Pre-Season Poll #2: The Hot Seat

by Hoopinion on Oct 22, 2008 3:30 PM EDT

The second in a series of pre-season polls to be offered here between now and the start of the season. If you so desire, please claim and/or expand upon your vote in the comments then come back to vote in tomorrow's poll. If you haven't already, yesterday's poll (Victories) will be open until approximately 7pm on October 29th.

A brief note regarding the choices below:

0-22: Of the Hawks' first 22 games, 8 are at home and 14 are on the road.
23-30: The Hawks follow that opening stretch with an 8-game, 16-day homestand.
31-52: Games 31 through 52 will take the team from the conclusion of that homestand through the All-Star Break.
53-81: All the games, save one, following the All-Star Break.
82: Celebrating five full years of Mike Woodson-coached basketball!

Poll

For how many games will Mike Woodson serve as the head coach of the Atlanta Hawks during the 2008-09 season?

0-22

2 votes

23-30

3 votes

31-52

5 votes

53-81

1 votes

82

11 votes

22 votes | Poll has closed

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Comments

My heart tells me around the all-star break, but my head tells me the team already resigned this clown so why would they bother firing him?

by BVaz on Oct 22, 2008 4:01 PM EDT reply actions

I took the middle option

I can’t believe they’d give him four years and a second contract only to can him a third of the way into the season. I also can’t believe Woodson can get this team back in the playoffs. So, I’ll predict he gets fired after the long homestand but before the All-Star Break ends and that his firing will coincide with a trade of Mike Bibby.

by Hoopinion on Oct 22, 2008 4:41 PM EDT reply actions

I don't know

I don’t know too much about the coaching situation but from reading the posts on here about the upcoming season it seems like the coach struggles with both the strategy of the game and with relating to his players. It’s apparent that this team has too much talent to be happy with a sub .500 record. My main question is this: If it is thought that coach Woodson has underachieved with this club, why did he receive the extension? Was it the good feelings after the playoff appearance last year? Something else I am missing? Again, I am a Trail Blazer fan just trying to learn more about the Hawks, so forgive me if there are obvious answers to these questions.

by HeffBlazer on Oct 23, 2008 5:29 AM EDT reply actions

Woodson's not the only

person in the organization who appears thoroughly satisfied with winning 37 games and getting blown out 4 times by the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs. In his case, that’s understandable on one level as it was enough to get him a second contract to coach the Hawks. I just wish he wouldn’t talk about it as a successful year so much. It’s discouraging.

It should also be said that Woodson was not responsible for Billy Knight’s player personnel mistakes. Still, there was enough talent on hand last year to win at least 41 games, in my opinion, had the head coach recognized that Josh Childress should have played more than Marvin Williams, Al Horford could commit 6 fouls before being disqualified, Josh Smith should never be allowed, much less encouraged, to shoot a jump shot, and the team was best-suited to an up-tempo offense.

Re-signing Woodson is just a manifestation of the overriding problem: ownership. They’re cheap and they lack ambition and I’m skeptical that either of those faults will disappear when one faction wins complete control of the team.

by Hoopinion on Oct 23, 2008 11:08 AM EDT up reply actions

you know i don't like woodson

but continually describing the boston series as “four blow out losses” is a revisionist look at the series for the sake of hating on woodson. That series, with its fans, the players ability to finish games against the nba championships, the playoff experience, the ability to push the series to seven games when it was suppose to be simply those four blowout losses speaks a lot to the sucess that woodson talks about.

by hawksdawgs on Oct 23, 2008 9:06 PM EDT up reply actions

you owe us

19 reasons to be excited about the upcoming season.

p.s. I’d be on board much more if Woodson referred to last season as “progress” which it indisputably was.

by Hoopinion on Oct 23, 2008 9:18 PM EDT up reply actions

I don’t know if it’s entirely revisionist history. It sure was exciting at the time, and of course we all had high hopes going into game 7 that the Hawks wouldn’t come out looking, well, exactly like they did. But the overall series reflected Boston’s domination, even if the Hawks did come out with a fire at home.

The four games that took place in Boston were so uncompetitive as to be barely watchable. I think game 5 was the only one that was remotely interesting, when the Hawks managed to close the deficit at the start of the third quarter, but still managed to lose by 25.

Game seven was so poor that the fact that the Hawks were in the playoffs for the first time in 10 years wasn’t enough to keep me watching through the end of three quarters. I didn’t know the final score until the following morning.

by Bronn on Oct 24, 2008 12:45 AM EDT reply actions