Official Thread - Wizards at Sac-town (3/22/15)

[Ruzious]

When you're playing Gooden, Sessions, and Butler each at least 20 minutes, really you are trying to give away points and you are trying to lose. Gooden simply does not belong in the NBA.

I disagree. Gooden has played fairly well lately. He's good enough to get minutes in this league. In a salary cap era, you're going to have to have a minimum salary vet or two getting minutes. For a vet minimum guy, Gooden is fine. He's our fifth big who has moved up to 4th big because Humphries is out.

Gooden is the least of our problems.

We do disagree. If just one injury to our backup PF causes the need to play Gooden 23 minutes, that's a huge problem. He is the worst defensive player I've seen anywhere this season, and he's certainly not good offensively.

[nate33]

When you're playing Gooden, Sessions, and Butler each at least 20 minutes, really you are trying to give away points and you are trying to lose. Gooden simply does not belong in the NBA.

I disagree. Gooden has played fairly well lately. He's good enough to get minutes in this league. In a salary cap era, you're going to have to have a minimum salary vet or two getting minutes. For a vet minimum guy, Gooden is fine. He's our fifth big who has moved up to 4th big because Humphries is out.

Gooden is the least of our problems.

We do disagree. If just one injury to our backup PF causes the need to play Gooden 23 minutes, that's a huge problem. He is the worst defensive player I've seen anywhere this season, and he's certainly not good offensively.

I don't think the issue is Gooden. The problem is our #2 big (Nene) can only play 28 minutes, and our #4 big (Seraphin) stinks. As a result, when our #3 big (Humphries) got hurt, our #5 big (Gooden) had to step in a play a larger role than what would expect out of a #5 big. If Seraphin was decent, or if Nene could play 34 minutes, then Gooden would be stepping into a 12 mpg game role after Humphries got hurt - not a 20 mpg role.

[stevemcqueen1]

Butler's been awful. He was awful last night. There is no short term advantage from playing him over Porter and there sure as **** ain't any long term advantage in it. Wittman is just terrible. He's a terrible coach and he makes stupid decisions like this that hurt the team.

[stevemcqueen1]

Wittman's doghousing Porter is indefensible. There really isn't a single valid reason Rasual Butler should be playing over him.

This clown has got to go. He should have been fired during that losing streak. But I would bet almost anything he's back next year and we're going to spend another season winning 45 games and wondering what we could have had in young players we drafted and then traded for Matt Barnes or Richard Jefferson.

Yeah, it's puzzling the way that Porter gets jerked around by Witt. Otto has yet to prove that he deserves consistent minutes but he's never going to get the opportunity to prove it when he gets 10-12 minutes one game, 2-3 minutes the next game and then sits the entire following game without playing a single minute. It's not like Butler is playing well, especially now that he's shooting something like 15% from 3 pt. range.

Need to give Otto some PT...and live with his ups and downs.

Randy's message to Porter: "Be aggressive! Get greedy! But so help me God if you miss, you're not playing the next two games."

One of his many flaws is that he hasn't the faintest clue how to develop young players.

[Ruzious]

Butler's been awful. He was awful last night. There is no short term advantage from playing him over Porter and there sure as **** ain't any long term advantage in it. Wittman is just terrible. He's a terrible coach and he makes stupid decisions like this that hurt the team.

Gay did basically eat Porter's lunch out there, but I absolutely agree - you can't just give him 5 minutes. You have to let him get through those bad periods - just like he has with Beal. Wittman's biting off his nose to spite his face.

[stevemcqueen1]

Butler's been awful. He was awful last night. There is no short term advantage from playing him over Porter and there sure as **** ain't any long term advantage in it. Wittman is just terrible. He's a terrible coach and he makes stupid decisions like this that hurt the team.

Gay did basically eat Porter's lunch out there, but I absolutely agree - you can't just give him 5 minutes. You have to let him get through those bad periods - just like he has with Beal. Wittman's biting off his nose to spite his face.

I don't understand why he's given Beal such a long leash compared to Porter. The only thing I can think of is a mandate to play Beal from Ernie. It's like someone got through to him, "Hey this Beal kid is very important to the future of the team and you need to let him play through his mistakes and develop." And yet this doesn't seem to have clicked for him regarding Porter.

The inconsistency is bizarre. He's got Beal doing too much and Porter doing way too little. It's hurting both, but Porter much more so. There never seemed to be much of a plan behind a lot of Randy's coaching, but this just screams of him being lost and coaching from game to game like his job depends on it. Who actually has any confidence in him? It'd be a really bad situation even if he was actually a good coach. But he's terrible.

There's an obvious fix of course, but it's a sign of how little confidence I have in Ernie and Ted that I don't expect them to fire Wittman, much less conduct a real search to replace him with a coach that's truly good. What I expect is that next February I'm going to be watching another underachieving team that's on pace to win 10 games less than they should and having to rationalize why we just traded Otto Porter for a half season of some 34 year old role player on his last legs.

[nate33]

Beal has always had a long leash because he's never had a decent player behind him (unless you count Jordan Crawford). Porter has always had at least two better SF's on the roster than him. Last year, it was Ariza and Webster. This year, it's Pierce and Butler. (And Butler, even when slumping, is still more effective out there than Porter.)

[stevemcqueen1]

Beal has always had a long leash because he's never had a decent player behind him (unless you count Jordan Crawford). Porter has always had at least two better SF's on the roster than him. Last year, it was Ariza and Webster. This year, it's Pierce and Butler. (And Butler, even when slumping, is still more effective out there than Porter.)

I disagree about Butler. The only things he does better than Porter are shoot the three ball and free throws. Porter is a better passer, defender, rebounder, and scorer from 2 than Butler and he's a long ways away from being as good as he can.

But that doesn't even matter. Butler could be way better than Porter right now and it would still be a mistake to play him over Porter. Their long term value to the franchise isn't even on the same planet and that's what matters.

[nate33]

Beal has always had a long leash because he's never had a decent player behind him (unless you count Jordan Crawford). Porter has always had at least two better SF's on the roster than him. Last year, it was Ariza and Webster. This year, it's Pierce and Butler. (And Butler, even when slumping, is still more effective out there than Porter.)

I disagree about Butler. The only things he does better than Porter are shoot the three ball and free throws. Porter is a better passer, defender, rebounder, and scorer from 2 than Butler and he's a long ways away from being as good as he can.

But that doesn't even matter. Butler could be way better than Porter right now and it would still be a mistake to play him over Porter. Their long term value to the franchise isn't even on the same planet and that's what matters.

Don't get me wrong. I think Wittman needs to give Porter minutes over Butler for developmental purposes, but Butler is statistically a better player. Better PER. Better WS/48. He is a more feared shooter and therefore a better floor spacer. And I'm not even convinced that Porter is a better defender. Porter is still too light in the haunches and he makes too many mistakes right now.

If I had to win a game tomorrow, I'd be more comfortable with Butler playing 15 minutes than Porter.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I guess I'm a horrible person for saying this, but I genuinely hope we lose every single game from here on out. It will give us a chance possibility that they clean house, and I wouldn't mind having a top 15 pick instead of a pick in the 17-20 area.

No, it makes sense.

Best interest could be see Wittman and Grunfeld get canned. Get best draft pick, new GM, new coach.

Just one personal perspective, Consiglieri...not a horrible idea IMO.