Just give me the W.
by dkrib on Mar 1, 2010 4:07 PM EST
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PrintFor the love of God what is it about Woody that everybody does not like. Fine! He does not run 'sophisticated" plays. Fine! He runs a lot of Isolation. He even gets a lot of criticism when the Hawks WIN!!. The Hawks lose to Golden State and all hell breaks lose. They go and beat Utah and no one gives him credit . Heck he is even being criticized for winning against Milwaukee . Yes, the Bucks that had just won 6 straight ROAD GAMES!!!
For all the criticism, here are somethings you cannot deny
1. He plays to WIN THE GAME: If all the Hawks players play hard every night they will be in EVERY GAME !! What more can a coach do.
2. He has exceeded everyones expectations...At the beginning of the season, Hawksdawgs put out a post on the season predictions.( Please go back and look at your prediction) I guarantee you, the Hawks are on par to exceed everyone's expectations. For the 3rd consecutive year , the Hawks have exceeded every analyst prediction yet the coach GETS NO CREDIT...AMAZING!!.
3. The Hawks are 1 loss away from being the second best team in the East ! They are even 1 loss away from being the 3rd best team in the NBA!! Heck Woody must be doing something right .. I struggle to see another coach having a better record with the same squad. Dallas, Denver, Boston,San Antonio, Utah, Orlando . All these teams are obviously better than the Hawks in terms of talent and experience level yet the Hawks are within striking distance or better than all of them.
4. Stats dont lie. Look at every stat, and the hawks are very impressive. Wins, Off efficiency ( currently 5th), what ever stat you look at, the Hawks are a very good team.
Please Woody ...Just keep giving me the W. Iso Joe, Switch all , however you do it, I dont care .JUST GIVE ME THE W!!!
Criticize Woody for all you want , you cannot deny that what the Hawks are doing this season is amazing. Playing with obvious deficiencies in the team especially at arguably the 2 most important positions( PG and Center) for the Hawks to be within 1 loss of being the 3rd best team in the league is damn right amazing and however you put it, some credit has to go to the coach.
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lol This post was funny but true to me
I understand he is obviously doing something right for them to not be 8th seed but sometimes you have to admit that you wonder about his intelligence and whether he knows what is working and isnt in a game regarding players and combinations. No doubt he is doing well but being the head of the team, just like jj, he is the first to be criticized whether they lose or win.
Criticize when they win???
i have no problem criticizing him when they lose. It is not giving him any credit when they win that bothers me.
We all know you are Mike Woodson. I just want to know how you are related to Mario West
Ok but for real.
I have made big strides to improve my relationship with Woodson this season. We have read books, gone to couples therapy, all of that. But he keeps cheating on me! He blew it during the Dallas game. BLEW IT.
And you are telling me he coaches to win? WHO COACHES FOR ANOTHER REASON? EVERY COACH IN THE NBA COACHES TO WIN!
rolling on the floor - that is funny
well i respect Woody for how much dignity he showed after that play with the street punk Kidd. i give credit to Woody for being hard on Smoove so that Smoove is now finally a superstar.
One can argue Hawks improvements, are a function of their maturity. No matter, ball don’t lie (darn i love that expression!!) and our record is better. If at end of season he has better record and does better in playoffs we retain him.
But how about letting Rookie mature? How about for once tell JJ don’t hold the ball with double teams? I want my coach to stop us from losing to teams we should not be losing to. Also remember, we have been healthy all year, which helps our record. Woody has not had to do much lineup changing. And yes, i agree with you, he is handicapped at the center position with lack of a big man off the bench or having lion play out of position. As for point guard, he needs to look at himself in the mirror to see why we are having issues. It is called rookie, develop him develop him woody….
Herm Edwards also played to win the game
And guess what he’s not doing these days? This is essentially what your argument has continually boiled down to.
"Big Ten can have this challenge. Duke loses, we all win..."
-Marcus Ginyard, G - UNC
Love it.
Couldn’t agree more. And for anyone comparing this years Hawks team with last year’s … it’s not close. The records may be similar, but the competition is better, and our chances of beating any of the teams in the East in a playoff series are legitimate … unlike last year.
In defense of last year...
good health makes a huge difference in the comparison. Let’s see how healthy we are in two months.
And we should be way ahead of last yr. considering Jamal>Flip, Josh + Al improvement, and staying healthy
by coachkcastellon on Mar 2, 2010 9:31 PM EST up reply actions
Orlando is obviously our kryptonite
But you clearly haven’t watched the Cavs/Hawks games if you think they dominate us in a similar way. They might beat us as often, but the refs also MIGHT have something to do with that.
I was at the one in Atlanta and when they lay the clamps down on D there is nothing we can do
Although I was encouraged by what I saw in Cleveland. We tend to blow late leads on the road (@Clev, @Chicago, @GS, etc.).
by coachkcastellon on Mar 6, 2010 4:23 PM EST up reply actions
Great Post by OP (original poster)
I agree 100% with the OP. It makes no sense, I think a lot of it goes back to the race issue that we discussed in a earlier post this year about why people dont come to the games. I read plenty of blogs and Doc Rivers is taking more heat than K.G.‘s seemingly broken down body for there fall this year. Jerry Sloan has been in the same place for a lifetime and has never won a championship and only good things are said about him, and he had 2 undoubtable HOF’ers to work with. I just don’t get it, I think I do, but it’s sad
Or maybe
the FO doesn’t want to make the same mistake the Cavs did of allowing their coach to benefit from a team’s natural success. These Hawks teams the last few years would have improved their record every year without Woody, for sure, just based on the age of the roster. Similarly, the Cavs were going to improve every year because Lebron was growing up. Mike Brown is a bad coach, Ferry is a terible GM, and they are the reason Lebron hasn’t won a championship.
Therefore, you don’t want to invest in a coach based on record alone and the fact that Woodson literally refuses to coach offense would definitely cause me to pause before giving him a long term deal. Plus, there have been numerous clashes between him and his players, which also causes concern.
But Cavs have a LeBron King
Who is without a doubt a great talent from day one. Hawks did not have a talent like that. Woody had a role in developing these players.
We have an excellent player from day one (JJ) and a bunch of players that had to grow. We have to give Woody the benefit of riding the yonug players to where they are now. I won’t defend this coach, but it is a difficult argument to get rid of him if the Hawks record is better and they are better than last year in the playoffs.
Yea,
A #2 pick “grew” thanks to Woody? I’d say Marvin Williams is about as bad as Marvin Williams could be based on his potential. #3 pick Al Horford? He literally doesn’t need a coach. Supremely gifted, still-raw-offensively Josh Smith? The guy whose ONLY problem was that he took bad jump shots and threes? The only way Woodson could get him to stop shooting was to let him shoot until he was publicly ridiculed to the point where he just had to stop shooting long jumpers completely to avoid embarrassment.
Thus, I was trying to compare the ease with which a coach could develop those players to where they are today with the ease of coaching a Lebron. Both could lead to inflated coaching resumes.
Well if Hawks were a company...
Woody may be similar to president of the company. Would you get rid of a president of a company that has increased revenure and profits every year? Even if the company has rich resources. That is a hard spot to be in. I see the same shortcomings as you, lack of offensive coaching, allowing JJ our best player to sometimes do too much one on one, and not drawing plays or utilizing the bench, but realistically, he has been a part of this team’s progrression. I would have to disagree with you on Smoove, Woody has been riding him hard, and Smoove indeed has had to progress. I am amazed at his transformation to be honest, how much of it is Woody, how much of it is self-maturation of Smoove, I dont know.
But let’s also remember Woody is a dignified man, keeps a good front for the hawks, is not afraid to take an arrow when needed for the team. Those are positives.
Personal opinion, these are who i go after if a coaching change is to occur, Doc Rivers and Avery Johnson. But again, in my opionon, it would be unfair to get rid of a coach that has improved the record every year. Let’s wait and see what happens for the rest of the season.
"Supremely gifted, still-raw-offensively Josh Smith? guy whose ONLY problem was that he took bad jump shots and threes?"
Yes Josh is gifted like few players, even in the NBA, are, or have been. That being said, He is not completly raw any longer. His attitude problems extended well beyond taking bad jump shots. He took plays off, particularly when frustrated. His very visable conflicts with Woody have not made news this season, at all. It has been well covered this year, the turn around that Josh has made, and it is awesome, I applaud it every game, to casually comment that it’s all due to shooting less jump shots is ridiculously over simplifying the point.
“I’d say Marvin Williams is about as bad as Marvin Williams could be based on his potential.”
I don’t know why so many people on this blog love to engage in Marvin bashing. Marvin is not going to any all star games, but His down side is not the bottom-of-the-barrel disaster that everyone makes it out to be either. His defense has been highlighted in many posts here in the past, so I’ll not dwell on it. He may not be scoring 20 points a game, but his FG% and FT% are as good as Joe Johnson’s. He is averaging 10 ppg, 5 rebs, and almost 1 stl and a blk, in less than 30 mins. People point to the top teams in the league as an example for what is needed in the SF position, but The Hawks are not built like those teams. Marvin’s biggest offensive downfall this season seems to be His exclusion from the playbook. I think with more inclusuion in the play scheme, and more minutes that He could easily average 15 ppg.
I know many will still say that this is poor perfomance for a number two pick, but how many number 1-2 picks have been bigger busts in the history of the NBA?
Exactly.
I’m not saying Marvin is bad, but he had sky is the limit potential, so, he’s as bad as he could have been. Therefore, Woodson deserves no credit for his development.
Also, I might be oversimplifying Smith’s development, but I really feel that its a result of changing his focus from offense to defense and dunking … his NATURAL strengths. If Woodson is teaching him how to block a shot, drive coast to coast, and dunk it over someone, then he truly is a better coach than I give him credit for.
True.
I’m not necessarily against giving Woody an extension, for the reasons you’ve stated. I was just trying to show that there are legitimate reasons that he hasn’t been given an extension.
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