After Elton Brand and the Sixers dumped the Wizards for the third time in a month last night, reports are coming out of the Capitol that they have fired coach Flip Saunders. Interim Coach Randy Wittman (father of Ryan Wittman, who starred on the Cornell team that beat Temple in the NCAA Tourney a few years back) will take over and reports of Albus Dumbledore taking over are unfounded. There's no question that, at 2-15, Flip hasn't been doing a terrific job coaching these guys, but at the same time, they haven't given him the most cohesive unit to work with either.
The firing comes off the heels of a 20-point loss to the Philadelphia Sixers on Monday, the Wizards' third straight. Washington ranks 27th in the league averaging just 88.65 points per game. Their 99.29 points against per game ranks 26th.
Yes, it's quite ugly there. I'm more worried about what switching coaches will do to a young John Wall, who already is lacking for stability in his life. Much of the time the coach gets scapegoated on account of management assembling a bad team, but this time it seems like both. Yes, the Wizards are terrible, but there's talent there and theoretically, a "good coach" should be able to get more out of them.
Either way, the Sixers are in part responsible for this. At the very least, they could have let these games be somewhat close - beating them by over 21 points per game was pretty damn inconsiderate. I think has repayment, we should give them back Eddie Jordan. Does re-gifting apply in coaching changes?