Season of injuries frustrates Woodson (AJC)

[pimp]

Season of injuries frustrates Woodson

By SEKOU SMITH

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The only thing harder than finishing yet another season without a playoff berth — that's eight straight for the Hawks — is finishing it with so many questions unanswered.

The Hawks are 78 games deep into this season, and they still don't know for sure what this team looks like with all its pieces in order.

In Tuesday's win over Boston the Hawks played, as usual, without many of the players that were expected to fill out the starting lineup and playing rotation this season — Joe Johnson, Speedy Claxton, Josh Childress and Salim Stoudamire sat out with injuries, while Josh Smith sat out the first game of a two-game suspension.

In all, the players that comprise the Hawks' top 10 players have missed a combined 144 games this season to injury or suspension.

"We haven't had our nine-10 man rotation all year," said Hawks coach Mike Woodson, who gave his team Wednesday off. "It's really hard to judge this team right now from a coaching standpoint, and from an organizational standpoint in terms of where we really are as a team. That's frustrating because that's something you hope to have figured out by the time the trade deadline rolls around.

We weren't able to do it at that particular time, and here it is the end of the season and we still have injured bodies on the sideline. We have to get them back and healthy during the summer and get them ready to go next season."

Wizards also missing pieces

The Hawks won't be the only team without key players Friday night when the Washington Wizards show up at Philips Arena.

The Wizards will finish this season without both of its All-Stars. Gilbert Arenas (knee surgery) and Caron Butler (broken hand) were lost for the season with injuries. But that won't stop the Wizards from completing their season in the playoffs — despite losing five straight games heading into Wednesday night's game in Miami.

"They're a strong team," Hawks reserve guard Royal Ivey said. "Even with the loss of Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler they are in the playoffs. They'll be looking to come in here and get a win. So we're going to have an up-and-down game and a hard-fought game on our hands."

Shelden Williams steps up

All Hawks rookie Shelden Williams needed was a little more playing time to resume the productive ways he showed during the first two months of the season; when he started 27 games and ranked as the league's rookie leader in rebounds.

In five games this month, Williams is averaging 9.4 rebounds per game. He grabbed a season-high 16 rebounds in last week's win over Milwaukee and scored 14 points in Tuesday's win over Boston.

"Shelden [has been] one of several guys that we've had step up down the stretch," Woodson said of Williams, whose 23.3 minutes per game this month is his highest average of the season for any month. "That said, I think he can be even more active and more effective out there."

[vext]

Translation - "Please don't fire me!! I could have done so much more without the injuries. I swear it had nothing to do with my incompetence or the fact that I played players excessive amounts of minutes. Seriously, if you fire me, I'm screwed. It will be back to Junior High JV Girls basketball for me."

[Swatguy]

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Translation - "Please don't fire me!! I could have done so much more without the injuries. I swear it had nothing to do with my incompetence or the fact that I played players excessive amounts of minutes. Seriously, if you fire me, I'm screwed. It will be back to Junior High JV Girls basketball for me."

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It is a matter of fact, the Hawks had the Most injuries in the league. A coach can only coach his players. With as injured as this roster has been it is a wonder to win 20 games.

Woody has done as good a job as any.

[WraithSentinel]

Nothing but excuses from him. That is all it is.

[exodus]

The Hawks didn't have any real injury problems at center and that was still a huge weakness.

[Guest Walter]

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It is a matter of fact, the Hawks had the Most injuries in the league. A coach can only coach his players. With as injured as this roster has been it is a wonder to win 20 games. Woody has done as good a job as any.

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Woodson played JJ FOURTY SIX MINUTES after he was already injured and kicked in the calf. This led to a hematoma which his kept him out until now. Prior to this injury JJ had played 16 of 18 games over 40 minutes. How many of those were we really in? Unreal abuse.

JC was averaging 43 MPG in the span following JJ's injury. This despite him being 3 months returned from a STRESS fracture and having a 25 MPG average prior. You don't put THAT amount of STRESS on a healing STRESS fracture even if you're competing for a playoff position, much less the 3rd worst record.

Woodson injures his players in the name of job security and then blames injuries to his players for his job insecurity.

And you support him in his endeavor. YUCK!

W

[DavidSomerset]

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It is a matter of fact, the Hawks had the Most injuries in the league. A coach can only coach his players. With as injured as this roster has been it is a wonder to win 20 games. Woody has done as good a job as any.

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Woodson played JJ FOURTY SIX MINUTES after he was already injured and kicked in the calf. This led to a hematoma which his kept him out until now. Prior to this injury JJ had played 16 of 18 games over 40 minutes. How many of those were we really in? Unreal abuse.

JC was averaging 43 MPG in the span following JJ's injury. This despite him being 3 months returned from a STRESS fracture and having a 25 MPG average prior. You don't put THAT amount of STRESS on a healing STRESS fracture even if you're competing for a playoff position, much less the 3rd worst record.

Woodson injures his players in the name of job security and then blames injuries to his players for his job insecurity.

And you support him in his endeavor. YUCK!

W

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Why would a coach play his best player a ton of minutes to try and win a game...What an awful, awful philosophy..."trying to win" LOL...Why would a coach ever do that?

[frosgrim]

In defense of Walt, you don't play guys that many minutes. Childress has a history of stress fractures in his foot, yet he was being played over 40 minutes a night. Very few players can keep up with that sort of load over an entire season. JJ had also just come off of playing in the World Championships, so he had no down time in the off-season, playing him fewer minutes was called for. Heck even Woody said many times that he wanted to limit JJ's minutes then the next game JJ plays 45!?!

The fact is that Woodson does over play HIS players and doesn't allow the bench to come in and help. Why Woodson is considered a good coach for developing players is beyond me. The guy plays on the players he likes and severely limits the minutes of the ones he doesn't.

Second, for every development attributed to Woody (Smith and ???) there are players that have not developed under him as quickly (Marvin, Sheldon, Z, Salim, Este, Ivey). These were players brought in by the GM to be developed for the future of the team, instead, Woody plays Johnson and then an injury prone Childress to death. He actually does this with T. Lue as well.

Playing players 40+ minutes a night might win you that game, but it costs you games down the road, esp on back to back nights. The NBA season is incredibly long and minutes do have to monitored.

[Guest Walter]

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Why would a coach play his best player a ton of minutes to try and win a game...What an awful, awful philosophy..."trying to win" LOL...Why would a coach ever do that?

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...after you just came back from surgery. I'm assuming you're his "best worker" which makes this all sensible to you. Can you understand how that wouldn't suit you too well or his business well in the long run?

Garnett played 1 or 2 games over 40 minutes in that time frame. He's better than JJ. Maybe you can understand, maybe not, but it obviously injured these players. That you don't disagree with. Whatever his "motivations" were, and I don't believe them pure or without thought to his job security (just listen to his quotes) it was obviously a career if not life threatening (Compartment syndrome is deadly serious) mistake...of course not his career or his life.

W

[vext]

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Translation - "Please don't fire me!! I could have done so much more without the injuries. I swear it had nothing to do with my incompetence or the fact that I played players excessive amounts of minutes. Seriously, if you fire me, I'm screwed. It will be back to Junior High JV Girls basketball for me."

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It is a matter of fact, the Hawks had the Most injuries in the league. A coach can only coach his players. With as injured as this roster has been it is a wonder to win 20 games.

Woody has done as good a job as any.

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I completely agree that injuries screwed our team up this year and for most coaches I would let that slide. But I am basing my opinion of Woody on is coaching decisions in games. I think he is a crappy coach and should be fired. I am sure he would do fine at another level of the game and could one day do well in the NBA with more experience. But right now I think he is way out of his league trying to coach in the NBA. The fact is that Woody is learning on the job (according to Billy Knight) and that is just not acceptable at the professional level. College...fine. But not the NBA. So yes, I don't think Woody had a lot to work with this season, but I also think that he did a horrible job with what he was dealt.

[gsuteke]

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Why would a coach play his best player a ton of minutes to try and win a game...What an awful, awful philosophy..."trying to win" LOL...Why would a coach ever do that?

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...after you just came back from surgery. I'm assuming you're his "best worker" which makes this all sensible to you. Can you understand how that wouldn't suit you too well or his business well in the long run?

Garnett played 1 or 2 games over 40 minutes in that time frame. He's better than JJ. Maybe you can understand, maybe not, but it obviously injured these players. That you don't disagree with. Whatever his "motivations" were, and I don't believe them pure or without thought to his job security (just listen to his quotes) it was obviously a career if not life threatening (Compartment syndrome is deadly serious) mistake...of course not his career or his life.

W

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[vext]

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It is a matter of fact, the Hawks had the Most injuries in the league. A coach can only coach his players. With as injured as this roster has been it is a wonder to win 20 games. Woody has done as good a job as any.

---

Woodson played JJ FOURTY SIX MINUTES after he was already injured and kicked in the calf. This led to a hematoma which his kept him out until now. Prior to this injury JJ had played 16 of 18 games over 40 minutes. How many of those were we really in? Unreal abuse.

JC was averaging 43 MPG in the span following JJ's injury. This despite him being 3 months returned from a STRESS fracture and having a 25 MPG average prior. You don't put THAT amount of STRESS on a healing STRESS fracture even if you're competing for a playoff position, much less the 3rd worst record.

Woodson injures his players in the name of job security and then blames injuries to his players for his job insecurity.

And you support him in his endeavor. YUCK!

W

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Why would a coach play his best player a ton of minutes to try and win a game...What an awful, awful philosophy..."trying to win" LOL...Why would a coach ever do that?

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The coach may be trying to win a game when he plays his best player a ton of minutes, but in the end he is really losing a lot more games in the season when his best player becomes injured due to too many minutes. Even a less than average coach knows this.

[Guest Walter]

Gsuteke, let's say you are suffering from mono but continue to work your job in construction and your boss says "I need you to work 30% more hours and significantly harder for the next 4 weeks" (without more pay, of course). Let's say it's not really solely to earn the company more money but also to aid the boss personally as he is struggling to keep his job. Let's say the boss doesn't ask the same sacrifice of other, healthier employees. In fact, he keeps them out of work. How would you feel and do you think your compromised body could manage the stress/strain?

W

[gsuteke]

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Gsuteke, let's say you are suffering from mono but continue to work your job in construction and your boss says "I need you to work 30% more hours and significantly harder for the next 4 weeks" (without more pay, of course). Let's say it's not really solely to earn the company more money but also to aid the boss personally as he is struggling to keep his job. Let's say the boss doesn't ask the same sacrifice of other, healthier employees. In fact, he keeps them out of work. How would you feel and do you think your compromised body could manage the stress/strain?

W

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your game is old Walt. now you are trying to twist the post around.

your analogy was your boss asking you to work 100 hours a week. if you worked 7 days that week it would come out to over 14 hours a day. if you worked 5 days it would be 20 hours a day. that's unreasonable to compare to an NBA player's minutes during 3 games a week when he has been medically cleared by doctors. it's a wreckless attempt on your part to justify an opinion you have concocted.

it's a stupid analogy.

[Guest Walter]

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your analogy was your boss asking you to work 100 hours a week. if you worked 7 days that week it would come out to over 14 hours a day. if you worked 5 days it would be 20 hours a day. that's unreasonable to compare to an NBA player's minutes during 3 games a week when he has been medically cleared by doctors. it's a wreckless attempt on your part to justify an opinion you have concocted.

it's a stupid analogy.

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Medical Doctors "clear" you for a return to what you were already doing or are anticipated to do. They don't clear a former recreational jogger to become a ultra distance runner 3 months after a STRESS fracture. Never was JC averaging or anticipated to average >43 MPG. Not under any circumstances. Indeed, when he was asked to play more because of MW's wrist fx, that is when JC originally broke his foot.

Of course, you you won't address the analogy outside of the hyperbole. Wonder why.

W

[gsuteke]

it's a stupid analogy. period. you've been backed into a corner so now you have resorted to name calling. cute.

who should I trust, the doctors, training staff, and athletes themselves in particular on a professional sports team, or an internet message board bomb thrower?

[Packfill]

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Translation - "Please don't fire me!! I could have done so much more without the injuries. I swear it had nothing to do with my incompetence or the fact that I played players excessive amounts of minutes. Seriously, if you fire me, I'm screwed. It will be back to Junior High JV Girls basketball for me."

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It is a matter of fact, the Hawks had the Most injuries in the league. A coach can only coach his players. With as injured as this roster has been it is a wonder to win 20 games.

Woody has done as good a job as any.

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I don't agree that it is a matter of "fact." Look at teams like the Bucks, Hornets, Bobcats, Nets, etc., they have all had as many meaningful injuries as the Hawks.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

This is his tact for everything. He's the ultimate "spin doctor" on this board.

Facts are facts. Injuries killed our season, point blank.

One of the things that should see JJ play less time next year, is the fact that this team may be able to survive stretches of games without JJ on the floor. That wasn't the case for most of this season.

I remember as late as the Phoenix game back in February, that this team totally collasped without JJ in the game. Just take a look at the game log for the last 3 minutes of the 2nd quarter of that game.

Phoenix up 51 - 50 with 2:46 to go. After the mandatory break, Woody figures that he can rest JJ for the final 3 minutes of the quarter and go into halftime in good shape, seeing that we'd came back from 14 down at the start of the 2nd quarter, to get us back in the game.

Smoove has 3 fouls, so he's not in the game.

Hawks lineup at the 2:46 mark

G - Speedy

G - AJ

F - Chill

F - Marvin

F - Solomon

You figure that this group could at least score 4 - 6 points to close out the quarter. And this isn't a bad defensive group to have on the floor either. It's actually a pretty decent one, considering that Phoenix likes playing small.

Phoenix lineup

G - Nash

G - Bell

G/F - J. Jones ( or JJ3 as Phoenix fans affectionally call him )

F - Marion

F/C - Amare

LOL . . so what happens?

- Amare makes 1 FT

- Speedy misses a 18 foot jumper

- Amare makes 12 foot jumper

- AJ misses a 17 foot jumper

- Marion gets a dunk from a Nash assist

- Chill travels

- Marion gets ANOTHER dunk from a Nash assist

(( At this point, Woody is totally disgusted because he's seen a 1 point game immeadiately turn into an 8 point game . . in less than 90 seconds . . with JJ on the bench. So he angrily points at JJ and send him to the scorer's table ))

- Marvin misses a 20 foot jumper

- Nash makes a driving lay-up

FINALLY, we draw a foul to stop the clock, and get JJ back in the game with 23 seconds to go in the half.

JJ comes in the game and finds Marvin . . who hits an open jumper and was fouled on the play. He converts the 3-point play to cut the lead to 7 to go to the half.

JJ played 45 minutes that night. And the reason he plays so many minutes, is because this team acted like a chicken with its head cut off, everytime he came out of the game for most of the year.

His injury may have been a blessing in disguise for next season. I say that because now, a guy like Josh Smith should be able to shoulder the load offensively for 3 - 5 minute stretches in games, and let JJ rest.

It's not a coincidence that these guys lead the league in minutes:

1) Iverson ( 42.7 mpg )

2) JJ ( 41.4 )

3) Lebron ( 41.2 )

4) Kobe ( 40.8 )

5) Ray Allen ( 40.4 )

6) Iggy ( 40.3 )

7) Arenas ( 39.8 )

All of those teams have a tendency of totally collasping when these players are out of the game, even for short stretches. And these teams have very few games in which they're getting totally blown out, or are comfortably ahead. That's why they have to play a lot.

[Guest Walter]

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it's a stupid analogy. period. you've been backed into a corner so now you have resorted to name calling. cute.

who should I trust, the doctors, training staff, and athletes themselves in particular on a professional sports team, or an internet message board bomb thrower?

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...and a professional. I've been consulted by orthopaedists on a player's readiness. I've even consulted (paid and unpaid) with players in this very situation on the college and in similar situations on the professional level. The later an NFL starting running back treated "off the books" because the player didn't want it known he was injured by team staff during contract negotiations. I do know quite a bit about this.

I can tell you that the pressure to get a player back is immense, on everyone involved it seems, including the physician. That pressure leads to mistakes but more importantly NEVER is a player after a STRESS fracture "cleared" to undergo significantly MORE STRESS than the amunt of STRESS that originally caused the injury (certainly not this soon). It was a STRESS injury. It shouldn't be too hard for the average person to comprehend that MORE STRESS will significantly more likely cause the exact same or similar other reinjury.

It's you that is a message board bomb thrower on this account. You want to call hyperbole "stupid". That's on you cowboy. And frankly, I don't know what your "point" is. Is the coach not at all responsible for the health of his players? If not, who is? If so, wouldn't a responsible coach not play an already injured player who had played 40+ MPG in 16-18 games (many blow-out loses) 45 minutes? Wouldn't a responsible coach not increase a player's MPG frmo 25 to 43 AFTER a STRESS injury? It would seem they would. When they don't and it blows up, shouldn't it blow up in their face? It would seem it should.

Where exacly are you on this but against hyperbole? Do you have an opinion or are you going to keep bashing hyperbole? Nothing like the easy target of bashing intended hyperbole as not realistic. You're captain obvious! Good for you.

W

[Diesel]

For me, I don't think it's how long he has played players... Good coaches play players minutes and never get criticized.

My problem with Woody is that he doesn't know the talent he has or how to use it AND he holds grudges. Two things a coach should be able to do is exploit mismatches and use talent, Woody fails at both.