shots. Where they are is dictated by what the defense does. If you predicate what kind of shot you’re going to take not based on what you’re doing reading the defense, you’re not going to get good shots. I just worry about goods shots. You know what? Those numbers you can stick… alright? You know, all you analytical people that take that… You take good shots, that’s the most important thing. Maybe we’re not taking good midrange shots, maybe we’re taking contested ones. I understand the numbers are there for a reason, we look at the numbers, but to sit there and… We got a good, open shot we’re taking, I don’t care where it is."

A great question posed by Kyle Weidie. Not sure what I think of this answer.

Witt is a joke of a coach. What really bothers me is how incredibly closed minded he is. The man has THE WORST WINNING PERCENTAGE IN NBA HISTORY of any coach who's coached over 400 games. It seems like it would behoove him to look at every possible resource to get better. The whole 'stick your head in the sand' attitude towards analytics is completely unacceptable in my eyes.[/quote]

Maybe I'm not reading this right but they don't sound that far apart to me.
Randy is a bit more content with mid-range/long 2s. But both consider
contested shots anathema. Pops is saying penetration leads to better shots.
I doubt Randy disagrees with that.

No question that in practice ie actual games, we take too many long 2s.

And that an attitude of disrespect towards analytics isn't helpful.
But Randy sounded more frustrated than anything else.

As I see it, the fundamental idea is to create an opening or advantage, then respond by staying
ahead of the defense's effort to close that opening. Hopefully that results in the
highest possible quality shot, at rim or corner 3. Perhaps the flip side of our
settling too often for long 2s is the number of very low turnover games we've had.
The longer you try to improve your shot attempt, the more chances you give
the D to force a TO.

All this is not to say we can't and shouldn't do better at taking higher quality shots.

[fishercob]

So here's Witt addressing good shots and Popovich addressing good shots. Which answer do you think is better?

Q. Can you explain the concept of “good-to-great?”

Popovich: “There are a lot of good shots, but if you can turn that into a great shot, percentages go through the roof. Contested shots are really bad shots. People’s percentage goes down almost by 20, almost without exception. All those things in an offense are things a coach is always trying to develop. It takes time to get everybody to the point where they all buy in and understand how it’s good for the group to do things.

“You want to penetrate not just for you, but for a teammate. Penetrating because I want to make things happen. It could be for me. It could be for a teammate. It could be for the pass after the pass I make. As people start to realize that, then you get a flow and people start playing basketball rather than just running the play that’s called or making up their minds ahead of time.”

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursnatio ... ense-a-qa/

"So you’re saying that a 15-foot open look is not good? "You take open shots. You take open shots. Where they are is dictated by what the defense does. If you predicate what kind of shot you’re going to take not based on what you’re doing reading the defense, you’re not going to get good shots. I just worry about goods shots. You know what? Those numbers you can stick… alright? You know, all you analytical people that take that… You take good shots, that’s the most important thing. Maybe we’re not taking good midrange shots, maybe we’re taking contested ones. I understand the numbers are there for a reason, we look at the numbers, but to sit there and… We got a good, open shot we’re taking, I don’t care where it is."

A great question posed by Kyle Weidie. Not sure what I think of this answer.

Witt is a joke of a coach. What really bothers me is how incredibly closed minded he is. The man has THE WORST WINNING PERCENTAGE IN NBA HISTORY of any coach who's coached over 400 games. It seems like it would behoove him to look at every possible resource to get better. The whole 'stick your head in the sand' attitude towards analytics is completely unacceptable in my eyes.[/quote][/quote]

I saw this too and just didn't have a chance to post about it. Glad you did.

Not only is it stupid, but it flies directly in the face of what Ted has said openly about the importance of looking at data and avoiding long two's. From his blog in January:

The game was statistically an odd one; we took 95 shots from the field and hit 40. Houston took only 73 shots and hit 38. But we were out-executed at the three point arc: where we hit 5 for 19 and Houston hit 8 for 18. Houston hit 30 foul shots and we hit 22.

We rallied as a team and when we ran and attacked the rim. We were very productive, but when we again started to settle for long jump shots at game's end, they didn't fall and we came up short again at home.

I read Wittman's comments on Truthaboutit basically like "stats are for losers," but didn't hear/see them, so I don't know if that's how they were intended.

[doclinkin]

Now that I've read the Official Explanation for this thread's title...the title is even lamer than I'd previously thought.

Yeah it's stupid. A mod should step in and save this board from being totally corny.

[fishercob]

Do we even have mods here anymore?

[dckingsfan]

Just start a new thread with a new subject...

[mohammed10]

Bumping up this thread based on the Bobcats loss last night.

How 'ya likin' Randy now??

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Ok boys. It's clearly us vs. The Post now. Get a load of Dan Steinberg's "column" praising Wittman and disparaging bloggers who criticize the coach.

Steinberg, occasionally funny, but generally uninformed about the actual sport (his stock in trade is of course, silly mascots and obnoxious tweets, etc), clearly has been reading our forum. And egads, he seems shocked, shocked that we aren't all gulping that Monumental KoolAid.

[TGW]

I still can't get over how bad the title of this thread is.

[mohammed10]

I still can't get over how bad the title of this thread is.

I still can't get over how bad Whitless is. How does he still have a job?

[Illmatic21]

The #1 fear I have about Wittman coming back is that he's going to ruin Beal's career.. I can't imagine him ever reaching his potential with Randy coaching him.

With the right coach, Beal could be Mitch Richmond. With Wittman, he'll end up being Ben Gordon.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

I noticed the print version of Steinberg's "column" elides reference to bloggers and posters and simply says there is "absolutely a school of thought" that Randy isn't the one to take the team to the next level.

Perhaps it was just space considerations, perhaps Dan recognized that those of us who have followed the team for decades and who pay very close attention have reasonable, fact-driven insight. Either way, I appreciate that what appears in the Post this morning is an actual dialectic and not simply an ad hominem attack on those of us who, admittedly, care too much.

[hands11]

As I recall, they all drank the EJ Kool-Aid as well.

The media loved Eddie. Designer of the great NJ offense.

I think Randy is better than EJ was. At least he has the team focused on defense first, but neither a good game time head coach.

[MarcoPolo]

On the other hand. Who will be available in the coaching free agency to replace him? SVG?

[Error Afflalo]

On the other hand. Who will be available in the coaching free agency to replace him? SVG?

Karl and Hollins are out there. I'd lean toward Karl, but only because I have no faith in Turdnie ever constructing a roster that could compete for a title. If we're gonna flame go out in the second round every year, we might as well be fun to watch.

[payitforward]

I suppose every forum devoted to every team that doesn't win a title has -- and should have -- a thread deriding the team's coach. I'm sure there's someone somewhere who doesn't like the way Popovich coaches, for that matter.

And I'm absolutely sure that if Hands were a Spurs fan, he'd be able to point out retrospectively after every loss all the ways a "better" coach would have won the game. That's what hindsight gives you: the ability to "know better."

So, it's no surprise that we have a thread devoted to how bad a coach Randy Wittman is. Nor am I here to defend him. Only a few coaches make a demonstrable positive difference in their players' productivity -- a difference, I mean, that actually shows in the numbers a guy puts up per 40 minutes on the floor. And, of course, if the players put up better numbers individually, then they do as a group as well -- which means their team wins more games, given that wins/losses are determined entirely by numbers.

Wittman is not one of those few coaches. Popovich is. Phil Jackson was.

But, if you look around the league I'm not sure that you can find another coach, right now, for whom that's demonstrably the case. Now, some guys haven't coached long enough for us to judge that; we'll have to wait a while to know whether Mark Jackson is one of those guys, for example. But that doesn't mean we wouldn't prefer to have Mark Jackson as our coach instead of Randy. Of course we would. We know Randy's nothing special, so why not replace him?

But the idea -- as someone posted above, or maybe it was in the most recent game thread, the loss to Charlotte -- that with any other coach -- Phil Jackson, Popovich, even Red Aurbach! -- we'd have "6-7 more wins" is plain ridiculous. Foolish. The productivity differences one of those special coaches bring are not at that level.

But, if we'd drafted Nate Wolters instead of Glen Rice, Kawhi Leonard instead of Jan Vesely, Kenneth Faried instead of Chris Singleton, Chandler Parsons instead of Shelvin Mack, Jae Crowder (or Draymond Green, Quincy Acy, Khris Middleton or Mike Scott) instead of Tomas Satoransky and Kyle O'Quinn instead of throwing that pick away -- if we'd done those thing you can be sure we'd be that much better.

We'd be a much better team -- and every one of the guys mentioned above *many of us* pleaded for Ernie to pick. In my case, that's the exact list of guys I had checked off for us to take at those spots. We'd have a much brighter future too, as we'd have good young players getting better as they moved towards their peak years, rather than once-good old players getting worse as they move away from their peak years!

And I'm not even going back to the brain dead moves our fearless leader made to get out of the '09 draft. Or the extremely poor decisions in '08 (no, I did *not* want JaVale McGee -- did you?).

Hence, if you have two brain cells to rub together, it should be obvious that Randy Wittman is not the problem here. Hands points out that he has a terrible winning percentage as a coach -- no kidding; he's had terrible squads of players to coach! How good a coach was Doc Rivers before all of a sudden he got the gift of 2 HOF players?

So, yeah, fire Randy Wittman -- only don't expect to get any better. Fire Ernie and replace him w/ a good GM, and we'll get better over time.

[Dat2U]

I suppose every forum devoted to every team that doesn't win a title has -- and should have -- a thread deriding the team's coach. I'm sure there's someone somewhere who doesn't like the way Popovich coaches, for that matter.

And I'm absolutely sure that if Hands were a Spurs fan, he'd be able to point out retrospectively after every loss all the ways a "better" coach would have won the game. That's what hindsight gives you: the ability to "know better."

So, it's no surprise that we have a thread devoted to how bad a coach Randy Wittman is. Nor am I here to defend him. Only a few coaches make a demonstrable positive difference in their players' productivity -- a difference, I mean, that actually shows in the numbers a guy puts up per 40 minutes on the floor. And, of course, if the players put up better numbers individually, then they do as a group as well -- which means their team wins more games, given that wins/losses are determined entirely by numbers.

Wittman is not one of those few coaches. Popovich is. Phil Jackson was.

But, if you look around the league I'm not sure that you can find another coach, right now, for whom that's demonstrably the case. Now, some guys haven't coached long enough for us to judge that; we'll have to wait a while to know whether Mark Jackson is one of those guys, for example. But that doesn't mean we wouldn't prefer to have Mark Jackson as our coach instead of Randy. Of course we would. We know Randy's nothing special, so why not replace him?

But the idea -- as someone posted above, or maybe it was in the most recent game thread, the loss to Charlotte -- that with any other coach -- Phil Jackson, Popovich, even Red Aurbach! -- we'd have "6-7 more wins" is plain ridiculous. Foolish. The productivity differences one of those special coaches bring are not at that level.

But, if we'd drafted Nate Wolters instead of Glen Rice, Kawhi Leonard instead of Jan Vesely, Kenneth Faried instead of Chris Singleton, Chandler Parsons instead of Shelvin Mack, Jae Crowder (or Draymond Green, Quincy Acy, Khris Middleton or Mike Scott) instead of Tomas Satoransky and Kyle O'Quinn instead of throwing that pick away -- if we'd done those thing you can be sure we'd be that much better.

We'd be a much better team -- and every one of the guys mentioned above *many of us* pleaded for Ernie to pick. In my case, that's the exact list of guys I had checked off for us to take at those spots. We'd have a much brighter future too, as we'd have good young players getting better as they moved towards their peak years, rather than once-good old players getting worse as they move away from their peak years!

And I'm not even going back to the brain dead moves our fearless leader made to get out of the '09 draft. Or the extremely poor decisions in '08 (no, I did *not* want JaVale McGee -- did you?).

Hence, if you have two brain cells to rub together, it should be obvious that Randy Wittman is not the problem here. Hands points out that he has a terrible winning percentage as a coach -- no kidding; he's had terrible squads of players to coach! How good a coach was Doc Rivers before all of a sudden he got the gift of 2 HOF players?

So, yeah, fire Randy Wittman -- only don't expect to get any better. Fire Ernie and replace him w/ a good GM, and we'll get better over time.

Of course, Randy Wittman is not the only problem. But just because Ernie is a wretched GM shouldn't mean we give everyone under him a pass. You argue coaches don't really make much of a difference unless their HOFs. I'd argue, if you watched the Charlotte game, you didn't see a wide disparity in talent held by Charlotte. What you did see, if you payed close enough attention, was a wide disparity in execution & discipline. Charlotte is a well coached team that's getting high level defensive performances from a front line that includes Al Jefferson (a former defensive sieve), Josh McRoberts (a journeyman backup big now starting and playing major minutes) and Bismack Biyombo (a huge draft disappointment still learning the game). According to your thesis, this is because Jefferson, McRoberts & Biyombo are quality NBA players and excellent post defenders and would be under any scheme. I find this very hard to believe.

You give an example where a guy like Phil Jackson or Gregg Popovich could make a real difference. Those are two of the best coaches in NBA history. Their prowess is backed up by their NBA record which shows the success they've had in total wins and total number of championships. So if a great coach can significantly help a team, then why doesn't this same theory apply to the coach with the WORST ALL TIME RECORD of any NBA coach that's coached over 400 games? His relative incompetence is backed up by his long history of losing (180 wins in 502 games). You can argue, he never had the talent to win significantly. So have many other coaches. None of them had a history of losing as long and as rich as Wittman's. I'd argue, can't we possibly do any better? Why accept historically bad coaching when there are so many alternatives available? To me it's almost intellectually lazy (and a cop out) to assume all coaches are basically created equal with the exception of a chosen few.