A Washington Wizards Eulogy: Randy Wittman

By David Statman | Apr 15, 2016

Mar 30, 2016; Sacramento, CA, USA; Washington Wizards head coach Randy Wittman on the sideline against the Sacramento Kings during the first quarter at Sleep Train Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports /

Washington Wizards Eulogy: Wittman

Friends, we are gathered here today to mourn together.

After a season that descended into utter anarchy, with Garrett Temple starting over 40 games, pace-and-space being born and then dying immediately, Alan Anderson being paid over $300,000 a game and his team missing the NBA playoffs – Randall Scott Wittman has been fired as head coach of the Washington Wizards.

Some may say that this is a cause for celebration.

Randy Wittman was an inflexible numbskull, a rookie-benching, irascible long-two merchant who was never going to take a team to a championship in any conceivable timeline.

But today I mourn, because Randy Wittman was the best coach the Washington Wizards have had in my lifetime.

Think about it: Randy Wittman lasted four and a half years in Washington, and he was never even hired as head coach. Wittman was the lead assistant in the hilariously tragic and doomed Flip Saunders era, and when Saunders (Rest in peace, Flip) was justly canned in January 2012, Wittman took over as interim.

But Randy proved to be no mere Eddie Tapscott.

In fact, Randy Wittman did something exceedingly rare in the NBA: operating as an interim coach in a remarkably tenuous situation, he managed to infuse his team with a new identity and state a successful case for being kept around. For FOUR MORE YEARS.

No one will ever mistake Randy Wittman as a rah-rah kind of coach.

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He has no time or patience for youthful japes, fun and games or Lapdance Tuesdays.

Coaches like him often wear out their welcome in the NBA – in a more ideal situation, they come to a team where they’re needed, whip them into shape, then wear out their welcome.

The Washington Wizards in 2012 were one of the latter.

Wittman was perfect for the job.

He brooked no bullshit, immediately sending a message to the team’s biggest problem child, Andray Blatche, by sitting his ass on the bench.

He then performed a feat that, even today, seems nothing short of miraculous: he infused a defensive ethic into a team that hadn’t played defense since the 1970s, turning the Wizards into a top-10 defense virtually overnight behind a juiced-up John Wall, rim protector extraordinaire Emeka Okafor and Length God Trevor Ariza.

The next year, Randy Wittman was tasked with returning the Washington Wizards to the playoffs. He succeeded, and then did the predictors one better by riding Nene and Trevor Booker (Remember when Trevor Booker won the Wizards a playoff series?) to a resounding first round win over the Bulls.

Let’s remember the Randy Wittman Era as ending right there.

Forget about last year’s second half collapse, John Wall breaking his hand, Kelly Oubre and Otto Porter riding pine, the entire 2015-16 season – really everything from October of 2014 on.

If you ignore that, what do you have? A coach that changed the culture of a joke franchise and restored them to a level of legitimacy. If he had ridden into the sunset after the Bulls series, you’d find nary a soul who would utter a bad word about Randy Wittman.

Randy Wittman was tactically retrograde and criminally shortsighted. But he was also the best coach the Washington Wizards have had since Gene F’n Shue.

You have to consider that the Wizards didn’t hire Wittman to win a championship. They didn’t hire him to make the playoffs or get a winning record. They didn’t hire him at all.

Next: Why the Wizards Shouldn't Hire Thibs

Randy Wittman was supposed to just exist for four months, until the Wizards got a real coach. He ended up making them winners again. If only for a few moments, Randy Wittman was exactly what the Wizards needed – no matter how it ended.

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