You’ve probably heard this one before, but the Washington Wizards are a mess. They played so poorly that they got one coach fired and now their new coach is making comparisons about them and they aren’t exactly the most flattering. The New York Times’ Jake Appleman spent some time with the Wizards and new coach Randy Wittman, who wasn’t incredibly optimistic about his team winning their first game with him as coach.
“If you’re a smoker, you ain’t going to drop those cigarettes the first day,” Wittman said. “I’ve got to help them kick some of these bad habits that we’re into. That’s all it is. We’ve fallen into playing a way that is not conducive for us to win. So when I see them pull out a cigarette, I’ve got to take it out of their mouth. That’s basically what I’m trying to do.”
That’s a pretty funny quote. In the article, Wittman also mentions that he’s not trying to reinvent coaching with the Wizards because he tried that last time he was an interim coach (Minnesota, 2006-2007 season) and it was a spectacular failure. The success of the Wizards starts with John Wall, who was dreadful to start the season, but has picked up his game recently. Wall is averaging 20 points, seven assists and six rebounds in his last ten games. Turnovers have been his main problem and I would think that has more to do with him trying to do too much than anything else.
The Wiz still need to make over that team. Wall is the center piece and once Jan Vesely figures some things out he’ll be a great piece for Wall to run with. They’ll need to figure out how much to offer JaVale McGee his summer, but past that there’s no one on that roster that needs to be there long term.
