Woodson will return as Coach

[BornandDieHawks]

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Woodson will return as coach

By SEKOU SMITH

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 04/20/06

Hawks general manager Billy Knight said Thursday that Mike Woodson will return for a third season coaching the team he took over in July 2004.

"Woody's status is fine," Knight said when asked by the Journal-Constitution what Woodson's status was as the Hawks head into the summer after a 26-56 season. "He's going to be coaching the team again. I think he's done a good job with the team. You can see improvement all the way through, both with the team and with individual players.

"I evaluate coaches by just a few things. Does that guy's team play hard? Yeah, I think they play hard. Did they improve throughout the year? I think we improved throughout the year. Are they organized and structured out there? Yes, I think they are. So those are the three basic things I use to evaluate a young coach in this league to begin with, and certainly a coach that is here with us who has a team in a rebuilding situation, which is where we are."

Woodson survived a tumultuous 2-16 start, that was preceded by the Oct. 15 death of Hawks backup center Jason Collier, by guiding the Hawks to 13 more wins than they had a year ago.

After conducting exit interviews with his players Thursday, Woodson said the subject of his job security was never raised. The collective focus of the franchise, he said, needs to be on the players taking the "next step."

"I think we withstood a lot of adversity at the beginning of the year, that's all I will say," said Woodson, who has compiled a 39-125 record during his Hawks tenure. "And as a coach I'll never concern myself about my job status. I'll never do that. I have too much pride in what I do as a coach. And I think whatever happens is going to happen.

"A lot of things you can't control in this league. But the thing that I can control is how I approach my job each and every day I come to work. And I'll never give an owner or a GM any out to say I'm not doing my job. Because I try to work my [tail] off and my staff works the same way to make sure that we prepare to play basketball.

"Sometimes, things don't work out the way you plan. That's what happened at the beginning of the year. We just couldn't win during that stretch ... but I don't wake up and go to bed every night worrying about my job or being fired."

Knight said Woodson's unwavering approach and refusal to lean on any of the aforementioned factors as the cause for the team's lack of on-court success, bolstered his standing.

"Was he willing to adjust as the year went on? Yes he did do those things, he adjusted and adapted to what we had," Knight continued. "Did he use any excuses when there were injuries and we didn't have enough big men out there for him? He didn't make any excuses for anything all year. I'm happy with him, and with a young coach and his development, too. He's growing every day. He's a better coach today than when we hired him two years ago. He's going to be a better coach tomorrow than he is today.

"Does he do everything right? No, he doesn't do everything right. Has he made mistakes? Yeah, he's made mistakes. But let he who has not erred cast the first stone." (Knight would not elaborate on the Woodson's mistakes.)

A similar sentiment was echoed by Woodson's players as they exited the locker room on their way to summer break.

"I love Wood as coach, I think we all do," said Hawks co-captain Joe Johnson. "We just have such a young team. And its tough, it's a tough situation for him because as a coach in this league if you're team is not doing well it ultimately reflects on you."

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Woodson has at least one more to get us to the playoffs

[Lascar78]

That's cool, but BK has supported Woody from day 1. Does this mean that the owners told him he'd return, or is it just BK's opinion that Woody should return?

[BornandDieHawks]

I think BK is safe and he knows it. Plus the owners are too involved with Belkin right now.

[gsuteke]

i'm sure he only wants the team back now so he can personally give the ax to Billy Knight

[Lascar78]

maybe I didn't make myself clear.

What I mean is, it is entirely possible for BK to say that Woody is doing a great job, and that we should keep him, BUT, for the owners to say "sorry BK but we're going to have to agree to disagree, and we're firing Woody".

Earlier in the season BK talked the owners out of firing Woody. So for him to say now that Woody has done a good job is not important to me, because Woody is his buddy and he's always supported him. What's important is whether the owners agree, because at the end of the day they can fire Woody despite BK's objection.

BK says Woody stays. But is that his just personal opinion, or does he know that the owners agree at this point? That is the question I have

[GST]

I seriously doubt BK would have publicly said this if he didn't already know that the owners were on board. To do so would be putting himself in danger of getting fired if the owners wanted to get rid of Woody.

[chillzatl]

I think we know BK well enough that if he was put in a position where his decision making power as GM was ignored, he would walk away. He's said as much before.

Woodson deserves his job and most people who pay attention at more than the record can see that.

[Lascar78]

I suppose that's probably true. But the question is, is this BK publicly vouching for Woody and basically warning them not to fire him, or is it a sign that he knows all is well and the owners agree to keep Woody.

I'm probably overanalyzing here. Given BK's tight lips, BK saying Woody stays probably means Woody is staying. I'm fine with that. Give him one year with a real roster to see what he can do. After what I would consider a horrible first year and a half, Woody showed significant progress in the last half a season.

[TnDawg]

I would venture to trust that BK has the backing of the owners on this one. Think about it, who else would they possibly bring in? No seasoned coach, in their right mind would agree to come here, with the threat of Belkin hanging over their head. I know they could be signed to a long term contract, but Belkin would clean house of anyone brought in by the current regime. He would strip our team bare. Also, wasn't Woody signed to a three year deal. Given the improvement of the team he deserves to come back. As long we improve our inside game during the offseason, I believe we will make the playoffs.

On another note, I want us to keep JJ and Grundy as our guards. Lue,Salim,and Ivey can all be included in a trade package with Al to improve our team. If Lue and Salim are back next year I won't complain, but Ivey should have played his last game.

[Weez]

the owners were also quoted much earlier in the year that the one thing that they really 'took to heart' in polling other owners about how best to run a successful franchise...was to hire good basketball people and then let THEM make the decisions ~ the owners all agreed with this sentiment..thus I think the call is solely at BK's discretion...

[Plainview1981]

Another 30 win season is in store... If Woody was doing such a good job the team wouldn't be giving up 102PPG. That's bad coaching plain and simple.

[chillzatl]

you're such a noob.

[Vol4ever]

Why are you blasting hotlanta's post. That is his opinion. Not everyone on this board is on the BK and Woody bandwagon.

There are so many on this baord who totally get blasted if they are not in line with the current management. Walter and myself have been around for a long time as have others. I will call it like I see it with this team. The organization is losing money and the ownership is a total screwup.

[Plainview1981]

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Why are you blasting hotlanta's post. That is his opinion. Not everyone on this board is on the BK and Woody bandwagon.

There are so many on this baord who totally get blasted if they are not in line with the current management. Walter and myself have been around for a long time as have others. I will call it like I see it with this team. The organization is losing money and the ownership is a total screwup.

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I could careless what he thinks anyway. Billy Knight says the team gave effort. Teams don't give effort and still give up 102PPG. These are the long athletic players Billy visioned aren't they? Yet, their the second worst defensive team in the league... Maybe one of the worst in NBA history.

8 times the team gave up 115 poitns or more... Several other times they gave up 110 points or more.

[TheDude]

noone on this board can tell me that with another coach, we would have done a better job..look at larry in NY...you have to have the players also...you don't win by changing coaches every two years as we have...it's just plain ignorant to think so..

[Plainview1981]

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noone on this board can tell me that with another coach, we would have done a better job..look at larry in NY...you have to have the players also...you don't win by changing coaches every two years as we have...it's just plain ignorant to think so..

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Wouldn't have been 3 coaching changes since 1999 if the team would have got a good coach the first time. Who really thought Lon Kruger was going to be successful?

[Diesel]

I'm not so quick to agree.

You point out LB.. But what about guys like D'Antoni, Karl, Phil Jackson, Mike Fratello....

There are some guys with the experience to overcome some of our youthful problems while at the same time having the ability to motivate.

I think Phoenix's coach would have done a good job with this team.

I think that we all saw that as our guys were growing as players, Woody was growing as a coach. I would venture to say that some mistakes were coaching mistakes but hopefully as Woody grows to the level of some of these other guys, we will have less of those.

I'm not against Woody having his 3rd year.

Hell, with the turmoil of our ownership, we probably couldn't get a good coach in here right now anyway.

I say it's just best to keep Woody.. Finish the Belk thing once and for all, then we can start to think about what to do next.

Plus.. I doubt our owners have the money just to fire Woody and our players still want to play for Woody. Even Al.

[AHF]

I agree that other coaches could have won more with this team (although not a ton more) but nobody was going to turn this team into a great defensive unit given the youth and lack of interior D on the roster. The best statistical improvement someone could have gotten would be to pull a Van Gundy and slow the pace of the game down to a crawl to artificially reduce the opponent's scoring by limiting the number of possessions.

[chillzatl]

Not watching the games, looking at the season stats and saying "this team gives up 102ppg, that means the coach sucks" makes him a NOOB. Why? Because you don't watch the games, you don't see the progress that was made and you make an off the hip comment based on one stat. A stat that is only about 3ppg off the league average and is withing 2-3 ppg of several teams that are in the playoffs. Hell, Dallas was a 50 win team giving up more per game than we are this year. So using that as a reason for saying the coach sucks, makes him a noob.

So don't pretend that I'm blasting him for not being on some imaginary bandwagon. I'm blasting him for making a statement based on stupid circumstance. It's on par with me calling someone an idiot becuase they own a red shirt. That type of commentary has been his M.O for years.

[frosgrim]

According to Bernier Mulin this morning Woody is the coach for next year.

Another interesting statement from Mulin was that the Thrashers lost because of the goal tending, but then made the anology that if the Hawks had lost JJ or Zaza that the Hawks would be in the same place. I found it interesting that Mulin puts Z as one of the two top players in terms of importance for the Hawks.

Mulin did spell out what he expects from the Hawks next year, the playoffs and an increase in our player talent pool. He said BK must bring in more players to make the system work for Woody. In essence, Woody hasn't had a team that is good enough for the owners and Mulin to make a good judgement on his ability to coach.

I don't agree with Mulin on this, Woody has made too many mistakes in management to keep him around, but I do understand the idea that he needs more of a team to work with for a "true" judgement to be made.

In sum, BK's job is on the line. He has to bring in the correct players THIS summer for the team to make the playoffs. If he doesn't then the team will go in another direction.