NBA players like to know where they stand, and the appreciate a coach and a front office that are up front with them. Be critical of them, just don’t tell them how great they are then never give them a chance.
The latter is how Kevin Seraphin felt with the Wizards — which is why he said he asked for a trade.
Seraphin, now with Indiana on a new contract, spoke with the French newspaper L’Equipe about this, as translated by Hoopshype.“Every year from my second season, I asked for a trade,” Seraphin said. “And every year it was the same thing: ‘We love you, we do not want to see you leave, you have a lot of potential.’ There was even a point when they said, ‘If we do not get an All-Star in return, we will not trade Kevin.’”
"(The year Paul Pierce arrived, 2014-15) may have been the hardest for me because I was really in shape. My playing time fluctuated without reason. I spoke a lot with Paul (Pierce) and John (Wall). And they did not understand. This summer, I met a staff member of the Wizards in a New York restaurant. He said, ‘Your problem is that you got Randy Wittman.’”
That there was some disconnect between Wittman and the front office regarding player use and style of play was fairly obvious. But in a very Wizards way, they let that drag out for a longer than expected time.
It will be interesting to see how much run Seraphin gets in Indiana, where Myles Turner should start at the five and Al Jefferson is going to get minutes as well. Not sure Seraphin is going to love Nate McMillan either, but at least he tends to be up front with players.
