NBA Playoff Contenders and Pretenders

Here is a short and incomplete list of who would do a better job of coaching the Washington Wizards than Randy Wittman:

• Walt Whitman
• Dick Whitman
• An actual wizard
• Mongo from Blazing Saddles
• Myself
• Proposition Joe from The Wire (he coached East Baltimore against Avon Barksdale and West Baltimore in season one, and he won the game even after Avon brought in a college star from out of town! It’s too bad Prop Joe is fictional. He wouldn’t even have to travel very far.)
• A robot that has just learned the concept of love and can’t comprehend the complexities of an NBA offense.
• Scott Brooks

… and so on.

Randy Whitman has been the philosophical purveyor of the offensive system that calls for his Wizards to all try to stuff into the lane at once and hope against hope for John Wall to figure something out for an offensive play. The result has been for the Wizards to collapse down the stretch. With the Eastern Conference wallowing in the primordial stages of basketball sophistication, the Wizards were never punished much in the standings for their collapse

In fact, they get the benefit of playing against the also shaky Toronto Raptors in the first round of the playoffs. While the starting five for the Wiz ideally give Washington the advantage, the Raptors have better depth and spacing, allowing them to advance to the second round.

It won’t matter who ends up winning this series, as the winner will likely fall in the next round to the Atlanta Hawks. But the Wizards have the personnel to compete deep into the playoffs. But they altogether lack the cohesion and scheme to go anywhere.

Next: Cleveland Cavaliers