8 Comments

Much of this is plausible, but it seems very unlikely the Wizards fire Keefe.

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I don't know that it's necessarily *likely* but "interim coach who seemingly gets the full-time job almost by default because the players said they liked him" is not usually a recipe for success (look at the Raiders in the NFL, for example) and the team should be quite bad. I could see Winger and Dawkins wanting to do a full search if things go really poorly.

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If things go "really poorly"? "Poorly" for the Wizards would mean winning too many games to qualify for a high lottery pick, the goal of the season. That seems unlikely to happen.

I believe Winger and Dawkins knew Keefe from their time working together on the Thunder years ago; they hired him as an assistant coach for Unseld before the players had a chance to meet him or to decide whether they "liked" him or not. In Dawkins' words, Washington is still in the "teardown" phase of a multiple year rebuilding program. I suspect unless something surprising happens (e.g., the owner deciding he doesn't want to continue with a rebuild), Keefe's job is not in danger this season or next (another good draft year).

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Fair enough.

Like I said, I don't know that it's *likely*, but I can see a scenario where it happens.(And yes, I am aware of both the prior connections and what Dawkins said. (Though I believe the phrasing was "deconstruction phase.") But I don't think it's at all outside the realm of possibility that Ted Leonsis decides to do something rash if the Wizards are historically bad instead of just really really bad — even if they do want to be bad this season.) If that scenario doesn't come to pass; all that happens is that I got a prediction was wrong. That will be the case with a lot of these, I'm sure. It always is.

Either way, thanks for reading. Appreciate ya.

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Sounds about right. I’d go with Chet Holmgren as MIP over J-Will. Cason Wallace should make a big step forward, too. The Thunder are absolutely loaded.

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Chet's an interesting call. Voters are generally just reluctant to give MIP to second-year guys, which Chet technically still is. (And while this confuses me on occasion, too; Jalen Williams the wing is J-Dub and Jaylin Williams the center is J-Will.)

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Sorry, I had my J-‘s mixed up but I may have been right about Chet. That block of Jokic followed by the power slam last night was awesome. If he can get the threes to start dropping he’s going to be something else. Too bad Hartenstein is injured.

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He looked amazing. Hope he gets some more lift on his jumper so those threes do start going down more often.

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