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

[Illmatic21]

Imo Wittman IS a major problem, not necessarily because he's costing us X amount of wins, but because he isn't developing our young players properly. That's part of the coach's job description too.

Wall, Beal, Porter, Seraphin, etc are investments. In order for the team to get the greatest return out of those investments, we need a coaching staff that will give them the proper instruction and put them in a position to learn and succeed. Wittman is quite inadequate in that department, as evidenced by the numerous out-of-touch statements he's made in the media about the team and players.

So not only are we not winning as many games as we should, but the basketball ability and value of our players is not increasing as quickly as it should be, which has both on-court and off-court (financial) implications towards the franchise's future.

If we had, say, Brad Stevens as our coach instead of Wittman.. I can't guarantee that we would have any more wins than we do, but I can tell you for a fact that the second most important player for the Wizards, Bradley Beal, would have been a better player this year. Simply because Stevens wouldn't draw up a gameplan that allows Beal to take 10 contested jumpers a game. If we have a coach who allows Beal to play like Ben Gordon, then after 4 years instead of a perennial All-Star we will have another Ben Gordon on our roster asking for a new contract. We desperately need our core players to pan out, and it's worth whatever investment it takes to find the right coaching staff who will make it happen.

Coaching matters in this league, and allowing someone like Randy Wittman to be at the helm of your team will have negative repercussions, period.

[dckingsfan]

I agree with PIF on this one. Replace EG with a good GM (and that will be hard for Ted) and you will improve over time with better picks (and possibly better trades).

If you had a somewhat better coach than Randy - we might be a .550 or .575 team instead of a .515 team. BFD.

And player development hasn't happened here since EG has been the GM. So, you can't really single out Witt. And I would say that he gave Singleton plenty of opportunity to develop as a rookie. Wall has absolutely improved (probably past where I would have thought he would be) and Beal is getting plenty of time and opportunity (even with all the stupid long 2s.). I would argue that Ariza and Webster have played the best ball of their lives under Witt (or close to it).

But when you don't have a reasonable backup PG for 1 2/3 seasons, when you have no real depth in the backcourt, you can only expect so much.

So... would I like to have a better coach - absolutely. Would I like to have EG pick the replacement - NFW.

EG really has to go first. Really...

[mohammed10]

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

Mike Woodson will be free in a few months...Turd should check back then.

I am kidding (where's the green font?)

Aside from the usual retreads, I wouldn't mind us trying to pry away Tibbs from Chicago. He seems to have been disgruntled post trade of Deng. DRose is going to be a shell of his former self after two consecutive knee injuries and Noah, while he has been playing lights out, is not going to take them to the promised land.

Thoughts?

[mohammed10]

So... would I like to have a better coach - absolutely. Would I like to have EG pick the replacement - NFW.

EG really has to go first. Really...

Cosign this. Couldn't agree more.

But the real question is - Does Turd have the intestinal fortitude to do it? My magic 8-ball says no. Now that Ernie has gotten so close to the promised land (ie - playoffs), I suspect that he will be rewarded (admittedly, a loose term here) with a new contract. Just as bad, I think Randy will be along for the ride.

[nate33]

Can we please remove "raisins" out of the title, hands? It doesn't even make sense.

[mohammed10]

Can we please remove "raisins" out of the title, hands? It doesn't even make sense.

Agree. Although I must admit, I do like Witless as an appropriate pseudonym.

We are all witness to Randy's Witless!

I can just see the t-shirts now...

[dckingsfan]

So... would I like to have a better coach - absolutely. Would I like to have EG pick the replacement - NFW.

EG really has to go first. Really...

Cosign this. Couldn't agree more.

But the real question is - Does Turd have the intestinal fortitude to do it? My magic 8-ball says no. Now that Ernie has gotten so close to the promised land (ie - playoffs), I suspect that he will be rewarded (admittedly, a loose term here) with a new contract. Just as bad, I think Randy will be along for the ride.

And that is going to make most on this board pretty sad...

[hands11]

Can we please remove "raisins" out of the title, hands? It doesn't even make sense.

And Yo RZA Yo Razor does ?

The title makes sense. Randy has no balls to make the tough game time decisions. Saw it again last night.

With all the stuff that gets posted on this board, I fail to understand why this request is the focus. Is having raisins in the title breaking some kind of board rule ?

[TGW]

Can we please remove "raisins" out of the title, hands? It doesn't even make sense.

And Yo RZA Yo Razor does ?

Yo rza yo razor is actually pretty dope if you're an old school wu-tang fan. I was actually pleasantly surprised when I saw that.


Sent from my SPH-L710 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[Nivek]

Can we please remove "raisins" out of the title, hands? It doesn't even make sense.

And Yo RZA Yo Razor does ?

The title makes sense. Randy has no balls to make the tough game time decisions. Saw it again last night.

With all the stuff that gets posted on this board, I fail to understand why this request is the focus. Is having raisins in the title breaking some kind of board rule ?

Yes, it's in edition eight of The Official RealGM Wizards Message Board Rules and Regulations, volume VII, section XLIX, subsection XCI, paragraph XIII, line V, rule XI, which reads:

Thou shalt not have stupid thread titles.

Check with doclinkin if you don't have your own set of the printed rules. He was in charge of the most recent update.

I think fishercob is handling edition 9. My thinking: maybe something shorter this time? Even doc would probably agree that 44 volumes of rules and regulations is a bit much for a message board.

[AFM]

Hands has never heard of the Wu Tang clan

He thinks its a chinese restaurant

[hands11]

Can we please remove "raisins" out of the title, hands? It doesn't even make sense.

And Yo RZA Yo Razor does ?

The title makes sense. Randy has no balls to make the tough game time decisions. Saw it again last night.

With all the stuff that gets posted on this board, I fail to understand why this request is the focus. Is having raisins in the title breaking some kind of board rule ?

Yes, it's in edition eight of The Official RealGM Wizards Message Board Rules and Regulations, volume VII, section XLIX, subsection XCI, paragraph XIII, line V, rule XI, which reads:

Thou shalt not have stupid thread titles.

Check with doclinkin if you don't have your own set of the printed rules. He was in charge of the most recent update.

I think fishercob is handling edition 9. My thinking: maybe something shorter this time? Even doc would probably agree that 44 volumes of rules and regulations is a bit much for a message board.

Well that explains why I missed it then. I only made it to

volume VII, section XLIX, subsection XCI, paragraph XIII, line V, rule X which explained the correct spelling of "damn"

I'm guessing...volume VII, section XLIX, subsection XCI, paragraph XIII, line V, rule XI is where the exclusion to the word "raisins" in a thread title is listed ?

[hands11]

Hands has never heard of the Wu Tang clan

He thinks its a chinese restaurant

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti_sd6d9oto[/youtube]

[hands11]

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.

I honestly can't believe this is even a question. Of course coaches make a difference.

Saying it just the great coaches that also had the best talent to win it all is silly. There are other good coaches that don't have titles that are also making an impact. There are also coaches that have talent that are holding them back. Or at a min, not helping them.

For example. Put Randy as head coach of TOR and guess at their record. Are they the same record ? Better? Worst ? By how much either way ?

Coaches set the offense and defense. Good ones do it to maximize the talent and matchup.
They call the timeout and manage momentum. Lots of games are close. Every edge matters.
They set the rotations and set the mismatches and adjustments. They move the chess pieces.
They dish out the minutes to keep players fresh or not.
They hold them accountable to the team plan so they don't just do whatever they want.
They give mins to the border line players young and old that develop their role on the team. Sometimes that even launches their careers vs that not happening and they fade out.

And that's not even mentioning how a head coaches needs to know how to manage egos. Set a leadership structure. Know when to push. Know when to set back. Understand each players strength and weaknesses. Which things can get improved. Which can't. When to let them try in a game.

How about Chuck Daly and how he got that team USA to gel so quickly and how he coached those DET teams to titles and conference titles.

For any set of talent, its a coach that makes the team better or worse. If not, there wouldn't be coaches. Just let the players figure it out on their own. And coaches wouldn't be making what they make if they were impacting wins.

[doclinkin]

Can we please remove "raisins" out of the title, hands? It doesn't even make sense.

And Yo RZA Yo Razor does ?

The title makes sense. Randy has no balls to make the tough game time decisions. Saw it again last night.

With all the stuff that gets posted on this board, I fail to understand why this request is the focus. Is having raisins in the title breaking some kind of board rule ?

Yes, it's in edition eight of The Official RealGM Wizards Message Board Rules and Regulations, volume VII, section XLIX, subsection XCI, paragraph XIII, line V, rule XI, which reads:

Thou shalt not have stupid thread titles.

Check with doclinkin if you don't have your own set of the printed rules. He was in charge of the most recent update.

I think fishercob is handling edition 9. My thinking: maybe something shorter this time? Even doc would probably agree that 44 volumes of rules and regulations is a bit much for a message board.

He can't check the regulations because we all voted he is on the "ignore" list for the Rules and Regulations thread after his Vesely infraction. The Thread probably doesn't even show up in his Forum list.

And I doubt it will for a long ass while: Per Article 7, Infractions Section A(iii_ Popular Appeasement) he has not yet shown the revised and proper judgement to re-apply. He'd have to get banned from the Miami Heat board for trolling or something in order to generate sufficient yea votes for a re-acknowlegment. He's probably going to have to publicly humble himself in some way, or become a mod in the usual way (or sell somebody out like that rat-bastid Miller).

[dckingsfan]

Can we please remove "raisins" out of the title, hands? It doesn't even make sense.

Bump

[Nivek]

And Yo RZA Yo Razor does ?

The title makes sense. Randy has no balls to make the tough game time decisions. Saw it again last night.

With all the stuff that gets posted on this board, I fail to understand why this request is the focus. Is having raisins in the title breaking some kind of board rule ?

Yes, it's in edition eight of The Official RealGM Wizards Message Board Rules and Regulations, volume VII, section XLIX, subsection XCI, paragraph XIII, line V, rule XI, which reads:

Thou shalt not have stupid thread titles.

Check with doclinkin if you don't have your own set of the printed rules. He was in charge of the most recent update.

I think fishercob is handling edition 9. My thinking: maybe something shorter this time? Even doc would probably agree that 44 volumes of rules and regulations is a bit much for a message board.

Well that explains why I missed it then. I only made it to

volume VII, section XLIX, subsection XCI, paragraph XIII, line V, rule X which explained the correct spelling of "damn"

I'm guessing...volume VII, section XLIX, subsection XCI, paragraph XIII, line V, rule XI is where the exclusion to the word "raisins" in a thread title is listed ?

Nope. No one thought it was necessary to make a rule against the word "raisins." Maybe in the next revision.

[hands11]

Wow.

Randy actually made a good adjustment. He road the Gooden train and adjusted to the oversize BRK line up that keep them back 10 pts all game.

He went small with

Wall, Beal, Webster, Trevor A and Gooden.

And he keep Gooden out there with 5 fouls. Pretty ballzy move.

And they pulled out a huge win in a big game to take back 5th place.

I think he even called a timely time out earlier in the game. What got into him. Is he deciding he wants to coach like a real NBA HC ?

For that, he is lost his raisins and his Witless. At least for now.

[McFilthy]

Despite my typical reaction to the dreaded Bullets/Wizards internal hire, I think Randy as coach was not a bad idea at the time. After gungate + suckitude, the Wizards coaching job was one of the least desirable in 2012. I didn't mind as much when he went from interim to regular head coach. They, of course, didn't go for any up and coming assistant or an established winner. They went with Wittman.

But really, it is like we got our coach at Kmart. I've gotten some pants at Kmart that were better than expected and were useful…but you know I'm not wearing my Kmart pants to the big dance!

Have you ever noticed the officials also think we got our coach at Kmart? Randy could be telling Haywood Workman that J.R. Smith is lighting Chris Singleton's beard on fire and Workman, like most officials, gives Randy the "look deep into my eyes and see if you can find someone who gives a damn" look.

Now the Wizards are more respectable and there are a number of potentially great coaches available, so we should really move on at the end of the season (after EG "retires" )

I will say I like some of the things Randy has brought to the table including a more defensive-minded team that seems to get along and buy in even with some adversity. However, I have four major reasons why I think Randy should go:
1. His offense is not ready for prime time. As another poster said, this will be showcased with more scouting and when defense tightens up in the playoffs.
2. He seems to ignore statistical information and analytics that are no doubt accessible to him. (i.e. long 2s)
3. His on the spot 'game on the line' decisions do not inspire confidence. I sometimes start laughing at the beginning of our last play in the final seconds, down but one. The laughing seems a little healthier then my earlier cringe and cry responses to the final play Randy draws up.
4. I don't think he's a great coach for Wall and Beal and his coaching of Wall and Beal is the most important, because they are likely the future of the Wizards. Wall has had a successful year overall despite being in a predictable offense. Beal has talents but seems lost out there sometimes and Randy doesn't have a working compass to give him.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

McFilthy. Welcome to the board. Good, reasoned, non -polemical post. I think it kind of sums up what the majority of us feel.

Like Doug Collins in Chicago - who was moved aside for The Phil - it's time to move along. Heck maybe Randy even gets a shot with another rebuild.