"When Randy Wittman stepped in as a midseason replacement for Dwane Casey in Minnesota on Jan. 23, 2007 — nearly five years to the day before he would be asked to assume the same role in Washington — he thought the job required a massive overhaul of schemes, systems and styles. To make it work, he had to make it his, he thought. He simply made everything too complicated.

"The last time, I tried to invent the game of basketball," said Wittman, who didn't last two full years with the Timberwolves, "and I learned from that.""