124 replies to this topic

[TheTrueSiete]

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w...t...f...
I'd rather have avery or flip

it's a 2 way street

Exactly... 1 way (Woody) leads to inconsistency and mediocrity, and the other way is uncharted because we will never know what it's like to have a winning coach with these bumbling morons upstairs!

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[prolikewhoa]

Sund!!! You n00b!!!! Listen to the fans!! We've suffered through this crap!!! Hire anyone!!! Right now I'd be happy with Alan Henderson as head coach! How about Isiah Rider?

[TheTrueSiete]

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WTF? ridiculous.....i don't care what we did in the playoffs...noone can tell me that Mike Woodson is a better coach than Avery Johnson or Flip Saunders...which tells me they dont care about getting the best possible coach or maximizing their potential..

It's mind boggling that people on this board  consider Avery Johnson as an upgrade.  He's a horrible coach who made bad move after bad move last year, his players didn't like him and he got schooled big time by Pat Riley in the finals.  He's a product of the media which should be very obvious...how many interviews did he rack up  this year?

As for Flip Saunders - who couldn't win with Detroit's team.  Dumars didn't let him go for a reason.

Here we go again with this nonsense!  Honestly, man if you don't consider Avery or Flip an upgrade over Woody, I feel extremely sorry for you.... You need to watch more Hawk games!

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[sultanofatl]

Honestly, as a Hawks fan I'm realistic.  If I was a good coach would I come here?  No.  If I'm Flip or Avery coming from the rosters they just oversaw, I'm looking at the Hawks with no pick this year and thinking, I can't do better than what I just did with this roster.  And what I just did got me fired.   I'd wait until maybe Portland is looking for a coach or Orlando etc.   I'm not risking my career on this team with this ownership.  If I'm an up and coming assistant I pass on this job.  That leaves us with a mediocre retread or an unknown 1st timer.   In that scenario I'm okay with giving the Devil I know a little more time.

[oiatlhawksfan]

This is not good, back to go "WTF are you doing Woody"!?!?

[Johann]

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Keep the faith!

ROFL /forums/images/graemlins/clapclap.gif

No kidding... You know Woody is going to sign it...

Haha yeah he'll sign it.  But I wasn't making fun in any way of what Cowa said - I was applauding the post, which I think is really funny

[Traceman]

I figured they would offer him a two year extension at a number they can buy out if he doesn't get it done.  I suspect he will get a small raise from his salary last year.  IF they were going to bring him back, it only made sense to do so if they gave him more than one year.  Putting him in "lame duck" status would not have been fair to him or the players.  

Like I said before, I'm pretty neutral on bringing Woody back.  Time will tell if this is the right move.  If the players want him back, it very well COULD be.  I think players make MUCH more of a difference than coaches at the NBA level anyway.  Coaches can have all the basketball knowledge in the world but if the players tune them out (Brown, Riley, Skiles, Carlisle, etc), it won't matter.  That said, if the players DON'T want him back, it won't take long to see it.  Things will likely go down hill pretty quick.  

If Woody accepts this offer (he still might not if he wants more years) and Sund can get the Joshes resigned without giving up any of our core, I will still be VERY happy.

[AHF]

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Obviously this raises issues.

Did Sund really make the decision or is the ASG pulling the strings?

If Sund did make this decision on his own then that raises questions about his judgement considering how many coaches were available. I certainly didn't hear of any other coaches being interviewed.

Agreed.  And ugh.  I have zero hope that Woodson will reject this.  I can't imagine another team giving him a head coaching job.

I hate reading something that almost makes me regret that the Hawks had an exciting playoff series with the Celtics instead of another year missing the playoffs.

[oiatlhawksfan]

When you think about it, Mike Woodson is the person who knows his players the best, not the Billy is gone.

[sturt]

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He has had one of the worst records coaching and still has a job?  Idiots!

It's this kind of shallow logic that really makes me shake my head in disbelief.

OF COURSE a coach is going to have one of the worst records coaching when he signs on with a team at the launch of a total re-build.

Bill Fitch labored in futility for years with a young Cavaliers franchise that couldn't seem to get out of the league basement. Next thing you know, he gets hired by Red Auerbach, and the man becomes a coaching genius.

There are plenty of things to criticize Woody for, but this isn't one of them.  Where coaching is concerned, numbers tell us nothing by themselves.

Same is true of GIVING Woody CREDIT for increasing the win total from year to year.

It's a re-build, so showing a trend toward winning isn't enough to be meaningful.

Evaluating Woody is more about coaching philosophy and player development. Those are grayer areas because, with such a young team, part of their improvement can be explained as the natural physical and mental advancement of young players... how much is that and how much is the coach is a subjective task.

To decide whether or not to keep Woody, Sund needed to dig a little more than the average Hawksquawk Joe.

Did he do that? And even if he did, is his judgment sound?

The best you or I can say is "I don't know. But given his longevity and the respect he has around the league, one should be able to hope that they can give him a benefit of a doubt."

It's always energizing to see a coaching change.

But having said that, personally, I don't think there was one right or one wrong decision here... for all of the advocacy of Avery Johnson and Flip Saunders, the measure of coaching is much more than simply W/L records. Those guys had a playoff-proven roster to work with, but in the end didn't satisfy their employers that they were making the end-product better by their work... not saying that hiring one of them wouldn't have had its merits, but just that there's no slam-dunk-obvious decision to make here given the pool of candidates.

[exodus]

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To decide whether or not to keep Woody, Sund needed to dig a little more than the average Hawksquawk Joe.

Part of that digging should have included interviewing other coaches to see who the best candidate was. we heard all about all the guys coming in to interview for the GM position but nothing about any coaching candidates coming in for interviews.

Any average Hawksquawk Joe can tell you that it is hard to pick the best candidate when only one candidate gets interviewed.

[AHF]

Actually, for my view of Sund I wish that the ASG had already put the offer on the table to Woodson before he came on board.  I question his judgment if he had total authority and thought Woodson was the best candidate of anyone without interviewing a single candidate (good point Ex), and I don't like it much better if this was forced on his by ownership.  

It certainly puts a bad taste in my mouth for the beginning of Sund's era in Atlanta even though it is not a surprise at all.  I hope he brings someone in to be a strong assistant coach specializing in offense if Woodson is returning as head coach.

(I agree with whoever said that you had to offer Woodson at least 2 years if you made any offer to him.   There is no point in making an offer unless you think he will succeed and giving a 1 year deal limits his ability to succeed.)

[sturt]

Preface: While I appreciate that my posts are so salient that ex feels that they need his commentary and broad disparagement, I don't make it my habit to respond to him ordinarily just out of the tedious nature of any dialogue with the young man. But, given the news of the day, I will make an exception.

Any average Hawksquawk Joe, and for that matter any one of less-than-average intelligence can tell you that one conducts interviews when one doesn't have enough information on the person's previous job performance from which to make a judgment.

That is, hiring an NBA coach isn't like hiring for the vacancy in the cubicle beside you. To be employed as a coach in the NBA is to be employed in one of the world's very small fishbowls. Evaluating how a person has performed in their previous opportunities and how they might make sense in the vacancy here isn't about resumes and interviews nearly so much as it is about straight-up observation and talking with their previous supervisors.

Seems to be pretty clear, then... Sund saw some promise in keeping Woody compared with experimenting with the alternatives, even though he hopefully also recognized some of Woody's growing pains.

Many here disagree with that. But the ones who disagree yet recognize their deficit in trying to evaluate as Sund had the resources to evaluate are the ones who merit respect for their disagreement... not the Eeyores with an authority-lust.

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EDIT: In hindsight...

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...we heard all about all the guys coming in to interview for the GM position but...

Oh really?

Want to explain that assertion before I go back and dig up all of the complaining about how little information anyone was giving out... not to mention the complete non-mention of Rick Sund until practically the day his hiring was announced?

So....

If you were making an attempt at an honest, forthright discussion, you would have acknowledged that you actually HAVE NO CLUE whether Sund seriously spoke with anyone else about the job.

That's... if you were so inclined, which is self-evidently not the case.

[TheTrueSiete]

The only questions are DID THE ATLANTA HAWKS UNDERACHIEVE LAST YEAR? and COULD A DIFFERENT COACH HAVE COACHED THIS TEAM TO A BETTER SEED IN THE NBA PLAYOFFS?

Shake your head all you want, but I have read enough of your posts to realize that you are all FOR whatever the ASG decides!


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[LawDog]

Dear Hawks fans,
We can't believe you're bashing this extension? Woodson has improved his win total every year! If he improves it by 5 games each of the next two season then you're in the high 40's!! At that rate he'll eventually have an undefeated season!!! It's a great thing that, with all the talent the Hawks return, that they're going to keep this coach. He'll be sure that they're utilized in the best manner possible and we truly fear playing your team while Coach Woody is the coach. We look forward to more 3's from Smoove, and more 3v1 plays from Joe Johnson as your base offense. One other thing to consider is that your players will almost NEVER foul out. How can you not appreciate a coach who plans ahead? Enjoy your rise to glory.

                                        Sincerely,
                                        Every other Eastern Conference team(Chicago signed reluctantly)