ZaZa sent to the showers early by Woody

[TroyMcClure]

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The team played their guts out last night. I don't see any one quitting on anybody. Woody is not the best coach in the world...but I see 110 % effort out their from our guys.

Suspending a sorry player with a bad attitude means very little.

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I don't see the effort you're talking about. Effort is mental and physical.

Can we suspend a sorry coach with a bad attitude. Woody's attitude sucks and this is what happens. He's not Bob Knight. He is totally incompetent at his job. How could any player respect his abilities as a coach?

[Cwell]

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- Shelden is a complet non-factor

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You know it is bad when the Hawks lose to a team led by the guy we passed on for Shelden (Brandon Roy) and no one even bothers to make a post about it.

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The Marvin draft was bad, but last years off-season was one of the biggest stinkers a GM not named I. Thomas has put together in a long time. Terrible does not begin to describe that off-season.

Look at how little BK did with a high lottery pick, a early second round pick and lots of cash:

Sheldon Williams

Salim Stoudamire

Speedy Claxton

Lorenzen Wright

You can't possible get less production then that!

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Solomon Jones not Salim.Salim was picked after Marvin in that 05 draft.

[coachx]

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Is this another indication that Woody has lost control of this team? If he ever had control. Either way it does not bode well for the locker room.

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I was wondering if anyone else was thinking about this. Woody is a terrible communicator, apparently. Without knowing the full story, I'm going to take Zaza's side on this one. What has Woody ever done for us to believe him? I know Zaza isn't the only player that's been pissed with him.

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I guess you did not see the game. ZaZa sucked as usual. No he probably sucked more then usual. I recall him getting his shot blocked twice b/c he has T-Rex arms and the verticle of a turtle.

His play last night was an embarrasment to be associated with the Atl Hawks team last night.

How anyone can take ZAZA side is just beyond me. ZaZa does not deserve more then spot minutes.........Woody gives him the playing time he derserves and gets ripped for it ? Give me a break.

Had Woody left ZaZa in for 25 minutes of playing time you would be bitching about why did Woody play ZaZa so much.

Woody benches ZaZa, puts him in the dog house where he rightfully belongs and you diss him for that too. ZaZa has to see the reality of who and what he really is. ZaZa reminds me of the people who go on American Idol and honest to goodness think tey can sing but REALLY CAN'T. Then judges tell them the reality that they are not meant to be a singing star. Well, Woody has told ZaZa he is not a starter quality NBA Center.............ZaZa does not agree...like the American Idol want to be people who THINK they can sing.

[Lascar78]

Yeah until this year the one thing I have given Woody credit for consistently is keeping all our players motivated through all the losing, which is not easy.

But this year, he seems to be losing even that. Our more important player is clearly not giving his best effort. AJ looks pissed when he's not out there. Zaza is getting suspended for not liking his minutes. Law's biggest asset coming in was his big balls and clutch plays and he has clearly been made to play scared and timidly. Shelden is wondering if he's still on the team. Salim has been going back and forth with Woody the whole time.

[Lascar78]

No one is saying that Zaza should play more. If Woodson was a better leader and communicator he wouldn't have players rebelling on him when he doesn't play them.

[coachx]

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I don't see the effort you're talking about. Effort is mental and physical.

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Anyone who says that deserves no credibility.

Horford and Smith both played their tales off last night banging vs. bigger and taller players. Smith had 17 rebounds and 3 or 4 blocks. You do not do that wihout out hustling your man. Horford had 11 rebounds vs. taller players, you dont do that without effort. Smaller guys out rebound bigger guys by out hustling them.

JJ played his tail off yesterday. Guess you didn't see that either.

Food for thought: If Outlaw's shot had rimmed out we would all be hyping the effort of the come from behind, OT win.

Both teams played with tremendous effort. One of those games where you hate to see them lose but some one has to.

You can critique Woody on alot of things but his players ALWAYSE give effort. That is TRUTH. He may not be the best at giving the rigtt instructions but he does get effort out of his guys.

[coachx]

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No one is saying that Zaza should play more. If Woodson was a better leader and communicator he wouldn't have players rebelling on him when he doesn't play them.

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This blame everything on Woody game is so childish.

ZaZa is a grown man. He should know you don't try an argue with the coach (ESPECIALLY WHEN THE COACH IS RIGHT) in the middle of the game in front of 20,000 people. Its not like ZaZa was playing a good game either. ZaZa played 8.30 minutes with 1 point / 0 rebounds / 0 blocks / 1 foul...no telling how many points were scored agains him or how many rebounds were made against him. After a performance like that how do you argue with the coach ?

Any coach would suspend a player who does this.

Almost every team has a guy like ZaZa who thinks he is better then they truely are and get an attitude about it.

Some people have some serious hatred towards Woody if there going to side with ZaZa and his pathetic performance. After his performance he should have gone to the bench with his tail tucked between his legs in shame not argue with the coach b/c you think your good enough to take minutes from Horford.

[Dexmethylphenidate]

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What a disaster this bench has become.

- Zaza is losing it, and may never see the floor as a Hawk ever again

- Shelden is a complet non-factor

- Salim is pretty much a lost cause

- Lue is an asset and a liability

- Acie is ineffective as a bench player, but comfortable as a starter

- Chill is an asset, the only asset off the bench so far

- Solo deserves time, by default

- West has become the new Royal Ivey

- and Lo Wright is still Lo Wright

- and the former expendible PG at the start of the year, AJ, now gets heavy minutes

LOL . . Horford's consistency from the jump, immeadiately made Zaza and Shelen expendible.

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If AJ stayed healthy or unsuspended, the bench of Acie, Childress, Solo and Mario is pretty good. That's 9 players that play good team ball. I'd bet my money on the Hawks being above .500 if Woody uses those 4 players off the bench.

[Lascar78]

Any single event like this one can be dismissed as not being his fault. But look at the patterns. It's not his fault the players are unhappy. It's not his fault we lose all the time. It's not his fault the players don't rotate on D. It's not his fault Smith shoots 3s. It's not his fault that Joe isn't motivated. It's not his fault that our offense looks like crap. It's not his fault we haven't been running despite having the best bunch of athletes in the league for a couple of years. It's not his fault Law's swagger has been crippled. It's not his fault we have no clue how to adjust when our opponents play zone.

What is he responsible for?

The pattern here is a team that underachieves, that has started to get tired of him.

Yes we were within inches of winning a couple of games. We were withing a couple of coaching decisions of winning them too. The bottom line is we lost them. When Smith comes up with the ball late in the Portland game and Woody calls timeout as Smith is starting a fastbreak to Childress, it possibly cost us the game.

Ok we've won a whole 3 more games than last year at the same point in time, whoopee! This team is underachieving and held back by its coaching. Every little thing may not be his fault, but he is one of the core problems.

[DJlaysitup]

We've had the Salim incident(s), Josh Smith's suspension, Tony D being "Delked" for the year, Shelden and JJ making comments in the news, and more than one player saying things after their departure. One would have to figure that there have been many more incidents that happened in the locker room/practices that we don't know about.

Obviously some guys aren't going to say anything either due to their temperment or their position on the team.

Now I realize that pro teams aren't going to be tension-free tea parties, still there does seem to be a pattern. It makes me wonder how a guy like Nate McMillan can do what he's doing now with the new "youngest team in the league"...plus, a team that suffered what we all expected to be a season crushing injury to Oden.

[AHF]

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- Shelden is a complet non-factor

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You know it is bad when the Hawks lose to a team led by the guy we passed on for Shelden (Brandon Roy) and no one even bothers to make a post about it.

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This has been talked about in length hundreds of times.

Guess that isn't enough for you and others who get off on hearing themselves whine and [censored] about history that cannot be changed.

Don't have too much fun with this one.

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That's kind of my point. Even for the people who killed Shelden before he played his first minute in the NBA, the disparity is so large it isn't fun for them anymore.

[exodus]

The only time it really comes up is when someone starts defending BK. Missing out on Roy is pretty depressing. Watching him a few times his senior year his talent was so obvious to me.

At least with Marvin i can understand that he was seen as the BPA at the time, even it that reasoning was wrong.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

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This blame everything on Woody game is so childish.

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More things Woody is routinely blamed for:

- Salim shooting 32% FG

- Shelden having less impact on a game than Chuck Hayes

- Bernie resigning today

- Influencing the commish to make us replay the Miami game

- The bad play of the Knicks

- The CBA folding . . we all miss the Quad City Thunder

- The Brawl @ the Palace in the DET vs iNDY game . . Woody had on a disguise and threw the cup that started everything

- Heath Ledger overdosing today

- Lil Kim and Martha Stewart going to jail

- Building Skynet . . the US Defense system in the move "Terminator 3", that ends up causing Armageddon

So as you can see, Woody is damn near the anti-christ.

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ZaZa is a grown man. He should know you don't try an argue with the coach (ESPECIALLY WHEN THE COACH IS RIGHT) in the middle of the game in front of 20,000 people. Its not like ZaZa was playing a good game either. ZaZa played 8.30 minutes with 1 point / 0 rebounds / 0 blocks / 1 foul...no telling how many points were scored agains him or how many rebounds were made against him. After a performance like that how do you argue with the coach ?

Any coach would suspend a player who does this.

Almost every team has a guy like ZaZa who thinks he is better then they truely are and get an attitude about it.

Some people have some serious hatred towards Woody if there going to side with ZaZa and his pathetic performance. After his performance he should have gone to the bench with his tail tucked between his legs in shame not argue with the coach b/c you think your good enough to take minutes from Horford.

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Zaza is currently shootng 35% FG . . as a center.

(( taking like Iverson ))

"what we talking about man . . as a center? . . we're talking about as a center . . not a guard . . not a guard . . not a guard . . but as a center . . we're talking about as a center man . . as a center? . . a center? . . we're talking about as a center . . what wr talking about man . . a center."

Lord knows that we're going to miss all of that production from him tomorrow night. When Smoove was shooting sub 40% FG back in Nov., all hell was breaking loose on this board.

[DrReality]

I agree with two points that have been made:

1. Why not suspend Woody for his attitude? Good point. Before they did that he'd get fired.

2. This team is underachieving . . . BIG TIME. They showed their potential in that one spurt but it's been very rocky since then. That's coaching.

[DJlaysitup]

Well this post is borrowed from Rip2137 on another board - therefore I have no idea of it's accuracy (although R did have a reasonable post count).

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"I am not gonna rundown Zaza.

I was at a game where I saw Woody curse out Zaza like he was his pimp or something after he got a entrance pass stolen from him. Then I watch the players as they came out of the time out go up to him and tell him not to worry about it.

Sure, he has had a bad season, but i am just not one of those people that think that a coach should be able to curse out a player and then send him packing if he says something back."

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Hopefully Woody is more professional than to express himself like that during a game. Cussing in practice I certainly understand - but not by the coach at the game.

[TheDude]

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West has become the new Royal Ivey

I think West is what Ivey was supposed to be. West has the speed to guard the 1, size and strength to guard the 2, and always plays with energy. I hope they keep him around.

I would also like to see him on the court more often.

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agree 100%

[exodus]

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2. This team is underachieving . . . BIG TIME. They showed their potential in that one spurt but it's been very rocky since then. That's coaching.

I don't know that they really are underachieving that much. They are undersized and inexperienced. their pgs are two flawed vets that we got cheap from other teams who didn't want them and weren't playing them. Our other option at point is a rookie who has talent but has played pretty tentatively so far.

Horford,Smith and Marvin are all basically the same age and their games aren't remotely polished. Our bench is paper thin (mostly just lame). We are still learning to play as a team and execute consistently.

Even during that winning streak the Hawks flaws showed through very clearly to any of us who didn't get blinded by the W's.

smart team?

We are getting outplayed badly at the point and to a lesser extent at center.

http://www.82games.com/0708/0708ATL5.HTM

Some of it can be put on the coach but not all of it.

To be honest the season is going pretty much as i expected, although i did expect Acie to be playing better and i expected more from the bench.

I also expect something else. Assuming we can hang on during the next month i think the Hawks will play very well in march and april. By then they should have ironed out some of the execution errors, Acie should be getting big minutes, and the Hawks should be making a playoff push. Offensive execution tends to get better later in the year and that is the Hawks big problem.

Plus a lot of the teams we play won't have much to play for and some might be actively tanking.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

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Well this post is borrowed from Rip2137 on another board - therefore I have no idea of it's accuracy (although R did have a reasonable post count).

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"I am not gonna rundown Zaza.

I was at a game where I saw Woody curse out Zaza like he was his pimp or something after he got a entrance pass stolen from him. Then I watch the players as they came out of the time out go up to him and tell him not to worry about it.

Sure, he has had a bad season, but i am just not one of those people that think that a coach should be able to curse out a player and then send him packing if he says something back."

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Hopefully Woody is more professional than to express himself like that during a game. Cussing in practice I certainly understand - but not by the coach at the game.

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Good Lord. Now coaches can't curse at players during a game? If you're athlete, and your coach curses, there's a very high chance that your coach will cuss at you sometimes during a game . . . especially if you keep (( bleepin' )) up . . like Zaza does.

LOL . . the fans can cuss Zaza out. But as soon as the coach does it . . oh no!!! Some of you act like the things Woody does, only he does it.

Quick . . name the NBA player who was sent to the locker room by his coach during a game this season. Also, name the NBA coach who did it

Hint: He is a well respected coach, and is known to cuss at his players, because that coach don't take any ish off of anybody.

Zaza is just a weak-minded individual that thinks he's much better than he really is. Remember guys, Zaza was our starting center at the beginning of the year. He was hurt the first couple of games, but Woody didn't hesitate to put him in as the starter @ center once he got healthy.

He just flat out let an undersized rookie take his starting center job. Simple as that.

No doghouses.

No conspiracy theories.

No nothing.

This is all on Zaza folks.

When you shoot sub 40% as a center, you DO NOT DESERVE the benefit of the doubt when your coach benches you for lackluster play.

[gsuteke]

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Any single event like this one can be dismissed as not being his fault. But look at the patterns. It's not his fault the players are unhappy. It's not his fault we lose all the time. It's not his fault the players don't rotate on D. It's not his fault Smith shoots 3s. It's not his fault that Joe isn't motivated. It's not his fault that our offense looks like crap. It's not his fault we haven't been running despite having the best bunch of athletes in the league for a couple of years. It's not his fault Law's swagger has been crippled. It's not his fault we have no clue how to adjust when our opponents play zone.

What is he responsible for?

The pattern here is a team that underachieves, that has started to get tired of him.

Yes we were within inches of winning a couple of games. We were withing a couple of coaching decisions of winning them too. The bottom line is we lost them. When Smith comes up with the ball late in the Portland game and Woody calls timeout as Smith is starting a fastbreak to Childress, it possibly cost us the game.

Ok we've won a whole 3 more games than last year at the same point in time, whoopee! This team is underachieving and held back by its coaching. Every little thing may not be his fault, but he is one of the core problems.

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[TheNorthCydeRises]

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Any single event like this one can be dismissed as not being his fault. But look at the patterns.

It's not his fault the players are unhappy.

nope . . not Woody's fault

It's not his fault we lose all the time.

we don't lose all the time . . but yeah, the coach has to take the blame

It's not his fault the players don't rotate on D.

nope . . not his fault.

It's not his fault Smith shoots 3s.

nope . . not his fault, because Smoove knows that Woody and can't afford to bench him for bad shots

It's not his fault that Joe isn't motivated.

LOL @ JJ isn't motivated. JJ plays his azz off just about every game. He just isn't a rah-rah type of player

It's not his fault that our offense looks like crap.

yeah . . that's his fault

It's not his fault we haven't been running despite having the best bunch of athletes in the league for a couple of years.

How many running teams run with their wings leading fast breaks? Woody gets 1/2 blame though, because we might coul run with Law at the point AND if our Forwards would give the ball to Law after rebounds, so that HE can make the deciisions on the break.

It's not his fault Law's swagger has been crippled.

Law has to play consistently better. 1/2 fault again though, because he probably should give Law heavy minutes regardless.

It's not his fault we have no clue how to adjust when our opponents play zone.

Not his fault . . you need shooters to bust a zone. We lack shooters.

What is he responsible for?

The pattern here is a team that underachieves, that has started to get tired of him.

Only Zaza, Shelden, Salim, and sometimes Lue, are underachieving. Evrybody else is either playing at, or above the level where they should be playing.

Yes we were within inches of winning a couple of games. We were withing a couple of coaching decisions of winning them too. The bottom line is we lost them. When Smith comes up with the ball late in the Portland game and Woody calls timeout as Smith is starting a fastbreak to Childress, it possibly cost us the game.

I think we were down 2 at the time. After the timeout, Marvin draws a foul and he knocks down 2 foul shots to tie the game. The timeout, while ill-advised and panic-stricken, didn't cost us.

Ok we've won a whole 3 more games than last year at the same point in time, whoopee! This team is underachieving and held back by its coaching. Every little thing may not be his fault, but he is one of the core problems.

The fan base consistently says we need to trade for a starting post player or a PG. That's our core problem. Question . . if Woody had either the starting PG or the Post player, would we be better, the same, or would we still lose? Wait, I already know the answer.

So by my calculations of what you listed, Woody is responsible for about 32% of our woes.

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