The Official Washington Basketball Thread: Wizards, Mystics etc

[Destino]

I have an inside source. Wiz are picking 5th. Sorry everyone

Anything other than 1st is a disappointment that has been made greater by people talking for the better part of two years about how great this draft would be. This draft isn't the worst of seen but it's closer to bad than it is great.

[RonArtest15]

Absolute nonsense! The entire sense of improvement comes from the last ten games of which we won eight. Take that away and this team is 12-44 (.214). Apply the same thing to last season where the wizards won 6 of their last 10 and you get 17-55 (.236). Don't fall for the teams version of the 7-day Dre. Also remember that after the trade the team was much better on paper. There isn't a soul that would argue that right now today, McGee is better than Nene as a starting NBA center. Not exactly a small upgrade either.

I also disagree with the notion that guys were being held accountable. He held a few guys on this team accountable and let John Wall do whatever the hell he wanted, which included sulking in the corner, not trying on defense, and otherwise being a ****ty leader. He did scream at Vesely a lot though and sometimes as Seraphin. He also gave young guys minutes over superior vets that they clearly hadn't earned in the name of development (because in DC learning on the job is what we think development means).

Wittman's offense was hard to watch and frankly if he does stay they need to get him an assistant that knows what an NBA offense is supposed to look like and can teach it.

So, now we're taking away wins? C'mon now. LOL.

He absolutely held guys accountable. Wall sulked, but I noticed that more under Flip and when we had the 3-stooges on the floor.

And which young guys got minutes over SUPERIOR vets???

[No Excuses]

Destino isn't taking away wins. He's just mentioning that we won against garbage. Crap beating crap isn't impressive. It really really isn't.

[ixcuincle]

Anthony Davis + John Wall

Omgggggggg

[Destino]

The most encouraging sign I saw out of this year's decent run to end the season was that the Basketball IQ was much higher than the past couple of years. If you keep adding smart, unselfish, team players, you are going to start winning games. Obviously you can't have everyone on a young roster fill those intangibles but it looked a lot better than Young, Blatche, and McGee ending the season strong, IMO.

mediocre is far more destructive to a franchise than simply being terrible. Having watched Wittman's beginner level offense and his horrible decisions late in games I think he's the perfect guy to lead this team to 10th place.

[Hersh]

The problem with keeping Wittman, if he's not the long term coach, is that it's a constantly changing scheme with young players. We need a long term system to be put in place by a coach with a proven system.

[Destino]

So, now we're taking away wins? C'mon now. LOL.

He absolutely held guys accountable. Wall sulked, but I noticed that more under Flip and when we had the 3-stooges on the floor.

And which young guys got minutes over SUPERIOR vets???

We are taking away the final 10 games, or as I like to call it, the job security push. It's bull**** that played mostly against teams that are thinking about something else.

Mason and Evans couldn't buy their way into a game for most of the season while the great accountability allowed Singleton/Vesely to learn on the job, and Crawford/Young/Wall to take horrible shots night after night.

As for accountability, do you know how you hold a team captain that sulks accountable? You make someone else the team captain. You know how you hold a point guard that lowers his head and insists on taking contested shots against three defender accountable? You bench him. Same thing you do to both guards when they refuse to pass the ball to bigs that scored far more efficiently all season. Speaking of which, just how the hell do you make the accountability argument when McGee, Seraphin, and Booker starved for shot attempts all season when they all scored more efficiently than Young, Crawford, and Wall? I guess "pass the ball to a tall guy more than you shoot it" is in the advanced section of the Wittman offense and reserved for year too. They don't have to be streaking to the basket for an assist to justify a pass when the guards are terrible scorers.

[StillUnknown]

How was his offense hard to watch? He was actually feeding it down low on the regular. When is the last time the Wizards fed the ball down low? And **** is a work in progress. Of course you're not going to fire Flip, hire Wittman, clap your hands and everything is going to be a thing of beauty. It takes time and I just don't see how you can deny that there was improvement, ESPECIALLY from the younger guys like Seraphin and Vesely and Booker. Stats don't always tell a story. If you watched the games, you saw the improvement.

And again, nobody is saying Wittman is the long term answer. Nobody is even remotely trying to argue that. Just that, as of now, he's not a bad option going into next year.

This is why I want Wittman gone. I'd rather have our long term coach in place now so we can get rid of that "adjustment" period as soon as possible.

Wittman's the cheap option going in to next year, that seems to be high on Ted's list of job qualifications.

Edited May 30, 2012 by StillUnknown

[Duckus]

We have the 2nd best chance out of the ENTIRE league to place in the top 2, so we have the highest chance to pick #4. The lotto is only for picks 1-3. Teams can jump ahead of us in the lottery so we can drop down, a little bit. Basically no team besides us, Charlotte or Cleveland can pick 4th.

Gotcha.

I got that part now. We have 199 combos out of 1,001 possible combinations and that only the top 3 picks are in the lottery and they pull 1 combo for each of the those picks. Makes sense.

Now, one more question.

In the John Wall 2010 draft everything held to the order until they got to Pick #6 - which ended up being Golden State (4).

The minute they announced that Golden State had fallen to #6 they said Philly (5) and Washington (4) had jumped into the top 3.

I understand how they knew Philly had jumped, because they were not in their slot and thus one of the lottery picks. But how did they know the Wizards did as well?

Here is the youtube of the draft -

Edit - I think I got it. Because they moved back twice spots, two teams had to have jumped and the only two possible were the Wiz and Sixers. Okay, I think I got it. Hahah.

Edited May 30, 2012 by Duckus

[pjfootballer]

Ted has said repeatedly we are in year 3 of the rebuild and he expects to actually win a good amount of games. That ain't happening with Wittman at the helm.

According to my calendar, we're in year 34 of a rebuild. I've been watching this team since 1977 and we have not even been close enough to sniff the champagne on the O'Brien trophy since 1978.

[Destino]

How was his offense hard to watch? He was actually feeding it down low on the regular. When is the last time the Wizards fed the ball down low?

I never saw the ball being fed down low sufficiently. I saw the guards run themselves ragged and then pass the ball down low a few times while they stood around catching their breath.

[No Excuses]

Alright, enough negativity.

Let's do it again.

[Going Commando]

I have an inside source. Wiz are picking 5th. Sorry everyone

I thought four was as low as we can go. Did we finish second worst or third worst?

[SuperBash]

Bill Simmons B.S. Report with Chad Ford is a fun listen yesterday. They both say D.C. would be the most fun spot for Davis to go out of the teams in the top 8. They start to flip flop a little with the Cavs being that team but they say we are heading in the right direction.

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=7985312

---------- Post added May-30th-2012 at 03:00 PM ----------

I thought four was as low as we can go. Did we finish second worst or third worst?

2nd, lowest we can pick is 5th.

[Duckus]

I thought four was as low as we can go. Did we finish second worst or third worst?

2nd worst record = worst possible pick being 5th.

If all 3 lottery teams are jumped, we would pick 5th.

[RonArtest15]

We are taking away the final 10 games, or as I like to call it, the job security push. It's bull**** that played mostly against teams that are thinking about something else.

Mason and Evans couldn't buy their way into a game for most of the season while the great accountability allowed Singleton/Vesely to learn on the job, and Crawford/Young/Wall to take horrible shots night after night.

As for accountability, do you know how you hold a team captain that sulks accountable? You make someone else the team captain. You know how you hold a point guard that lowers his head and insists on taking contested shots against three defender accountable? You bench him. Same thing you do to both guards when they refuse to pass the ball to bigs that scored far more efficiently all season. Speaking of which, just how the hell do you make the accountability argument when McGee, Seraphin, and Booker starved for shot attempts all season when they all scored more efficiently than Young, Crawford, and Wall? I guess "pass the ball to a tall guy more than you shoot it" is in the advanced section of the Wittman offense and reserved for year too. They don't have to be streaking to the basket for an assist to justify a pass when the guards are terrible scorers.

So, in your eyes it was a lose/lose. This team goes 3-10, doom an gloom. This team goes 8-2 (6-0 in the last 6) and it's still doom and gloom. What exactly do you want?

I don't care who was out there...with a franchise in desparate need of ANY sort of momentum, I'll take the 6-0 finish over anything. We needed this more than any other team in the NBA. We were a punchline.

I'll ask you this...do you think the younger players flourished under Wittman? Shoot, if Flip was still on board, we'd be trotting out a fat/out of shape Blatche on a nightly basis and a guy like Seraphin would be glued to the bench.

As far as Wall...he was named captain before he even played a game in the NBA. How old was he? 19...20? Is this his fault? Are we REALLY going to sit here and nit-pick about him sulking in an awful situation? There aren't many PGs in the NBA who would have done anything with a starting lineup that had a collective IQ of 29. Wall came from a winning environment and had to play with guys who didn't know ANYTHING about what it takes to not only win, but be a professional. I don't blame him for his bad body English or whatever he had when Flip was at the helm. What I did see was a VERY different guy when 1) Wittman took over and 2) when Javale/Nick were shipped out and Blatche was no longer with the team.

Randy Wittman DID hold guys accountable for how they played. That was NEVER the case when Flip was coaching. He'd say one thing about being disappointed or how changes would be made, and go out and do the same thing over and over. What was Einstein's quote about insanity? "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." That's Flip in a nut-shell.

And since you brought it up, the 13 shots that Serpahin was averaging when he put up CAREER #'s under Wittman, wasn't enough? We'll also ignore the increase in Booker's shot attempts after Flip was canned as well. He opened things up for those young guys. If you can't see that our younger players took a gigantic step forward under him, then I don't know what to tell you.

As it's been stated, another year of Wittman isn't going to hurt at all. If the players keep responding to his coaching like they did over the final 10 games, maybe we can get oursleves back to respectability. There is little-to-no harm in bringing him back.

[Going Commando]

Bill Simmons B.S. Report with Chad Ford is a fun listen yesterday. They both say D.C. would be the most fun spot for Davis to go out of the teams in the top 8. They start to flip flop a little with the Cavs being that team but they say we are heading in the right direction.

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=7985312

---------- Post added May-30th-2012 at 03:00 PM ----------

2nd, lowest we can pick is 5th.

2nd worst record = worst possible pick being 5th.

If all 3 lottery teams are jumped, we would pick 5th.

Thanks for clearing that up. Ugh. Then you know we'll pick 5th. I felt good picking top four. Feels like Davis, Drummond, MKG, and TRob are the obvious top four picks and I was happy getting any one of them. Fifth will be tricky unless someone reaches ahead of us and one of the top four guys drops.

Honestly I suppose I hope Brooklyn wins it if we don't because they'll trade out of that pick to broker a trade for Dwight. Maybe we could get in on a three team deal with the Nets and Magic to facilitate it and end up with that first pick.

---------- Post added May-30th-2012 at 03:44 PM ----------

If we pick fifth, and the first four picks are MKG, Davis, Drummond, and TRob, then I'd hope our pick is either Beal or Rivers.

[SuperBash]

I am going to run the lottery once, just once, on ESPN and this is what will go down tonight. Here it goes...

1) Hornets

2) Kings

3) Cavs

4) Bobcats

5) Wizards

[CrypticVillain]

I am going to run the lottery once, just once, on ESPN and this is what will go down tonight. Here it goes...

1) Hornets

2) Kings

3) Cavs

4) Bobcats

5) Wizards

I did the same thing and I got:

1.Wizards

2.Hornets (Their other pick)

3.Raptors

4.Bobcats

5.Cavs

[Going Commando]

I am going to run the lottery once, just once, on ESPN and this is what will go down tonight. Here it goes...

1) Hornets

2) Kings

3) Cavs

4) Bobcats

5) Wizards

I like mine a whole lot better:

1.) Wizards

2.) Toronto

3.) New Orleans

4.) Charlotte

5.) Cleveland

[Chachie]

I ran it thru ESPN as well...

1. Wiz

2. Bobcats

3. Cavs

4. Hornets

5. Kings

This means there's no way we win.

Edited May 30, 2012 by Chachie

[No Excuses]

These are my results:

1. Wizards.

2. Hornets

3. Bobcats

4. Cavaliers

5. Kings

[StillUnknown]

My results:

1. Wizards

2. Warriors

3. Cavs

4. Bobcats

5. Hornets

[Duckus]

Just did it on ESPN.

Wizards #5

[No Excuses]

We'll probably pick third. I'm assuming the lottery gets fixed to help out the Hornets, Charlotte gets #2 and they give us #3.

They already fixed it last year for the Cavs and hooked them up with two top 5 picks so I'm going to go ahead and assume Cleveland is the odd team out.

Edited May 30, 2012 by No Excuses