WASHINGTON -- Randy Wittman spoke more about the Washington Wizards' decision to trade Jordan Crawford to the Boston Celtics, and while he repeated many of the points made at shootaround, he did go into more detail about the decision.
Wittman was asked whether he was disappointed by Crawford's behavior after his benching.
"I'm not going to get into those kinds of things, [but] I do observe that," he said. "That is a big part of being a part of a team. How do you handle adversity. It's important for all our guys. Roles fluctuate. In this business, you've got to stay committed no matter if it's happening good for you or not. That applies to all our guys. Being in this league as long as I have, you see guys that have been in this league 13-14 years just because they took that approach."
I asked Wittman if he would have done anything differently to reach Crawford if he had the chance to do it all over again.
"You always, as a coach, look back and evaluate yourself, evaluate how you evaluate your players, all that stuff. That'll never change with me, whether it's how I conducted a game, how I substituted, how I develop a player, sure. Those are all things you look at," he said.
George Karl was also asked how he'd have handled a player like Crawford, an especially good question because Karl coached J.R. Smith for so many years.
"There's positive energy and there's negative energy. From the recollection that I feel, there was so much negative energy because of the situation and how it was handled, where it was going and how it was coming, he probably made it very difficult for them to keep him on the team. But there is a need for his talent. Being able to score points as quickly as he can score is a really powerful thing," he said.
Karl later added that he and Smith wore each other out after a while because "you're managing negative energy rather than managing positive energy."