NBA Free Agency 2015: Nene To Play Different Role For Washington Wizards; Could Add Stretch Four by Ben Mehic

Over the next week or so, we’ll be asking our writers questions that will summarize the Washington Wizards‘ 2014-2015 season.

I think we can acknowledge Randy Wittman will be back, but: A) Should he return? B) Can he be a championship quality coach?

Nithin (@nkuchibhotla): The question of whether Randy Wittman should be back at the helm of the Wizards is more convoluted than it seemed just a few months ago.

After using the regular season to derail any momentum the team had from a nice playoff run the year before, #PlayoffWittman emerged and the team started playing an analytical-friendly style of basketball that resulted in unparalleled offensive success for the team (with its normal stingy defense intact).

That being said, I don’t think he should be back because these philosophies have been available to him for months, yet he only just started utilizing them. I’m on the side of the coin that thinks he wasn’t playing possum in the first 82 games, because even if he didn’t want to overextend Paul Pierce, the number of minutes he gave the Gortat-Nene combo (even in the playoffs) is a clear illustration of the fact that he just wasn’t willing to give in off his basic ideals.

Wittman’s been a late adapter of many tactics that successful teams in today’s NBA are using. I don’t think we saw enough improvement in him to warrant him leading a team that is no longer the hunter, but rather one of the hunted.

The answer to the 2nd question is basically a reflection of my belief from the first one.

Wittman is a nice coach and by all accounts a great guy. He’s done wonders for the team in regards to professionalism and commitment. Despite outside criticism, no player lost a sense of trust in his leadership. Those are clearly the positives.

The flip side is that this is a team ready to compete for Eastern Conference supremacy. Most teams in the conference are either in disarray or are still rebuilding. The time is now to capture pole position and there needs to be new management and coaching in place willing to embrace the strengths of the team and field a top-to-bottom competitive roster that plays modern basketball.

In my opinion, both of those roles will be found outside of the organization and not within.

Osman (@obtoojiveforyou): Randy Wittman should be back as the Washington Wizards head coach.

This runs counter to what I said and suggested throughout the regular season to anyone who would listen but the reality is you can’t fire a head coach who has lead his team to the Eastern Conference Semifinals in back to back years, especially when you factor in the injury to John Wall.

Sure, the injury to Wall seems like a cop out, but what team can withstand an injury and 3 missed games by their best player and hang in there with the top seed in their conference?

Wittman’s ability to get this team to rally and compete is admirable.

It’s why this team the last two years seems to thrive under him in the playoffs.

There is no let down or wasted game. A Randy Wittman team battles when the stakes are at their highest. He has earned the opportunity to play out this last guaranteed year on his contract.

Is he a championship level coach? That’s tougher to answer.

Randy Wittman’s biggest problems are his offense and rotations, but at least offensively the Wizards seemed to thrive versus Toronto and in Game 1 versus Atlanta. Was that a tease? Can it be sustainable? Those are the questions.

The last few games in the series versus Atlanta were indicative of the regular season inconsistencies that held this team to below their goal of a 50-win season. In terms of rotations, where was Kris Humphries? It’s as simple as that.

Guys disappear from the rotation and they’re never heard from again. Back to the offense, Randy Wittman seems willing to move towards a stretch lineup with more shooting, but how effective can he be running a system he has little experience with?

If Wittman can successfully modernize his offense, he can become a championship coach. If he doesn’t and this team is forced to win playing half-court basketball, the answer is no.

John (@John_Cannady): Should he be back next year? Yes.

While Randy Wittman had an overall puzzling year as the head coach of the preseason ‘hot’ team of the East, you rarely got the sense that he lost the team or that Ernie Grunfield was looking to make a change and I don’t think that was by accident.

Washington’s franchise player, John Wall, has become one of the NBA’s best point guards under Wittman’s watch and the respect between the two goes a long way in whether he ultimately stays or goes (even though star players never cop to this fact….it’s true).

So in my humble opinion, as long as Wittman has Wall’s endorsement, I feel that he will be the coach of the Wizards. Its no secret that I think Witt sometimes doesn’t get the props he deserves for making the Wiz a formidable opponent when the playoffs roll around.

With that all said, could Wittman do a better job of bringing along younger players, in a word, yes. Could Wittman also recognize sooner that some of his substitution patterns aren’t effective? Yes again. But, in today’s NBA with coaches sitting star players at the end of the year (and sometimes in the middle….ahem Popovich) for ‘rest’, the regular season is becoming less and less important in gauging how good and effective a head coach is.

The real test begins in the postseason where coaching is put under a huge microscope and Wittman has shown (historically so!) that he can get the job done in the playoffs.

Could the Wizards win a championship with him as coach? I think so.

I know the NBA and sports in general aren’t something where you can play the ‘if’ game, but the Wizards were a missed rebound (!) and a tenth of a second away from playing a seriously hobbled Cavaliers team for the chance to go to the NBA Finals.

A most of that came from Wittman making playoff adjustments that he just didn’t (or wouldn’t make) during the regular season.

Even casual Wiz fans knew that going into the Toronto series the Wizards would have to ‘tinker’ with the lineup for them to have a chance in the series.

Well, Wittman responded by changing the lineup to have Pierce play at the four and Otto Porter playing at the three. The thing about the adjustment was that the Wizards looked too comfortable, too quickly for it to just be implemented a few days before the playoffs.

Again, the Wizards players all credit Wittman with making the needed adjustments for them to have had a chance to win. I feel that like players, coaches also get better and learn every year and Wittman is definitely an example of this.

His substitutions got better and tighter and the Wiz were actually running plays that worked (see the two plays that got the Wizards within 3 points in Game 4 at home and was another great play drawn up by Wittman for Pierce to have a clean three to tie the game).

Wittman has created a tough, never give up culture around the organization and was a few breaks from coaching for an Eastern Conference (at the very least) championship.

David (@DJStatman77): Randy Wittman remains a mystery. We’ve had two second round runs, two playoff series wins, and most of us are still not sure whether #PlayoffRandy is real or not.

Is he a dunce, or is he a fox?

To his credit, in four years in charge of this team, we’ve never heard an ounce of dissent from the players, and he certainly seems to have the respect of his troops.

This team made strides this year, even though their regular season record was only up by a couple wins – and I would place the ultimate failings of the Washington Wizards not on Wittman’s shoulders, but on Ernie Grunfeld for putting together the roster he did.

We wanted the Wizards to play a more up-tempo style, to shoot more threes, but in the end they didn’t really have the personnel. That’s not on Randy.

Honestly, I can even get kind of defensive about Wittman.

He may be a combative, shrieking pile of clichés and Hustle Effort, but he’s our combative, shrieking pile of clichés and Hustle Effort. I really want to like him. But then… I think of all the brutal mistakes he made in this postseason run: not having Gortat in at the end of Game 5, the stubborn refusal to play Kris Humphries, Nene getting huge minutes despite playing so poorly that I honestly considered that he might be a hired saboteur.

You know what? He was just the same old Randy. He made some fortuitous lineup changes, to be sure, but the Wizards didn’t go as far as they did remotely because of him.

They went that far in spite of him, went that far because John Wall, Brad Beal and Otto Porter are ballers. Randy is Mark Jackson, and the Wizards need to find their Steve Kerr.

Only then will we be freed.