Posts tagged ‘Coaching’

It’s far from the dazzle of Michael Jordan or Jaromír Jágr, or even the marketing buzz of Midnight Madness or red carpets and police escorts for the 2010 No. 1 Draft Pick — all past pursuits of Washington Wizards owner Ted Leonsis.

It’s just Randy Wittman returning as head coach. The team officially announced the moderately-anticipated news on Monday. The press conference received maybe 30-percent the media fanfare that a bigger name coach (like a Jerry Sloan, a Stan Van Gundy, a Nate McMillan, or a Mike D’Antoni) would have garnered. It was poker faces slow-playing low expectations.

Familiarity is the opposite of the buzz that budding pro sports owner Leonsis became associated with; now more familiar with the institution, dealing with realities such as economics, the choice of Wittman to helm his team’s hardwood action flies well below the radar. Familiarity is now one of the talking points of Wizards team president Ernie Grunfeld when going over the merits of just the second head coach he’s hired during a nine-year tenure in D.C.

Actually, management has made it clear that Wittman, and staff, were already under contract. Grunfeld’s only new hire has been Flip Saunders.

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[UPDATE: It seems the Wizards are actually working on bringing back Wittman for two seasons, per reports. There's also a quote from a "source" via the Post's Michael Lee that this is "completely a money decision." And while I won't deny that the financial situation could be a factor, to say it's "completely" about money, whomever is saying that, is B.S. And who is saying that anyway? An agent because a job opportunity for a coaching client isn't open like they had hoped? Maybe, maybe not, but B.S. nonetheless, at least in this writer's opinion.]

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We’ve heard enough hints about Randy Wittman returning to coach the Washington Wizards, wiped free from the interim tag, that we really don’t need a national report, according to league sources, from ESPN’s Ric Bucher to tell us so.

“…even though no official announcement is expected anytime soon,” concludes Bucher’s first sentence announcing Washington’s plans to retain Wittman.

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STOP:

First go read part one of my piece on Nolan Ricahrdson, then read below …

Richardson understands he signed up for full-on rebuilding mode, in the WNBA, and seems dedicated to getting Tulsa off to a good start. But his personal transition to coaching the women’s game has also been a challenge.

“In the female game, it’s more patterned. A goes to B, B goes to C, you know, pick and pop and those kind of things,” Richardson told me. “In the male game, it’s more you can get after people like we did at the end there where we got into our scramble defense. We normally do a lot of that with the men’s game, in the women’s game you can’t play that way.”

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Once, when asked about what his team would look like in the coming season, whether it would be more offensively minded, and how it would keep up the intensity on the defensive end, Flip Saunders said:

Well, defensively, the team always takes the personality of their players. The players we have here … are very defensive oriented. The strength of this team from a defensive aspect – how hard they play and how aggressively they play won’t change. What will change is the changing defenses we’ll use, being able to change the tempo of the game will full-court pressure, half-court traps and defenses. Offensively, like our defense, we will always stay aggressive. I always want my teams to attack, and so we will look to push the ball more and score more out of our fast break.

And on whether he would try to evolve a player into a superstar or continue with the teamwork mentality:

In Minnesota, even though we had a great player in Garnett, the team was built on team play. I look for this team to continue that. This team will move the basketball, become a high-assist, low-turnover team playing a very aggressive style.

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While Ted Leonsis was getting all the attention today, and deservedly so, there’s also a team being built. Flip Saunders usually isn’t made available to the media before or after pre-draft workouts, so today’s press conference was a good chance to catch up with Saunders and get his thoughts on the process leading up to June 24th.

I asked Flip, with John Wall reportedly set to workout for the Wizards on June 17th, if they’ve scheduled Evan Turner or any other top prospect. So far, the Wizards have hosted more on-the-cusp players who might be available at 30 and 35 or go undrafted.

Saunders deferred to Milt Newton, vice president of player personnel, but later indicated that the Wizards have talked to Turner’s people. The coach also said the Wizards would probably have seven more days of pre-draft workouts with five or six guys each day.

On the process of trying to get players to come workout, Saunders said: Read more »

There were several interesting quotes from the Wizards about themselves in Michael Lee’s report from Minneapolis on Wizards Insider. I’m unsure if it’s more frustrating that they actually realize what they’re doing wrong. Let’s first read a quote from Flip Saunders:

“Guys have to be disciplined. They have to be willing to turn down a shot at time. Tonight, we had no shot discipline. Tonight, it was, ‘I haven’t taken a shot, so I’m going to shoot it.’ when you do that, you shoot 38 percent from the field.”

A reoccurring theme … the players not trusting, or deviating from, Saunders’ offense. Lets see what Antawn Jamison had to say:

“We played selfish basketball at times. On the road, you can’t do that. I don’t care who you’re playing against.”

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Not long after the ‘Design an Inbounds Play For the Wizards’ contest hit the interwebs, there were reports of Flip Saunders doing a Capitol Hill two-step, back-pedaling away like a politician.

“They talked, and we haven’t totally committed on that. It wasn’t an end of the game thing when we talked about it. It was a – if we do it – a how about a first-timeout play of the game. … It was designed to be an interactive thing with the fans, a first quarter you run a play and see what they have. … We’re still playing with the idea of where it really goes.”

[Flip Saunders via Wizards Outlet]

It only took a couple more days for ESPN’s Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy to get to it. During Friday’s Wizards-Warriors broadcast, Jackson started by bringing up the contest and calling it a “joke.” Van Gundy followed with: Read more »

{flickr/Keith Allison}

No, this isn’t a joke … although, with the season going the way it is, you’d think it might be.

But really, what’s the harm in Flip Saunders & Co. using one play selected from a pool of civilian submissions. At this point, it can’t hurt. Right?

The details of the contest, via ESPN, are below … and more can be found by following the link at the bottom. (However, this will take you to an ESPN Insider page, so you might need an account).

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Count on seeing McGee in warmups more than in uniform - flickr/Keith Allison

Amidst Flip Saunders’ talk of an 8-man rotation (well, according to his quote below, really an 8 + 2 rotation), I wanted to attempt to predict the 2009-10 minutes distribution … all the way in August.

My philosophy’s always been you play eight players, nine and ten play when you have some foul trouble which you’re always gonna usually have in a game. -Flip

The idea reflected in my numbers below is that eight players will receive consistent minutes and the ‘plus 2′ can be any combination of the remaining players, given which one, contingent on a number of factors that will be judged by Saunders’ coaching experience, best fits the circumstance.

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When I hear about Flip Saunders saying he’s a teacher before a coach, about how he and his assistants (namely Sam Cassell) have been working with the young guys, that he, being an ‘offensive mind’, has developed a mini-playbook for the summer league team and that he’ll be observing from a close distance on-site in Vegas, I think, “Boy, isn’t that refreshing?”

It’s comforting that a new, veteran coach, known to keep a tight bench and favor elders in his rotation, has arrived in D.C. with the mind-set of bringing along the young fellas. Not only does Flip believe that children are our future, but he practices it, knowing the jobs of both him, and the man who hired him, Ernie Grunfeld, depend on how they develop the team from top to bottom.

Mike Prada recently expressed a similar sentiment regarding Saunders in a pre-summer league post on Bullets Forever.

But in patting Flip on the back for his involvement with the youth, no one should be pointing ‘shame on your’ fingers towards former coach Eddie Jordan. Yes, Jordan used different tactics with his young players. And from the outside perspective/opinion of many (not including myself), those tactics were less than ideal.

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