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Report: Wittman lost Wizards' locker room by playing favorites

Brad Mills / USA TODAY Sports

When a team dramatically underperforms expectations, the coach, fairly or unfairly, is usually the first to fall on their sword. Such was the case for this season's Washington Wizards, who closed the book on the Randy Wittman era after going 41-41 and missing the playoffs.

Given the mountain of injuries that piled up over the course of the season, the flimsy wing rotation, and the fairly ill-fitting roster, most coaches would've struggled to get much more out of the Wizards this season. But Wittman's failings reportedly went beyond mere on-court results.

Wittman's penchant for playing favorites with power forward Nene and backup point guard Ramon Sessions alienated All-Star point guard John Wall and starting center Marcin Gortat, among others, sources told CSN Mid-Atlantic's J. Michael.

The rest of the Wizards were vexed by Wittman's inconsistent approach to player accountability, specifically his "outright refusal to ever call out Nene," Michael reports.

With injuries hampering Nene all season, Wittman was forced to rely more heavily on Gortat, and reportedly constantly berated Gortat for the crime of not being as tough or physical a defender as Nene.

Wittman was also reportedly hesitant to come down on Sessions, even when he'd clearly made a mistake. Wittman "didn't want to mention him by name," and would "blame the mistake on the collective instead of that individual," Michael writes.

Wall, who took plenty of heat from Wittman as the team's leader, resented the double standard.

"If I'm the best player on the team and I can take the criticism, then everybody else can," he told Michael. Wall added, "At the end of the day if everybody is not held accountable from the starting position down - from me to the last person on the bench - if we're not held accountable, if one person wants to do something more no matter what I say as a leader, if he's not backing me up it's not going to work."

An anonymous player told Michael after a Wizards loss, while nodding in Nene's direction: "It was all our fault. He did nothing wrong."

Scott Brooks has only officially been on the job for three days, but he's already got one pretty good example from his predecessor of what not to do.

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