We’ve been telling you that it looked like the Wizards were leaning toward keeping Randy Wittman as coach.
Now Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo came through with a few details.
The Washington Wizards are finalizing details on a two-year contract for interim coach Randy Wittman to become head coach, league sources told Yahoo! Sports. An announcement is planned for next week, sources said.
As we have said, this is a safe hire by Washington. Wittman was 18-31 as the interim coach in Washington, which included a six-game winning streak to end the season. He took over 17 games into the season after Flip Saunders got the ax. Wittman had a pedestrian record as the head man in Washington and Cleveland before this. Wittman no doubt connected with and got more out of the roster than Flip, he helped usher in a little more discipline to a young team, but the Wizards were not good either way.
Woj adds this note about the Wizards looking at the bottom line.
The Wizards won’t make a significant financial commitment to Wittman, sources said, and that’s a trend that more franchises are expected to continue. After the NBA lockout, many owners are determined to pay front-office and coaching staffs less money. The Wizards are a big-market team that could’ve successfully competed for higher-profile head coaches available, including Mike D’Antoni, Nate McMillan and Stan Van Gundy, but chose to keep Wittman on a shorter, less expensive contract.
