Washington Wizards: Is A Coaching Change Needed?

The Washington Wizards are floundering, but is it too soon for a coaching change?

The Washington Wizards are currently riding a four-game losing streak after losing Saturday night on a buzzer-beating corner three from Cory Joseph. Their record is now 6-8 as they sit in the 11th spot of the Eastern Conference. This certainly wasn’t the ideal start coming into this season after being considered one of the teams in the conference to make a push to contend.

To most, it is entirely too early in the season to make any changes to either the roster or coaching staff, but the way the Wizards are losing may call for an exception.

Tensions began to stir before the losing streak occurred. It was Nov. 13 and the Wizards had just been humiliated the Oklahoma City Thunder 125-101 at home. Marcin Gortat had a lackluster performance on the glass only grabbing three rebounds in his 27 minutes of play. Head coach Randy Wittman thought it was appropriate to make comments to the media about Gortat’s performance:

"“I might as well stick four guards and a center out there and play, because we’re getting beat on the boards with my supposed big men out there.”"

Gortat responded the next day frustrated by his coach’s comments:

"“I don’t think it was necessary to call me out in the media like that. But it happened. I heard a different story in training camp, that stuff like that won’t happen. But it happened. So I disagree with what he did.”"

It seems as if training camp was the cause of the Wizards’ struggles. Throughout the offseason, it was clear that Wittman would make the change of style to uptempo and shooting more threes, which is the way they played in last year’s playoffs that amounted to great success. Training camp consisted of non-stop offensive drills where there was massive emphasis on pace and space within the sets.

So far this season, the Wizards have scored 100+ points in 7-of-14 games. Their points per game has increased from last season, but only by 0.7 points per game (99.2 PPG). For as much emphasis that was put on scoring and pace during training camp, it would be logical to see it carry over into the numbers and ultimately, wins.

The reason for the Wizards’ struggles is effort on the defensive end. The difference between this year’s team and last year’s is obvious by how many uncontested layups opponents have when facing Washington, and the numbers show it as well.

Last season, the Wizards ranked 10th in scoring defense, allowing 97.8 points per game. Throughout the 14 games this season, they are allowing 105.1 points per game, ranking 24th in the league.

No matter how offense-oriented the NBA game becomes, teams still must rely on solid defense to secure victories. Defense isn’t something one can preach to his team and expect results. Just like anything, it needs countless repetitions to ensure perfection on things such as rotations and reactions to certain pick-and-roll sets.

The temptation to give into panic mode early in the season seems quite easy in this particular situation. It’s obvious that something is wrong within the team and eyes fall directly to Wittman. Is he doing all he can to make this team the best it can be? Is he playing certain players in the right situations?

After blowing a nine-point lead to Indiana and losing, John Wall began making his frustrations known, questioning what Wittman had in mind with the rotation early in the fourth quarter:

"“If I sit until the seven-minute mark, cool, at least I feel like Brad should’ve been in because now at least one of us is creating shots for somebody and we also can take over a game at the same time.”"

The losses have been impacting the overall sense of the locker room, which can be a killer for any organization. Gortat had a solid effort, putting together a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds, but he is never satisfied unless the Wizards are on the winning end of the game. He addressed the media describing the overall feel of the locker room:

"“We got to cut the negativity that we have coming from players, coaches, staff, media. We just got to cut that,” said Gortat. “It’s not even fun coming here anymore. It’s so much negativity. I understand we’re losing games but damn, we just got to cut that right now. It’s not fun at all.”"

These type of words are not what the head coach or front office wants to see in print, but Gortat has always been transparent as a player, so he tells it how it is. The underlying problem could sit with Wittman’s coaching, but it wouldn’t be right to part ways with him at this point.

The Wizards experienced a similar slump midseason last year and were able to get back in the swing of things heading into the playoffs. The only problem is, they need to right the ship in a hurry to even be considered as a playoff team this season, and it starts up at the top with Wittman.

Next: NBA Power Rankings: Week 5

If the slump carries well into December, his seat will become even hotter. But for now, it is only right to see if he can get his players to commit more on the defensive side of the ball, which should result in more victories.