If I coached the Wizards, this is how I would run my rotation....
by John Park Williams on Jan 26, 2011 4:27 PM EST
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Let me preface by saying that it would NEVER happen, so don't waste your comments telling me this. I know it.
Entering this season, I had only one goal for the season: Lose as many games as possible, without allowing JWall to develop bad habits. After the first 10 games, I tweaked it a little: Lose as many games as possible, without allowing JWall or McGee to develop bad habits. I know some people consider it blasphemy to root for the Wizards to lose, but I call it purely rational thinking. I know the NBA has a lottery, and I know that there are plenty of draft busts high in the lottery, and that there are plenty of great players drafted 6-13. I also know that the teams with the worst record rarely wins the lottery. Nevertheless, no one ever chooses to LOSE the lottery. So why not increase our odds? My ideal box score: Jwall puts up 25 pts, 5 rebs, 14 assists, and 4 steals, while McGee puts up 18 pts, 15 rebs, and 4 blocks, while the Wizards lose 100-99.
I know its hard to root for the Wizards to lose, but as the old saying goes, when Yi Jianlian and Cartier Martin are in your 8-man rotation, YI JIANLIAN AND CARTIER MARTIN ARE IN YOUR 8-MAN ROTATION!!! The absolute best we could do this year is the 8 seed, and get humiliated by lEbron and friends. How did that work out for the Bobcats last year? Now is not the time to be making a playoff push. We need to lose, lose, and lose some more. The Cavaliers have locked up the worst record and the guaranteed Top-4 pick, what we need to do is make sure that our record is worse than Detroit, Toronto, New Jersey, Sacramento and Minnesota.
Unfortunately, you can never instruct your players to lose. We want to give JWall as many meaningful minutes as possible to develop experience, while still losing games. This is my suggestion: Only play JWall the first quarter and the 4th quarter. Don't play him the middle two quarters. I would use a youth-leage style rotation, where players play by quarters, not by matchups, or fouls, or anything:
1st Quarter: JWall, NY, Lewis, Seraphin, McGee
2nd Quarter: Hinrich, Cartier Martin, Al Thornton, Blatche, and TRevor Booker
3rd Quater: Hinrich, Shakur, THornton, Blatche and Booker
4th Quarter: JWall, NY, Lewis, Seraphin and McGee.
The goal here is to get John Wall as many quality minutes as possible. Notice, JWall will never be on the court at the same type as Martin, Thornton, or Blatche. The three of them are inefficient, one-dimensional players, who lack the ability to adjust their games to JWall's talents.
The hope is that the tiny 3rd quarter lineup will ensure at least a 10-point deficit starting the 4th quarter. This way, JWall can play every fourth quarter laying it all on the line. He won't be tired, since he hasn't played since the 1st quarter. He can go all-out on defense, pressure the guards, and still orchestrate the fast break against a more-tired opponent. Best of all, if JWall leads us to a comeback, and we win, then its great, because JWall has shown us flashes of brilliance. But if he doesn't and we lose, then thats great too! It allows for a win-win scenario.
If we wind up with the 2nd worst record record, and still pick 5, then so be it, we did the best we could. If we get lucky, and somehow win the lottery, and make a Kwame/Darko/Thbeet level bust selection, then thats on us.
All I know, its better to finish 18-64 than 28-54. We need to lose a lot. We need JohnWall to get meaningful minutes. Why not play him for the 24 most important minutes of the game, and nothing more?
This represents the view of the user who wrote the FanPost, and not the entire Bullets Forever community. We're a place of many opinions, not just one.
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I just don't see this making sense with the starting lineup only playing two quarters.
Even with Wall playing 40 minutes we’re losing anyway especially on the road. This may be a rebuilding year sure, but I wouldn’t treat these 82 games to the extent that we are intentionally trying to lose every game by putting in clearly inept lineups in the third quarter.
If teams figure this out, the opposition would put their best five players in the 3rd quarter especially, and hopefully the game would be out of reach by the end of that quarter since our 2nd quarter lineup doesn’t look too good either. When John Wall comes back in the 4th quarter, he will be playing garbage time against the other team’s bench. It may get the game close once in awhile and force the best guys back, but this isn’t good for his development overall, since Wall ideally should be crushing the backups of opposing teams, and he’ll think he’s all that against the team’s best lineup when he really isn’t yet.
This will further build a losing mentality in future years, and fewer people will want to go to games than right now.
Nothing breeds a winning mentality like winning
If we would make the playoffs it would be a great experience for our young core (Wall, Young, Blatche, McGee, Booker and Seraphin) it would make them hungry for more and we could always get a lottery pick by taking on some salary in a trade or something.
"If you don't shoot, you can't score"
Johan Cruijff
" My psychiatrist just doesn't know what I go through. He is a Lakers fan" Hambonejackson
If we did make the playoffs this year
and we wanted to get a lottery pick through a trade, we’re likely going to have to trade away Nick Young assuming he continues to play well the rest of this year for the 6th-10th pick (relatively) and we’d have to send John Wall packing if we want any pick higher than that, and we’re not trading John Wall obviously. McGee may get us a lower lotto pick just because of his athleticism.
I have said that Nick Young is tradeable as well as McGee, but if we do make the playoffs, while they’ll be hungry for more playoff hoops, is this group good enough to advance in the playoffs? If not, will trading for a lotto pick help us?
I know that was serious...
…but try saying it out loud without chuckling sadly…
by Bullet Nation in Exile on Jan 27, 2011 10:56 AM EST up reply actions
Let me be the first to say,
“Fire Williams!” The players have tuned him out, his rotations are awful, and it just hasn’t worked out.
by disgrunted on Jan 27, 2011 10:15 AM EST reply actions 1 recs
Uhm...who is Williams?
"If you don't shoot, you can't score"
Johan Cruijff
" My psychiatrist just doesn't know what I go through. He is a Lakers fan" Hambonejackson
by Dutch Hoopfan on Jan 27, 2011 12:13 PM EST up reply actions
ahh... my bet
"If you don't shoot, you can't score"
Johan Cruijff
" My psychiatrist just doesn't know what I go through. He is a Lakers fan" Hambonejackson
by Dutch Hoopfan on Jan 27, 2011 2:27 PM EST up reply actions
i have absolutely no sence of humor
"If you don't shoot, you can't score"
Johan Cruijff
" My psychiatrist just doesn't know what I go through. He is a Lakers fan" Hambonejackson
by Dutch Hoopfan on Jan 27, 2011 2:28 PM EST up reply actions
as long as you explain it to JWall, NY and McGee why the rotations are so crazy
who cares if Yi Jianlian or Cartier Martin tune out the coach?
by John Park Williams on Jan 27, 2011 1:42 PM EST up reply actions
the parity between the 6 worst teams just scares me
Cleveland, Minnesota, Sacramento, Toronto, Washington, New Jersey are all positioning themselves for the lottery.
I don’t see what good will come out of being the 26th best team in the league, as opposed to the 29th.
We are a lot better than our record indicates, and it scares me to death.
Note the Golden State Warriors.
2003: picked 11th
2004: picked 11th
2005: picked 9th
2006: picked 9th
2007: picked 8th
2008: picked 14th
2009: picked 7th
2010: picked 6th
Current Record: 19-26, only 6 games better than the Wizards.
Note the Indiana Pacers
2005: picked 17
2006: picked 17
2008: picked 11
2009: picked 13
2010: picked 10.
Current Record: 16-26, three games better than the Wizards.
In the NBA, if you are going to be bad, you are better off being really, really, bad. I am terrified of the Wizards winning games they shouldn’t be winning, and us fooling ourselves into thinking that JWall can actually win with the players currently on our roster. We can’t. We need Terrance Jones. Or Jared Sullinger. Or Perry Jones.
Those guys wont be available after pick 7
by John Park Williams on Jan 27, 2011 1:56 PM EST reply actions
Look at the Nets
They had the worst record last yr. wich gave them a 25% change to land John Wall the #1 pick. It also ment they had a 75% not to. Obviously all the losing, all the agony ment noghting in end as they ended up with the 3rd pick. It is just not worth it.
I’m not saying we will make the playoffs but i think we should play to win, always.
We can always trade up by packaging an expiring like Hinrich with our first rounder for a bad contract and a top 10 lottery pick for example.
"If you don't shoot, you can't score"
Johan Cruijff
" My psychiatrist just doesn't know what I go through. He is a Lakers fan" Hambonejackson
by Dutch Hoopfan on Jan 27, 2011 2:36 PM EST up reply actions
well im sure the nets are a lot happier with derrick favors
than the golden state warriors are with ekpe udoh. Obviously, the lottery leaves a lot of it to luck. But math is math. Chances favor the worse teams. There is nothing to lose with helping your odds.
The Wizards won 26 games last year. The Pacers won 32. We got John Wall. They got Paul George. Do you really think Pacers fans wouldn’t trade those six wins for John Wall??
as far as trading up, teams rarely trade out of the Top 5. the last team to do was the Wizards, and we know how well that worked out. Off the top of my head, I can’t remember the last team, other than the Wizards, to trade out of the Top 5.
by John Park Williams on Jan 27, 2011 2:50 PM EST up reply actions
All i am saying is
there is a pretty good change that we don’t end up with a top 3 pick, what ever record we end up with. If that is the case, i am all for playing to win and worry about trading up later.
"If you don't shoot, you can't score"
Johan Cruijff
" My psychiatrist just doesn't know what I go through. He is a Lakers fan" Hambonejackson
by Dutch Hoopfan on Jan 27, 2011 3:09 PM EST up reply actions
but the chance of ending up with a top 3 pick is appreciably higher if you are the 2nd worst team in the league
as opposed to the 6th.
In March, we play the Warriors twice, the Clippers twice, the Timberwolves, Pistons, Raptors, and Nets. Thats 8 games versus lottery-bound teams. If we go 8-0, we will forget it by April, and will have worse odds in the lottery come May.
Winning now makes no sense. Im sorry.
by John Park Williams on Jan 27, 2011 3:41 PM EST up reply actions
We got four playoff berths in a row with that trade of Devin Harris in 2004
reuniting Jamison with Arenas and we were a promising team that could have went to an Eastern Conference Finals if not better (with luck), not to mention our first playoff series win in over 20 years, so I think it was a good trade for our team. Dallas continued to reap 50 win seasons with Harris and they got to the Finals in 2007. They benefited as well from it.
There were other teams that traded out of the Top 5. Detroit had the No. 2 pick in 2003, which was originally from Memphis but this move was from back in 1996…
In 2002, Tyson Chandler was picked by the Clippers as the No. 2 pick and he was traded to Chicago. Pau Gasol was picked by the Hawks as the No. 3 pick and he was traded to Memphis. In 1999 the No. 2 pick, Steve Francis was traded from the Vancouver Grizzlies to the Houston Rockets, after he bitched about playing in Canada. Jonathan Bender was the No. 5 pick also in 1999 where the Raptors picked him, but he was traded to Indiana. In 1998 when the Toronto Raptors traded the No. 4 Pick, Antawn Jamison for the Golden State Warriors who had the No. 5 pick, Vince Carter. It’s happened a bit in the late ’90’s to early 2000’s, but maybe not in recent memory.
I'm sorry you've had to spell it out
Yes. Yes, you are absolutely in every way correct. We need to lose, and lose often.
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