The Washington Wizards defeated the Brooklyn Nets on Monday night to keep the hope of having a .500 season alive. Unfortunately for the Wizards a .500 season was not the goal this year; the goal was to make the playoffs and make some noise in the playoffs like they have the past couple of seasons.
This Wizards team has a lot of talent, but due to injuries and various other factors they have underachieved and will head into the offseason with a lot of questions. There was a point where it seemed like the Wizards had gotten out of their season-long funk, but for the most part this whole season has been disappointing.
When a team disappoints, like the Wizards have this year, there are usually some changes to be made, and that is no different in Washington's case. Brian Windhorst appeared on Tony Kornheiser's radio show where he said that head coach Randy Wittman will likely be canned after the regular season ends. Windhorst's exact quote was that Wittman is "probably 99 percent getting fired on Thursday morning."
It won't come as a surprise to many Wizards fans that Wittman will likely get the ax considering he has been on the hot seat for most of the year, but it is hard to blame him for this season. Washington has dealt with an inordinate amount of injuries this season which rarely allowed them to have the team they thought they wanted out on floor. Even John Wall, who has missed just four games this season, has played through injury all season so Wittman had a really tough task this year.
In his five seasons with the Wizards Wittman saw the team improve each year until this one. The first year after he took over the team they won just 18 games, but that went up to 29 then 44 and 46 the next three seasons. The 56-year-old coach also won a playoff series in each of the last two seasons in matchups the Wizards weren't expected to win, so while it isn't a surprise Wittman is likely out, it's hard to fault the results he got.
With Wittman likely out the Wizards will now pile a coaching search onto what is already an extremely important offseason for them. Although they were expected to at least be a playoff team, nobody truly thought the Wizards were a title contender. Because of that they need to improve their roster and are expected to be active in free agency. Kevin Durant is the big fish that they hope to get their hands on, but that's a long shot. Bradley Beal is an unrestricted free agent and they need to pay him, but Wizards fans will want to see outside additions as well or this team will likely just be stuck in the middle again.
