Proof that Woodson sucks (not been mentioned)

[BHayley]

We add Al Horford and Acie Law, keep the same players, and we have 2 more wins now than we did this time last year?

WTF?

With all those injuries last year to Marvin, Chillz, Smoove (missed 5 games), T.Lue, and like 8 other players.

This year , we missed Chillz for a few, Lue for a few, ZaZa (doesn't even count), and we can't do any better?

On a brighter note, that article about Horford on the AJC Hawks site really brought a smile to my face. This guy is a true class act, is a warrior, has no ego at all, and I hope we keep him for many years to come.

[NJHAWK]

WOW only 2 more wins than last year. Well we did have Speeeeeedy last year, lol. Thats pretty sad since we are almost fully healthy and have added Horford and Law. I think it is time to let Woody go. This even convinces me that its time for him to go. The funny thing is I can see ASG saying "well see we have improved", lmfao.

[AHF]

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WOW only 2 more wins than last year. Well we did have Speeeeeedy last year, lol. Thats pretty sad since we are almost fully healthy and have added Horford and Law. I think it is time to let Woody go. This even convinces me that its time for him to go. The funny thing is I can see ASG saying "well see we have improved", lmfao.

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This might be the first time there is 100% agreement on letting Woodson go.

[Duff_Man]

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WOW only 2 more wins than last year. Well we did have Speeeeeedy last year, lol. Thats pretty sad since we are almost fully healthy and have added Horford and Law. I think it is time to let Woody go. This even convinces me that its time for him to go. The funny thing is I can see ASG saying "well see we have improved", lmfao.

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This might be the first time there is 100% agreement on letting Woodson go.

Even I am jumping on board. It's time.

[Nicholasp27]

if he had simply:

played law more and lue less

given shelden a consistent 15mpg

subbed any player being lazy out for mario west for 5 minutes

then we would have another 5-10 wins right now

law minutes -> better offense and defense

shelden minutes -> a consistent backup big; jumping from shelden to zaza to lo every other game isn't good for any of them

mario minutes -> keep players playing hard all 48mins of the game; if u get subbed out for west, u know u were being lazy and u will play harder when back in, and everyone on court will know they need to pick up the energy

[swolehawk2]

That's sad, because he should have been gone two years ago.

[Dexmethylphenidate]

Just keep Lue and Zaza off the court and they'll have at least 4 more wins right now.

[coachx]

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Just keep Lue and Zaza off the court and they'll have at least 4 more wins right now.

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I agree. We may need ZaZa 5 minutes a night when guys are in foul trouble and we may need Lue 10 minutes a night to beat a zone defense but playing either 20 minutes is ridiculous.

[DrReality]

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if he had simply:

played law more and lue less

given shelden a consistent 15mpg

subbed any player being lazy out for mario west for 5 minutes

then we would have another 5-10 wins right now

law minutes -> better offense and defense

shelden minutes -> a consistent backup big; jumping from shelden to zaza to lo every other game isn't good for any of them

mario minutes -> keep players playing hard all 48mins of the game; if u get subbed out for west, u know u were being lazy and u will play harder when back in, and everyone on court will know they need to pick up the energy

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All of those things would be a good step in the right direction, but I think his presesnce on the sideline and in the huddle don't inspire confidence. And his answers to the press reflect he's over his head or just a dolt? Anxiously waiting to hear: The Hawks have announced a press conference . . . . . .

[Admin]

Woodson has been asked to captain a cruise liner with an anchor and a rudder from a tiny boat and people seem to be surprised that we aren't going anywhere. Probably the 2 most important positions for a team to fill with quality players are center and point guard and here we are more than 3 years into his term and he has a group of backup PGs and a rookie running the team and a rookie PF anchoring it at C. How in the world he is expected to consistently get wins with such a poorly constructed team is beyond me. Woody may very well get fired and everybody here screaming for his head will be jumping all over firing the next guy because he can't win with this lineup either. I hope that I am very wrong in that estimation if Woody is fired and I will be the first to say I was wrong if I am proven wrong but I think you all are going to realize that Woody is the least of the problems with this team as constructed today.

[DJ_Money]

It's not the things that Woody can't control that has people calling for his head. We know that he's had to deal with an unbalanced roster.

But his substitution patterns, his inability to make in-game adjustments, his "doghouse", his complete lack of understanding of offensive basketball, his repeated run-ins with players, etc...that's on him. After four years of lackluster performances by his teams, it's time to go in another direction.

There's 0% chance that we could hire another coach from outside the organization right now. If Woody goes, Larry Drew becomes our head coach. I'm fine with that. I think that could inspire a few guys. I know there's a few guys on this team (Marvin in particular) that seem to have a better relationship with Drew than with Woody. If that change can inspire them enough to put together even a modest winning streak, that could put us back into the playoffs for good.

The status quo is simply not acceptable anymore.

[Admin]

Fair enough, but let me ask you this. If you're job was on the line and you knew that you could only count on certain members of your team to do the job even remotely correct, would you continue to spend time and probably throw away your job trying to get the underachievers to do their job correctly? I don't think there are many people who would sacrifice their own job to squeeze performance out of underachievers and the worst part is that your boss is the only one that can replace those people and he can't or won't do it.

I strongly disagree about his lack of understanding offensive basketball because we have seen that our offense can score points on anyone when they are playing the way that they are coached to play and that's with a guy like AJ running the team. I can only imagine what it might be like to have an actual capable PG running the team AND a semi-capable backup (where I think AJ would shine). I believe Acie will get there in the next couple of years but Woody will be long gone by then.

Outside of Josh Smith blowing up a few times who else had Woody had a run in with?

Last point I want to make is to remember when you all were calling for Lenny's job and how we would be so much better without him because he was holding us back, etc, etc. Remember how that turned out? The grass always seems greener on the other side with Hawks fans and ever since Fratello was fired we have gotten progressively worse as a team and the head coach always takes the fall and people cheer for that and then the next guy comes in and fails and his head is called for. The same will happen again because until the roster is fixed and the players have the ability to play for the same coach for more than a couple of years we won't be successful.

[DJ_Money]

I wouldn't call on Woody to give more minutes to guys like Law and Mario if they were inferior players. Those guys can do more for us than Lue can. In my opinion, they give us a better chance to win right now.

Woody has had issues with Smoove, Salim, Zaza, and even the mild-mannered AJ earlier this year.

As for your last point, you're correct. But we've had incompetent GMs and/or Owners making the call on coaching hires for the last 10+ years. There's no way in hell I want BK choosing our next HC. If Woody goes, he needs to go too. Then we've got the issue of having the ASG choosing new leaders for the franchise...obviously, our problems run deeper than one man.

[Admin]

I don't think that Law and Mario are inferior players to Lue, but Lue has had a history of playing well when healthy and he makes almost 4million per year plus we might be trying to move him in a trade so I can definitely see why he has gotten playing time since he came back.

I would absolutely like to see Law and Mario get steady solid playing time from here on out though.

I agree with you on BK screwing things up and I still maintain my position that if he doesn't make a move to fix this team by the deadline then he has to be fired and you bring in a new GM to fix the roster and let him determine if Woody should stay. No way should Woody be fired before a new GM is brought in.

[AHF]

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Last point I want to make is to remember when you all were calling for Lenny's job and how we would be so much better without him because he was holding us back, etc, etc. Remember how that turned out?

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I also remember people thinking he didn't develop young talent and Atlanta firing him because they were rebuilding around Jason Terry and a younger core and the thought was that he would be a bad fit for that environment.

I then remember him taking a 45 win Raptors team and a few years later getting fired after going 24-58 with them.

That decision does not haunt me. Nor does the fact that Atlanta made terrible coaching hires since then make Lenny a better fit for a rebuilding team at that stage in his career. It just makes the decision to hire Kruger, etc. really bad.

However, I can agree that you can always do worse than Lenny Wilkens - like hiring Stotts, Kruger, etc. The fact that Woodson ranks below Stotts and Kruger on the Hawks w-l% ranking of coaches doesn't inspire the same kind of respect that Lenny's performance over the years did, either.

I am curious if you think there is any way to distinguish between the job Sidney Lowe did for BK for the Grizzlies and the job Woodson has done for BK in Atlanta? If not, do you believe Lowe should have retained his job since he was handed a young and inexperienced club?

[Admin]

I can't speak for the Lowe situation because I don't follow the Grizzlies, but I do believe that if a team that starts out as a group of barely not teenagers and a few awful vets and a rookie head coach and they improve every year the coach should get the opportunity to stay with the team. If I remember correctly, Woody was given the youngest team in league history to turn the Hawks around with and we have gotten better every year, going from a doormat that everybody beat to a team that has shown when we play like we are capable of this year that we can beat anybody. I just don't think it's fair to show Woody the door after all the hard work he has done without giving him a complete roster because that's essentially setting him up for failure. Hell even the great Pat Riley can't win in Miami with the roster of scrubs he has. I honestly don't believe that we could bring in another coach who could make us so much better that it would be worth starting over with a new system UNLESS the owners/management are committed to finishing the roster with a PG and C and if that's the case then why not give Woody the chance to coach that group. He has earned that right.

[AHF]

Obviously short of the team actually losing more games than the previous year there is not much Woodson can do to earn a pink slip in your eyes. I would say that a bear riding a tricycle could coach a team to 13 wins and then add elite draft pick after elite draft pick and improve little by little every year - unless they actually made a significant jump in performance (which would set the bar higher than winning 14 games, winning 27 games, winning 31 games...).

This team has JJ, Horford, Josh Smith, Marvin, and Childress as a core. They have some other talent/role players that can chip in within a good system. The team is 21-28 - seven games under .500. They are likely to drop that record further with an upcoming road trip.

A LOT of coaches have done far more with less talent. There is no way in this Eastern Conference that this team should not be in the playoffs.

[Admin]

I don't disagree that we could be better and no I wouldn't say that simply improving each year is enough, but given the fact that we have 9 million forwards and 3.5 years in have just now acquired a competent PG and still don't have a C I strongly disagree that another coach would do much better with this group.

I also disagree with the notion that we have added elite draft pick after elite draft pick as well. While we have certainly had elite draft pick positions BK has failed to make the right pick and add an elite player more often than not and while the players have been productive they have also been rookies and young rookies at that. JJ was screaming before the season about us not being good enough unless we add another capable veteran to the team and he was right. He didn't say that Woody couldn't coach or that we couldn't win with him as coach, he said we lacked the players to be successful so why is that not taken into consideration concerning Woody's job? You don't hear any of the players saying that we need better coaching, they say that we need roster changes but nobody here seems to believe that.

It really will not matter who the coach is with this roster as constructed because we will not consistently win until changes to the roster are made.

[AHF]

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You don't hear any of the players saying that we need better coaching

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I heard that clear as day from Chills comments two days ago about needing a change in the locker room and talking about how the play with the Hawks had stagnated. It could not have been clearer to me that he was calling out Woody unless he used his name.

I understand the issue with the young players but that doesn't cut it for me anymore. Chills and Josh are vets - in the 4th year of their NBA careers. Marvin is 3 years in and has developed to the point where his youth may be holding back his star potential but not where he isn't a solid starter on both ends of the court. Horford might as well be a vet - the Hawks would gratefully have taken his performance from a 10 year vet. JJ is obviously a vet in the prime of his career. All the core players are past the stage where they can't win because they are just too young, IMO. The only exception is Law and we have gotten subpar but competent play from AJ this year. The expectation for this team should be no lower than just under .500, yet we are barely better than last season with no injuries and a huge talent upgrade with the addition of Horford.

Youth is no longer a valid excuse for this level of performance to me. They are too young to contend for the East for sure, but with the craporama in the East they should be solidly in the playoff projections - not 7 games under .500 and looking at Philly ahead of us in the standings. As a means of comparison, Philly doesn't have nearly the talent this team does. Portland is younger than this team. Portland is better balanced but we aren't even close to them in the standings and there is just no excuse for Philly passing us in the playoff chase. It shouldn't be close.

[Admin]

I took away from Chillz comments that we need changes in personnel more than coaching. Stagnant doesn't mean coaching issues, at least not exclusively. It sounded to me like he was getting in JJ's corner and publicly asking the team to make a move before the deadline.

Philly has an excellent PG and a true C and those are the 2 most important positions to fill. We have loads of talented players but other than JJ you have Marvin, Smoove, Al, and Childress as natural forwards and yet we force them to play PG, SG, C, etc and expect them to succeed consistently in those roles and it's simply not fair. Yes they can play those positions from time to time but not on a consistent basis.

Portland is loaded with talent and has a very balanced roster. They are 2 deep at almost every position.

Show me a team in the league with a roster as flawed as the Hawks that wins on a consistent basis.