West is an embarrassment to the franchise? Because I guess Speedy represents what the Hawks are all about right? Or maybe Woodson’s flawless coaching is more your cup of franchise tea? Our ownership group must really set the bar on how to run a successful NBA franchise then in your eyes.

I think your anger is largely misplaced. In your post at Hoopinion you rightly state that he has little to no offensive capacity, but you also attribute issues about his performance last night that he has no control over as negatives. Who he gets substituted in for is a coaching issue. The position he is assigned to play is a coaching issue. How long he stays in is a coaching issue. Even now you are stating that it was Woody’s decision for him to play that position for that long, yet West is the one you claim to be the embarrassment. And if you don’t fault him for being all that he can be within his limitations or remove himself from the roster, then why post your first comment at all? Was it a simple fit of rage or act of frustration? If so, then that action alone puts you in the same embarrassing category as Josh Smith’s nightly antics with the refs and his flagrant-2 ejection from the other night. In that vein, wouldn’t Josh Smith be a more embarrassing player to have representing our franchise than West?

And your statement about his minutes as a senior at GT is weak at best as he was not a starter, but yet was the number one bench player in % of minutes played at 46, barely under your 50 line in the sand, which is meaningless in and of its self. I’m sure I could find plenty of starters who played more than 50% of their teams’ minutes and yet contribute almost nothing offensively as well as find plenty who average 25% of the teams’ minutes and contribute greatly. If he had say less than 10%, I would see your point, but coming off the bench and averaging a scratch under the starters in minutes does not mean that he is not valuable to the team.

The other problem I have with that argument is that you are, in principle, saying that you believe minutes played is a determining factor in offensive ability and that minutes played in college equates to NBA skill. I’ve been following you for a few years now Bret and I have to say this is not common for you. Top college players do not always transition well to the NBA game and sometimes it’s the guys you don’t hear about in college that end up doing well in the pros.
 
Every team will have these kinds of guys on the roster. You can call them glue-guys or role players, or whatever, but they all have someone like West, a player they can call in at any point in the game and know he’s going to bring an intense amount of energy to help pump the team up. Sometimes that player only has one good skill set, maybe he’s a lock-down defender. Think about that article you linked a while back regarding Shane Battier, Houston surely doesn’t play him for his offensive might. In fact you might want to go read that article again.

Basically, my point to you is that having West on the Hawks roster is not a detriment to the team as you seem to think and he is the furthest thing from an embarrassment to this franchise. If his lack of offensive ability is the only thing you can muster as a trait for being such an embarrassment, then what about Speedy Claxton or Solomon Jones. If you are mad at Woody, then be mad at Woody, no one will argue with that. West is a great person who does great things in the community and is living the American dream by doing what he loves to do without ever having any form of handout like so many others in this sport.

Nothing personal. Keep up the good work over at Hoopinion, but do you think you can add a Name/URL identity option so people without OpenID and Google/Blogger can comment, or was that the intent?

i am all for questioning Woodson’s fitness as a coach.