Posts Tagged ‘Randy Wittman’

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Pistons, Wizards Still Stuck On Zero

November 13, 2012  ·  7:24PM

The Toilet Bowl, if it comes to that, would be played Friday, Dec. 21, at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Followed 24 hours later, at the Verizon Center, by The Payback Bowl.

That’s the worst-case scenario, at least, for the Detroit Pistons and the Washington Wizards, the two teams remaining that have yet to win a game. The Wizards (0-5) have a shot on the schedule Tuesday night at Charlotte, based on their five-game winning streak against the Bobcats, though this is an improved Charlotte team.

The Pistons (0-8) are off to the worst start in franchise history, faltering in the fourth quarter Monday at home in their 92-90 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. They play at Philadelphia Wednesday, then get Orlando at The Palace Friday.

At the Wizards’ and Pistons’ combined pace, the Buss family would have fired three coaches by now. But lofty expectations weren’t in place for either of these teams. No one expected blistering starts. Neither the Pistons nor the Wizards were projected by most NBA insiders to challenge for the playoffs this season. That’s particularly true for Washington, which has been playing without point guard John Wall (knee injury) and Nene (plantar fasciitis).

But it’s equally valid for Detroit, which is rebuilding brick-by-brick with pieces Brandon Knight, Greg Monroe and rookie Andre Drummond — just not swiftly enough for a lot of fans.

Drummond, the raw 19-year-old who has shown signs of being a monster (22 points in 20-plus minutes at OKC Friday), frustrated Pistons followers again Monday. Or rather, it was the care and nurturing of the 6-foot-10, 270-pound man-child. He had an impact on both ends to help Detroit to a double-digit lead in the first half. But the UConn product got on the floor for only 3:20 in the second, with the Thunder going small to pull the game away from him.

But just because a team is losing doesn’t mean that it is developing. Knight had a turnover and a forced shot down the stretch that proved costly against the Thunder. His decision-making has been suspect, there are folks who feel the rookie leash on Drummond is hamering Monroe’s progress as a power forward and, from Rodney Stuckey to Jason Maxiell to Tayshaun Prince, enough Pistons haven’t been in sync on the same nights to get the job done.

For Detroit, defense has been its most glaring issue; it ranks 29th with a 110.4 defensive rating. With Washington, the defense is better (11th, 100.5) but the offense ranked last (93.5). And for the coaches, the Pistons’ Lawrence Frank and the Wizards’ Randy Wittman, the desire to reverse direction pales next to the urgency to remove those goose eggs. One-and-anything sounds way better than 0-for-2012-13.

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Most Important Part Of An NBA Game

November 4, 2012  ·  2:40PM



The old basketball joke is about as stale and unfunny as the old hockey joke. You know the two:

“I went to the fights last night and a hockey game broke out.”

“You see the last five minutes of a pro basketball game, you’ve seen the whole thing.”

Done laughing yet? Thought so.

In the case of the oh-so-savvy hoops observation, it barely requires a response. Yeah, nothing that happens in the preceding 43 minutes could possibly impact the outcome. Whatever’s going on at the end, that’s what transpired from the start. No shifts in strategy. No adjustments to one man’s hot hand or another man’s foul trouble. So on and so forth.

It’s drivel on its face. And while we’re not looking to give those who don’t like the NBA (no, we won’t resort to “haters”) any ammo, a strong case could be made Saturday that the first five minutes dictated more outcomes than the final five.

Good or bad starts propelled or doomed teams to their eventual destinations by the end of the night. (more…)

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Wiz Step Lightly On Nene’s Sore Foot

September 26, 2012  ·  11:36AM

 

Things are going well for the Washington Wizards. John Wall is a year older.

And wait, there’s more: General manager Ernie Grunfeld’s over emphasis on youth has been tempered by the arrival of veterans such as Trevor Ariza and Emeka Okefor and (equally important) the exit of the talented but immature Andray Blatche, JaVale McGee and Nick Young.

Bradley Beal, the No. 3 pick in the draft, is on board. And so is Randy Wittman, the head coach who earned an extension by going 18-31, including 8-2 over the last three weeks of 2011-12. If nothing else, firing Flip Saunders in January stripped away one more layer of Kevlar from Grunfeld, whose longevity in the nation’s capital almost cries out for term limits.

But -– you knew a “but” was coming, or at least a “however” — the optimism of a productive summer and a clean autumn slate got cut a little Tuesday when Grunfeld said that center/power forward Nene’s plantar fasciitis would limit him in training camp next week. (more…)

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Wizards’ Beal Caps Off Summer League, Eager To Pair Up With Wall

July 18, 2012  ·  7:44PM

By Drew Packham, NBA.com
 

 

LAS VEGAS – Bradley Beal was still smiling after his five games in Las Vegas, but hardly satisfied.

“It was fun and at the same time it was a learning process,” said Beal, who the Wizards took with the No. 3 pick in the 2012 Draft. “The working doesn’t stop. I always have to get better. I was happy, but I wasn’t happy with my performance.”

Beal had a solid but not spectacular Summer League, averaging 17.6 points and 4.6 rebounds while struggling at times with his shot, finishing at 41.7 percent from the floor. Beal averaged 30 minutes of action, giving the Wizards staff a long look at their shooting guard of the future.

“He’s got great composure,” coach Randy Wittman said. “You can’t tell if the kid scored 30 points or one point. He makes right decisions. He makes the extra pass if he doesn’t have it — almost sometimes too unselfish. But when you’ve got a guy with that character, a coach likes to have that.”

Wittman spoke highly of the Florida guard for his ability in the pick-and-roll and looks forward to seeing how he and point guard John Wall work together in the backcourt.

He’s not the only one.

“I think it will be great, honestly,” Beal said of playing with the Wall, who sat courtside for Tuesday’s game. “We just want to win. That’s our mentality. We want to try to make each other better every day. That’s what he wants, that’s what I want. I think our chemistry is already building. I really can’t wait to play alongside him.”

Beal showed off his ability to score in a variety of ways and seemed to improve in the pick-and-roll throughout the Wizards’ five games. Beal found success using the high screen, repeatedly knocking down the elbow jumper or continuing down the lane for the easy layup or dunk.

“I was pleasantly surprised to see him use pick and rolls,” Wittman said. “At Florida, he didn’t really play the pick-and-roll game much because he was playing small forward so we wanted to see that. I like what I saw.”

Beal says he’s looking forward to settling in to the D.C. area, and hopes to move in at least a month before training camp opens in the end of September.

“This was just a taste for him,” Wittman said. “You hope to see a guy get comfortable as the week goes on and I think he did. Now we’re going to be able to show him some things that we can work on so at camp he’ll have an idea of what to expect”

 

 

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Wizards Undecided On Blatche Amnesty

July 11, 2012  ·  4:06PM



The first day that NBA teams are officially allowed to sign free agents and make trades is also the first day of the six-day window where teams are allowed to use the amnesty provision to cut players and remove them from their salary cap. The Washington Wizards are still undecided about whether to use the amnesty provision on one of the top league-wide candidates, forward Andray Blatche, according to sources.

Washington is exploring several options for Blatche, who has fallen out of favor both with fans in D.C. and with the organization after signing a contract extension in 2010 that reworked his existing contract into a five-year deal worth $35 million. The Wizards could opt for amnesty, which would remove the remaining $23 million the team owes Blatche from its salary cap, freeing up resources that the team will need in the next few years to extend players like John Wall and this year’s first-round pick, Bradley Beal.

The Wizards could trade Blatche immediately. Or, they could continue to explore trade options while removing Blatche from the daily workings of the team–in essence, paying him his salary to stay away. The Pacers used a similar strategy in 2008, forcing guard Jamaal Tinsley to sit out the whole season while not playing after he clashed with then-coach Rick Carlisle and the organization.

But asking owner Ted Leonsis to write that $23 million check is a big ask, sources allow, even though Blatche is not in the team’s future plans. The Wizards have remade their power forward group in the last year and a half, drafting Jan Vesely with the sixth pick in the 2011 Draft and acquiring Emeka Okafor from New Orleans last month (along with small forward Trevor Ariza) for Rashard Lewis. Second-year forward Trevor Booker also played extremely effectively in spots the last couple of years. Washington has Ariza and Chris Singleton penciled in to take the lion’s share of minutes at small forward. (more…)

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Wittman to return, Flip pleased

June 2, 2012  ·  11:52AM




BOSTON – No one is happier that Randy Wittman apparently will continue as head coach of the Washington Wizards than the man whose firing opened the job for him.

Flip Saunders, who was fired in January with a 2-15 record, said that Wizards management did more than just promote his top assistant coach, who is expected to have his interim tag removed with a new contract in the next week or so. The brass also  addressed some of the team’s issues once Wittman was in place, not that those were secrets prior to Saunders’ dismissal.

“Where I feel good is, there were a lot of things that I thought had to be done with that team when I was there,” said Saunders, who has been working as a consultant for Boston’s Doc Rivers during the playoffs. “When Randy first took over, they didn’t have great success until they did what they needed to do with some of the guys and changed the roster. And they got better.”

For example, a young but immature nucleus of JaVale McGee, Nick Young and Andray Blatche was broken up for Wittman – the first two traded, the third shut down when he ballooned out of shape – even though Saunders said he raised that red flag last season. Washington also acquired center Nene from Denver, who only played 11 games with his new team but gave it an inside presence and a veteran who could command attention off the court. Adding solid role players James Singleton and Cartier Martin helped too, Saunders said.

“I knew what needed to be done,” said Saunders, who went 51-130 in Washington after leading Detroit and Minnesota to 11 playoff appearances in 13 seasons. “Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to see it through. But Randy’s my guy. And the staff there are guys basically that I hired. So I feel good about that too.”

(more…)

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Rough Season For NBPA Brass

April 17, 2012  ·  12:27AM

CHICAGO – More than any of their NBA peers, the nine members of the National Basketball Players Association’s executive committee gave the most – in time and effort – toward salvaging this post-lockout season. Everyone dealt with the uncertainty and inactivity of the elongated offseason prior to, finally, this hectic 2011-12 schedule. It’s just that the NBPA exec committee dealt with it in coats and ties, in hotel ballrooms, from morning to night (and sometimes on to morning again), enduring all the rhetoric that took most of five months before it distilled into true negotiating .

Too bad they’re not enjoying it more.

Washington’s Maurice Evans, one of the union VPs, had a rare upbeat night against the Bulls Monday at United Center. He scored 14 points in 26:28 off the bench to help the Wizards bag a road victory, 87-84, over the team with the NBA’s best record. It was just his 19th appearance of the season (his third over the past four weeks) and only the second time he has scored in double figures.

But it has been that way for Evans, a journeyman on a team committed to a) young players and b) lottery position. He has averaged 3.4 points and 11.4 minutes when he has participated, down from 9.7 and 27.4 in 2010-11.

He has company among the union brass. NBPA president Derek Fisher, of course, was traded from his beloved Lakers, then cut loose by Houston before landing nicely with Oklahoma City. Fisher’s stats are off a bit too: 5.5 ppg, 24.4 mpg now, 6.8 and 28.0 then.

(more…)

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“Linsanity” … More Than Just a Moment?

February 9, 2012  ·  11:02AM





HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – This is rare air Knicks guard Jeremy Lin is breathing these days and we are all indeed witness to the phenomenon that has become the hottest sensation in the NBA, at least for the last three games.

The last player to record 20 or more points and eight or more assists in his first two NBA starts, LeBron James. Lin made it three straight 20-point games and established new career-highs in assists in each of those three starts last night in Washington D.C.

The last athlete to snatch the sports spotlight like this in his debut on the big stage, Tim Tebow? (It’s way before Lin’s or Tebow’s time, but you old heads might remember “Fernandomania” sweeping the sports world back in the early 1980s.)

“Linsanity” isn’t just an easy nickname, it’s an actual movement in New York that is gaining steam throughout the basketball universe. CNBC Sports Business reporter Darren Rovell reported this morning that “Lin’s highlights of his 1st breakout game (against the Nets) has had 1.27 million views on Sina’s NBA page.”

When Suns star and two-time MVP Steve Nash is Tweeting about you in the middle of the night —  ”If you love sports you have to love what Jeremy Lin is doing. Getting an opportunity and exploding!!” – you know you’re on to something.

“Linsanity” is obviously contagious. How else do you explain Tyson Chandler‘s 25 points and 11 rebounds in the Knicks’ 107-93 win over the Wizards last night? Chandler, a 10-year vet, was just two points shy of his career scoring high while feeding off of the energy of Lin’s 23 points and 10 assists.

The fact that Lin is doing all of this while Carmelo Anthony (injury) and Amar’e Stoudemire (family reasons) are not uniform only adds to the growing legend of the Harvard grad and former D-League performer with the buzz cut and flashy game. Three straight wins after the Knicks lost 11 of 13 certainly helps fuel the movement.

The sick highlights – ”I didn’t know he could dunk,” Chandler said, “When he’s going in for the dunk I’m like ‘no Jeremy, just lay the ball up.’ And all of a sudden he dunks it and I was probably just as excited as the crowd was.” — are just gravy on the feel good sandwich  Knicks are chomping on right now.

(more…)

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Flip Flops, Takes Fall For Grunfeld

January 24, 2012  ·  3:38PM





There were no Cadillac Eldorados or steak knives to be had, a la “Glengarry Glen Ross.” In the ruthless world of the NBA, at least as it pertained to the woeful Washington Wizards Tuesday morning, there was only third prize: You’re fired.

Oh, and fourth prize: You’re hired. As the interim replacement for coach Flip Saunders, terminated after a 2-15 start in his third season with Washington. Assistant Randy Wittman will take over for the rest of the season in a move that figures to bring more aggravation to Wittman than change to the Wizards’ failing, flailing culture.

This move was, of course, only a matter of time in coming. When I wrote this earlier this month about Saunders and the dysfunctional team that soon would cost him his job, I didn’t even have the confidence to wait for Washington to come to me in Chicago; I jumped on it a day early because the ax seemed that ready to fall. Two weeks later, it did, a 2-7 mark since then and looking little different from the disarray, lack of purpose and absence of development that preceded it.

The Wizards — especially Andray Blatche, Nick Young, JaVale McGee and increasingly John Wall — seem like raw, incorrigible talent, oblivious to the value of coaching, committed only to their knucklehead ways. They knew that Saunders was a dead man walking, whether he stayed or went, because they had tuned him out. There are no old heads on the roster, no veterans both respected enough and involved enough to act as the coaches’ trustees in that locker room. (more…)

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Flip Out In Washington, Wittman In

January 24, 2012  ·  12:39PM

An NBA source confirmed Tuesday afternoon that the Washington Wizards have fired Flip Saunders as coach, and are expected to name assistant Randy Wittman as interim coach for the remainder of the season.

The Wizards, who have the NBA’s worst record at 2-15, were coming off another desultory performance Monday, one in which they trailed the 76ers by 30 points at halftime and wound up losing by 20. That has been the norm for Washington much of this season, surrounding occasional performances like last week’s win over Oklahoma City in which the team played with passion and purpose. Only recently had second-year guard John Wall, around whom the Wizards hope to build a contending team, begun playing with much fire. Saunders never was able to get players like Andray Blatche and JaVale McGee to perform consistently.

Saunders was 51-130 in his two-plus seasons in Washington.

Saunders was in the third year of a four-year deal that paid him approximately $4 million per season. He was hired in 2009 after Washington had gone 19-63 the previous season, during which time the Wizards had fired their previous coach, Eddie Jordan.

At the time, Saunders was joining a veteran team that had made the playoffs in four of the previous five seasons around a core group featuring Gilbert Arenas, Antawn Jamison, Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood. But Arenas’ role in an incident in December of 2009 in which he brought guns into the Wizards’ locker room as part of a confrontation with guard Javaris Crittenton resulted in Arenas being suspended by NBA Commissioner David Stern in January of 2010 without pay for the remainder of the season. The Wizards cratered again, going 26-56, and made the decision to blow up the old roster and start anew after winning the Draft lottery in 2010 and selecting Wall with the first overall pick.

Washington traded Arenas in December of 2010 to Orlando in a deal that brought forward Rashard Lewis from the Magic. In early 2010, the Wizards sent Butler and Haywood to Dallas and Jamison to Cleveland. The Wizards quickly got much younger, but Saunders failed to get his team to play hard consistently through last season and the start of this season.

Yahoo! Sports first reported Saunders’ firing.

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