FanPost

Swimming Upstream in Wittman's Offense...

Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports

Midway through the devastatingly terrible loss to the Bulls, I posted a comment comparing Wittman's offense to "Swimming Upstream":

I don't know if someone else has made this comparison,

But Randy’s offense, and even his defense to a certain degree, almost makes his players swim upstream.

To me, it seems like other teams have to exert so much less effort in order to get their looks. But with the Wizards, if they aren’t giving maximum effort, then they struggle.

Like swimming up stream…

This isn't a new concept to anyone on Bullets Forever or for anyone who has watched the Wizards play in 2015. It's clear to even the most casual observers of NBA games. The Wizards always look like they are expending maximum effort to get the same shots that other teams seem to get in their sleep or at least with minimal effort. Just think of the Beal/Nene hand off play. Imagine how much energy it takes for Beal to make that many cuts in order to shoot a contested long two.

Meanwhile, the Bulls and the rest of the league run plays like this:

Did you see how Brooks just dribbled the ball to the right corner to set up the play? Did you see how casually Noah waltzed over, set a weak screen, and slowly popped to receive ball? See how casually Dunleavy runs over to Noah? How casually he jumps to take that 3pt shot? The entire play REEKS of calmness.

If the Wizards ran that same concept it would inevitably start with Beal cutting across the baseline through multiple screens and Wall passing to a big, who passes it back to Wall, just to set up the floor to run the play. And there is no chance Beal makes his cut as calmly as Dunleavy, Randy would probably have him run 360° around the arc at full speed to receive that pass and then Beal would stress fracture his leg just trying to plant at full speed and elevate to take the same shot.

OH WAIT.

Why did the ball have to go from Wall to Nene to Pierce to Gortat back to Wall, WHO BARELY MOVED? As noted in this Deadspin Article, those four passes could have been accomplished by John just bringing the ball down the other side of the court. Also, did you see Beal set an irrelevant screen on Noah? As demonstrated by the Bulls, the same result can be accomplished involving three players and two passes. What's worse is that this is our first play out of halftime. That means that this was ALL SCRIPTED. Randy consciously picked this play to be opening scene of the 2nd half. No wonder we always come out of half time brain-dead.

If that wasn't bad enough to watch, here are some stats to make you feel bad and support my "Swimming Upstream" analogy.

The offensive scheme is so bad, that even when the Wizards shoot a decent FG% they still lose. The Wizards have only won 6 of 24 games when they shoot between 39% and 48% FG% (NBA Stats). Of those 6 wins, three times the Wiz shot higher than 40% from 3pt and one time they shot 53% from 3pt (good lord!). The other two wins were against Detroit (23-36) and Orlando (19-42).

Comparing the above to the three teams above (Raptors, Bulls, Cavs) and three teams below (Bucks, Heat, Nets) the Wizards in the Eastern Conference Standings gives us the following:

W-L Record when shooting between 48% and 39% from the field:

Team W L PCT
Raptors 22 16 0.579
Bulls 20 13 0.606
Cavs 15 16 0.484
Wizards 6 18 0.250
Bucks 16 17 0.485
Heat 10 16 0.385
Nets 11 20 0.355


The Wizards are the bottom of the pack in this one. Basically, when the Wizards don't shoot greater than 48% (which is better than what the Warriors (47.7%) and Hawks (46.6%) average) then they don't stand a very good chance of winning. Not to mention, in FOUR of the above 6 wins, the Wizards shot above 40% from 3.

What does all of this mean?

The above numbers re-confirm that Randy Wittman's offense is terrible. The plays and shot selections that he is coaching the players to make lead to an extremely uphill battle. The team has to shoot with the BEST FG EFFICIENCY IN THE LEAGUE in order to win at a consistent level.

As we all know,

It is time to move on from Randy.

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.