Good run at end of season allows coach to lose interim tag
When Randy Wittman was brought to Washington three years ago as the lead assistant coach under Flip Saunders, the Wizards’ mandate was to compete and advance in the playoffs.
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The directive to Wittman after he inked a two-year contract to become Saunders’ permanent replacement isn’t quite as ambitious. The Wizards were satisfied with what they saw out of Wittman during his interim stint last year in which the team went 18-31, and they want him to keep it going.
“There’s a lot of very good people available, I’m sure,” Wizards president Ernie Grunfeld said. “But we felt comfortable in the situation that we were in and the continuity and familiarity, and hopefully we can build on some of the positive things that we were able to gain last year.”
It took Grunfeld and Wizards owner Ted Leonsis five weeks after the end of the season to come to the conclusion that they didn’t need to interview any outside coaching candidates. Apart from meeting with Leonsis for the first time during that stretch, Wittman carried on the way he had during the season — which made sense since he was still under contract.
“I really never put too much thought in it,” Wittman said. “I thought we tried to do as good a job as we could do and move this thing forward as the year went on. I thought our staff, we did as good a job under the circumstances as we could, and the chips fall where they may.”
Wittman was aided by the arrival of Nene at the trade deadline, a move that paved the way for the Wizards to go 11-14 down the stretch. They won eight of their final 10 games, including the last six.
“We’ve got to continue to take the positive steps that we did the last four to six weeks [of last season],” Wittman said. “… There was not the disconnect anymore of maybe individuals trying to do things for themselves. It was a transformation of guys playing together.”
Instead of a lockout, Wittman has an entire summer to keep in contact and work with his young roster. The Wizards haven’t been to the playoffs or finished fewer than 25 games under .500 since 2007-08.
Before that will be the draft, in which Wittman and Grunfeld both backed Leonsis’ comments at last week’s draft lottery that the Wizards intend to keep the No. 3 pick.
“We’ve got to continue to increase the talent level on this team,” Wittman said. “We’re not where we want to be from that standpoint. We’re going to get that at the third pick.”
Wittman was less clear when asked a direct question about the future of Andray Blatche.
“This is an important summer for all our players,” he said. “We’ve got to improve those players and coming into a situation of being in shape this year and ready to go. There’s no excuses for any of us with a full summer. We always talk addition, subtraction, what do you like, dislike about your team and what do you need to improve in, and we’ll continue to do that this summer.”
